Winter holidays

The kids have two weeks off from school and we're all enjoying the winter holidays. After this it's school until the end of November and then they'll have a lot longer summer break. It's been surprisingly calm at home. I've tried to have something planned for them should they need an activity. We've done most of the things I had planned to do with them. Other than that they've played a lot outside enjoying their new swing that daddy made for them recently.

I added some new rhymes to the bag. It was painted by Luana when she was just over two years old and in nursery in Finland. The cards represent rhymes and songs and the kids get to pick them one at a time. We hadn't used the bag for a while and it was great fun; we went through the entire bag at one go! :)

Some sticker activities are always a hit. I just cut different coloured stickers into squares and let them go for it.

The kids washed their bikes with great care and attention. Playing with water is always popular due to the heat.

Yesterday they rode their bikes to visit grandma. Lucas still needs a lot of practice especially when the streets aren't paved (which is the case very often over here). He's not too good with brakes either so I have to be close by all the time...

I'm about to finish my motorbike and car driving lessons (the test is next Wednesday, yikes!) and I've got lessons every morning until then. It's been a little hectic because of the lessons but thankfully our niece who lives with us has been extremely helpful taking care of the kids, cleaning up and preparing lunch.

Outdoor hour # 28

This week we took a closer look at dragonflies. We have plenty of these flying around but again it was so hot that we didn't do a nature walk. Dragonfly was the last in my collection of dead insects and now we'll move on to study trees. As we observed the dragonfly I told them about how they are born, what they eat etc. Even the kids' cousin joined us in our study today.

The kids were most impressed by the beautiful wings and the huge eyes.

The picture on the top is Luana's and the other two are Lucas'. I did draw their attention to the shape of the dragonfly's body but it still didn't really come out in the drawings. Bless them :)

Edit. I'm beginning to think this is a damselfly instead of a dragonfly. I bet they have different names in Finnish too but we simply used the one people mainly use when talking about dragonflies/damselflies...

Apostle Paul's life

Recently we studied apostle Paul's life with the kids. First we sat outside and I told them about Paul's encounter with Jesus and how he was blind for three days. I blindfolded the kids and gave them different objects to identify. I then led them blindfolded to the library where we sat and took a look at the map of Paul's jorneys (now already without the blindfolds!). We drew some imaginary maps of our own and then I told them about Paul and Silas in the prison. We made pictures of the two in the prison with the stone walls coming down (Lucas' picture below).

The next day we talked about Paul's journey to Rome and before bath time I asked the kids to build a Lego boat with some passengers in it. Once in the shower we played the storm and the shipwreck and the kids wanted to do it over and over and over again :)

The following day we learned about Paul's letters and read some verses from the Bible. We then wrote letters to Finland (which I still haven't mailed...).

It was nice to do a study on three consecutive days as the kids remembered well what we had talked about the day before and it was easy to pick the story up from where we had left it. I had planned to do all of these activities on one Saturday but the kids' attention span just wasn't enough so I decided it was best to leave some of the activities for the next days. We might do this with some other Bible characters later on.

Outdoor Hour #26

Ladybugs were a fun theme that the kids liked a lot. We saw lots of ladybugs in Finland last summer but haven't really seen any over here. We looked at different kinds of ladybugs on the internet and inspired by the images the kids produced the ladybugs above.

We also talked about their life cycle as well as aphids in general. The kids were amused by the relationship of aphids and ants.

The ladybugs below are about 20 cm in diameter and we stuck them on the wall by the blackboard in our library/study room.

Outdoor Hour #27

I'm sooo behind in posting things and I just realised I'm posting in the wrong order... Ladybugs were supposed to be first and bees after them. But here goes...

We studied bees quite recently although we had made big cardboard bees with pipecleaner legs (first picture) already earlier. It's so hot outside at this time of the year that we don't really want to venture outside until much later in the evening. Hence our nature studies haven't involved a nature walk for a while. Instead we look at pictures on the internet, craft and talk about different insects.

We drew this beehive and the kids decorated it with small bees.

It opens up so that you can see what's inside. The kids practiced some hexagons, coloured some (honey) and again decorated with some bees that we glued on.

We also baked a honey cake and have been enjoying honey in general :)

Cute pegs

I got the idea for these cute pegs from this creative blog. I prepared these four and we made lots more with the kids at the orphanage where I volunteer (I do crafting with the kids once a week). The material is EVA and I used a black permanent marker for drawing the eyes, mouths etc.

The kids at the orphanage loved these and asked for more. Next week we'll decorate pens and I'll come up with something else from the same material for them.

Been busy

Last week and weekend were really hectic. We had our monthly birthday celebration in Sunday School and as I'm the only teacher in my group at the moment I was the one who had to bake the cake. The very same Sunday there was a baby shower at the orphanage. One of the girls is going to have a baby boy soon and it was also her birthday. I had volunteered to bake two cakes; one for her and one for the baby. Saturday and a good part of Sunday were then spent in the kitchen. You can take a look at the cakes in my foody blog over here.

We spent last week cleaning up the house and emptying our guest room. It had turned into my husband's little office full of computer parts and tools. We needed the room empty so that our niece could move in on Monday this week. Her parents moved to the countryside but she's in her final year of high school so it's best for her to stay here and finish off her studies instead of changing schools at this stage.

In addition to the cakes I also prepared little birthday gifts for Sunday school (first picture) as well as small baby shower favours for the orphanage (second picture).

This week has been a lot calmer although the kids have kept me busy as they're extremely excited over having their cousing living with us. We'll get back to Outdoor Hour challenges and other homeschooling stuff next week.