Russia

Last week we read the story Another Celebrated Dancing Bear, by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk. This is a fictional story about two brown bears living in Imperial Russia. One dances for the circus, and he teaches his friend to dance. At the end of the story there are two celebrated dancing bears.  We really enjoy this story and it was fun to learn about Imperial Russia.

Vocabulary words: Csar, embraced, jealous. Tristan's vocabulary words came from another story we are reading. They were: dolt, coterie, and minaret.
In Art appreciation, we enjoyed looking at another painting by Kazimir Malevich, White Houses with Landscape. We also enjoyed listening to Tchaikowsky. I forgot how much I enjoy Swan Lake. The children enjoyed making artwork inspired by the interesting architecture found in the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral, and Anastasia enjoyed coloring a ballerina. They also decorated little toilet paper tube stacking dolls (the dolls don't actually stack).
History and Geography, Ana colored the flag of Russia, and we located Russia on the map. We read the biography of Peter the Great and a fictional story about Csar Nicholas II. These books helped us understand Imperial Russia.
In science we talked about boiling point, melting point, freezing point and changes of state. To tie all these concepts together, Anastasia helped me make fudge. She couldn't care less about the boiling, melting and reforming taking place, she just enjoyed snacking on loose chocolate chips and marshmallows. Oh well.
We learned some new Spanish vocabulary words. Clothing words: coat, hat, boots, shirt, pants, socks, piyama.
We had a fun week. A few of our books carried into this week. We are still reading our novel about the Romanovs and we didn't pick up a few of the picture books until Tuesday evening. The kids seem ok with finishing Russia while moving onto a new story this week. We enjoyed eating pancakes, in honor of Russian Blini (we did not eat caviar:) and we enjoyed Borsht. What a nice soup for Valentines Day. The color is beautiful!

Other stories we enjoyed relating to Russia,
The Nutcracker, Susan Jeffyrs
Peter the Great, Arthur Schlessinger
Countries around the World: Russia, Jilly Hunt
The Treasure Chest: Anastasia Romanov: The Last Grand Duchess, Ann Hood
Look What Came from Russia, Miles Harvey







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