Russia

We shortened up and condensed our Russia unit so we could take some days off and enjoy Bryan and Becca's visit over Easter.  We did manage to learn about the St. Basil Cathedral (Nicolas and Anna practiced drawing the cathedral); onion domes; Ural mountains; various rivers and cities; the steppe, taiga and tundra; how boys and girls are named; Russian nesting dolls or matryoshka dolls; Czars Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine and Anna; Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker (we read the story and watched/listened to several of the ballet pieces on YouTube), Peter and the Wolf (read and listened to the story and learned about the various instruments), Faberge eggs (decorated a few of our own); discussed the Russian revolution and the mystery of Anastasia (we watched the animated movie Anastasia, too).

This is the best we could do with wooden nesting dolls.  We found these last year at the thrift store and now dug them out of a box that they were still in from our move!  The baseball behind the dolls also opens up and nine little guys the size of the smallest nesting doll fit inside--just enough for a baseball team.

Our Faberge eggs--we decorated these with the Bleeker kids

We ended up not having an ethnic meal--maybe we can try to do that another time.  The kids were a little disappointed so will have to try to fit that in later this week or next. 

Some books we enjoyed:  Peter and the Wolf and The Nutcracker Ballet both by Vladimir Vagin; Luba and the Wren, The Trees of the Dancing Goats, and Rechenka's Eggs all by Patricia Polacco; The Tale of the Firebird by Gennady Spirin; Peter the Great by Diane Stanley; and The Fool of the World and The Flying Ship.

Since the Arctic Circle includes the upper parts of Russia, we spent our time in science learning about the plants, animals, and overall ecosytems of the Arctic.  Both Nicolas and Anna spent time researching several animals:  polar bears, arctic fox, Siberian husky, arctic hare, caribou, and a few more I can't think of right now.  Today we started our trek "down under" as we study Australia in geography and the coral reef and islands in science.