One last kind of Russian meal, as we say goodbye to the Olympics!
We had chicken Kiev (yes, I know Kiev is in Ukraine, but close enough), rice pilaf (again, close, if not totally authentic), and more of the Russian black bread I made for the Opening Ceremonies.
As always, the highpoint of the meal was dessert…a White Russian cake!
Only 2 1/2 more years until the next summer Olympics…I better start planning some Brazilian menus!
Seeing as how we had a tea party for the London 2012 Olympics, I couldn’t very well let the Sochi games go by without doing something! I even found Russian Caravan tea, which was the perfect selection (or seemed like it at the time…I think it may be the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth!)!
My theme was Russian (of course), snowflakes, and blue and white…nice, wintry colors. I got to use my new white tablecloth (with an old blue runner), and our beautiful china. And unscented white tea lights and pillar candles from Target made for the perfect centerpiece:
We has Russian tea cookies:
And a Russian poppy seed bread (which sadly wasn’t very popular):
Meringues (which I actually made correctly for the first time ever!):
Snowflake sugar cookies:
Snowflake Jell-O:
An orange poppy seed cake (Did you know that poppy seeds are actually blue? They fit the theme perfectly!):
English muffins with blueberry preserves:
And fresh blueberries!
I thought that this was going to be really hard to put together, from a menu standpoint. As it turns out, it wasn’t that bad at all!
This was another crazy week! I’m ready for this ride to stop so I can get off…
On Monday, since Moose had the day off, we had a field trip day. St. Louis is celebrating her 250th birthday this year, and last weekend was the official founding date. In honor of the event, the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park opened a new exhibit, 250 in 250, to share the city’s history. We had a fun time checking it out, and looking in on the other exhibits, too!
We tried to get some regular school work done this week, too. The children kept up with their math, spelling, and reading. I used the Olympics as the basis for all of their writing assignments, though, instead of our standard curriculum. We watched two more ballets: Swan Lake, and our favorite version of the Nutcracker. In total, we watched five productions of four different ballets, and got to see two different Russian ballet companies in the process. We learned more about Russian history and culture (although, I fear that in the end, the only thing the children are going to remember are beets!) We also read a few Olympics and winter sports books, including G is for Gold Medal and The Hockey Sweater.
On Thursday afternoon, we had another field trip, to see a curling demonstration. The children really enjoyed seeing the equipment up close, but we didn’t get to see many stones thrown or swept, because the power went out at the ice rink while we there. That was a little disappointing, but at least it happened after we got to hear how the scoring works and what’s involved in curling well!
On Friday, we had a mostly fun day (after math was out of the way). I had the children pick music and design costumes for a figure skating routine. I love what Turkey came up with…he chose to do a pairs routine, and the costumes were modeled after The Doctor and Rose. And, of course, his music was the theme from Doctor Who. We also watched Anastasia, not for true historical accuracy, but just for a little Russian flavor, and fun, of course!
That’s pretty much it for our Olympics school…we’re having a tea party tomorrow, and a family tabletop hockey tournament tomorrow night. We haven’t had as many activities as we did for the London Olympics, but we’ve still managed to find some things to learn and do!
I think I’m relieved that we don’t have anything special planned for next week…all of these events are exhausting!
This was a really good week of school!
First of all, everybody scored 100% on their math tests…success!
We learned more about Russia and the Winter Olympics…fun!
And, today was Valentine’s Day…more fun!
We did eliminate our regular history and Scottish history studies, to make room for special Russia, Olympics and Valentine’s Day books. We learned about the Winter Olympics and how technology has changed them in Eyewitness: Olympics. We also learned more about figure skating in A is for Axel, a wonderful book by champion figure skater Kurt Browning. And, we read a nice Russian tale in The Littlest Matryoshka, a story about a family of nesting dolls. We also watched the Royal Ballet production of Giselle, one of Bunny’s favorite ballets, as well as the Bolshoi Ballet Nutcracker, and listened to several different Russian composers, as well as some other classical music commonly used in figure skating.
We also made family valentines this week (since we made valentines for others last week). The chidden have gotten very creative in their valentine making! I saw a few Tardis valentines, and I personally received two different valentines that said, “Hello Sweetie!” I guess it’s obvious which show we’ve been watching in the evenings (when we haven’t been watching the Olympics, of course!). Today we read our two favorite Valentine’s Day books…a serious book about the life of Saint Valentine, and a fun little book called The Night Before Valentine’s Day.
Of course, we did our regular schoolwork, too. Turkey and Bunny continued to work on geometry in math, and Ladybug worked more on counting money in different denominations. We continued working on spelling, writing, and reading…we definitely had the “Three Rs” covered! We also started reading The Bronze Bow, and Turkey and Bunny started on the accompanying workbook. Science was another subject that was abandoned this week, in the interest of spending extra time on the arts, but that’s OK…we don’t have very much of the text left, because the children have been so eager to learn about space!
Next week, we’ll probably follow a similar schedule, to make sure we have enough time to finish our Olympics studies. I’m hoping we might fit in a field trip, as well!
I went with a Russian theme for our dinner tonight…tonight’s menu included:
For dessert (the real triumph of the evening), I made a Russian biscvit cake with a Ptichye Moloko filling, a whipped cream frosting, and a lovely chocolate drizzle:
We’ll still be having a tea party and a closing ceremonies dinner before the end of the Olympics…there’s more Russian cooking and baking yet to come!
The Olympics are almost upon us–just 17 more days! Of course, an event like this means a special school unit (actually, that’s how this whole homeschooling journey started!), with special reading, crafts, and activities. Not to mention TV watching…but that’s kind of the point! I’ll share some of our crafts and other activities later, but for now, here’s our Olympics reading list…I got very lucky in that the library system carries all but one of the books I was looking for, and every one of those books was available. I’m also thankful that there are books out there for such a wide variety of ages, from preschooler on up to adult…there’s definitely something for everyone here!
I chose a selection of biographies of some famous Olympic athletes for Turkey and Bunny to read, all from the “Childhood of Famous Americans” series:
I also got some of the “official” Olympics publications, two of which are consumable books that the children will just have to share:
I have a teacher resource book, as well. The one I have is for up to grade three, which is too young for Turkey and Bunny now, but I had it from the 2008 Olympics, and I can always adjust things upward for them, and use the activities as printed for Moose and Ladybug. There is a book for older elementary students, as well, and I’m sure it’s similarly helpful:
I also found a few books that aren’t readily available here in the States, but would have made great additions to our Olympics study:
Wow! Upon completing this list, even I was shocked at how many books there are to be found about the Olympics! We have to get busy reading!