Drinking Tea from a Gourd...Argentina!

Included in our Argentina package was a drinking gourd (called Mate), tea, and a special straw for drinking the tea.  The girls were VERY excited about drinking the tea from the gourd with the special straw.

Watching the tea steep.




They didn't love the taste, but they each tried it a couple of times.  I was proud of them for being so willing and excited to try something new!

Boxes of Fun!

I've been collecting large boxes and storing them in our garage for months for the girls and I to play in.  I envisioned us dragging them to the front yard and making some kind of giant box castle complete with lots of tape and paint.  I thought we'd leave it up for about a week and then recycle the whole thing.  However, things worked out much simpler than that!



We occasionally pull the boxes out of the garage for a few hours and play and play and play.  Then we drag them back in to save for another day.  We've had a wonderful time, but Elliott is not thrilled about his garage being cluttered with large cardboard boxes!

Snowflake Collage

E(2) LOVED putting plastic snowflakes on a sheet of contact paper that I taped sticky side out to our sliding glass door!  She kept saying "It's snowing! It's snowing!"



This was the perfect activity for E since we were finishing up our "S" week (that actually last a month).  Also, E has been obsessed with the Nutcracker Ballet for about 3 weeks, and she will only answer to the name of "Twara" (Clara) and I am her "Dancing Snowflake."  She's constantly telling me "I'm Twara. You my dancing Snowflake."  When she calls me, she calls "Snowflake!" instead of "mama."  I love this kid!



I love it when my girls get so excited over such a simple activity.  I also love it when I see activities like this, and I already have everything I need to do it!  Thanks to Amber for this fun idea!

Cultural Exchange Package #1...Argentina!

I gave the girls their first cultural exchange package on Monday, and they LOVE it!  We are studying Argentina during the month of January, so if you have any fun and simple activities to supplement our studies, I'd love to hear about them.

On our first day, we read the letter from the package and explored everything included in the package.  Here are pics of a few of the included things...

A pin which O(5) has claimed for herself...actually, E(2) gave it to her and said it was for her.  E was busy claiming the whale sponge for herself.  She called it a "srubber" (scrubber) and said she was going to "srub" with it in the shower.  This is pretty funny since it's a tiny little whale sponge that is meant for stamping :)





We LOVE all of the natural items!  E(2) picked up the black object (I'm not sure what it is) and said "It yooks (looks) just yike (like) a yiver (liver)!"  She's right!  It looks a lot like the liver on our human body parts puzzle (that has been very popular with the girls lately.





This a favorite item!  A gourd, tea, and a special straw to drink the tea.





The girls love the flag, and I've had O tell me how the Argentinian flag is different from the American flag.










We read this story, and I put the puzzle together for the girls.  (I'm enjoying this as much as they are!)





Tiny playing cards.  O says they are the perfect size for her American Girl doll, Kaya.





We've really enjoyed looking at the money, and O was THRILLED with the tiny flags!  She said "they must have known that we have mini American girl dolls because they sent flags just for them!"





The girls were excited to color their Argentinian coloring sheets.  I'd love to print more Argentinian coloring sheets, so if anyone knows of a good website, please let me know!





Pictures and descriptions of Argentinan food.  I'm hoping to cook at least one Argentinian food each week that we study this country...any recommendations???





The girls favorite part of the package was the candy!!!





There were lots of other things that I haven't taken pics of yet.  I'll be writing several more posts throughout the month about our Argentinian activities.

Thank you SO much to Maria Elena and her kids for putting together this fantastic Argentinian package!

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

One of our advent books was If You Take a Mouse to the Movies and our activity was to string popcorn.  O(5) and I had fun stringing the popcorn, and I think this will be one of our Christmas traditions.

We hung the popcorn on a tree outside along with a couple of cranberry wreaths.  Decorating a tree for the birds and squirrels was also one of our advent activities to go along with the Gift of Christmas.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

An Embroidered Dollhouse Bag, Dolls, and Animals

After much thought and indecision, I decided to embroider a dollhouse bag, dolls, and animals for one of E(2)'s handmade gifts for Christmas this year.  I love to do embroidery, and I really enjoyed this project.  Thankfully, I started a few months in advance because this took forever to make!

Here's the dollhouse.  I attached the fabric to the canvas bag using steam-a-seam.  I then stitched around the edges.  This was NOT easy to do, and I thought my thumbs would fall off after pushing the needle through the layers of canvas, fabric, and steam-a-seam...I really needed a thimble!






I didn't use a pattern for the house...I just totally winged it, and I'm happy with the end result :)







My stitches aren't perfect, but E doesn't mind and neither do I!







I embroidered an E doll, an O doll, and an M doll (their cousin).  Since E loves animals, I embroidered 3 animals to go with the dolls.  I think I'll add a few animals in her Easter basket.  She loves pigs, so I need to find a cute pig pattern.






I purchased the doll and animal patterns from several years ago from...I can't remember.  I'm sure someone knows, so please tell me so I can add a link! 

Yes, Wee Wonderfuls!  Thank you!

My plan for this first week back to blogging (it's SO hard to start back) is to finish up with Christmas posts, and then get back into the routine of posting about our daily activities.  It's going to take me a while to get back into the swing of things, but hopefully I'll catch the blogging bug again soon.

So Many Posts To Write

I have so many posts that need to be written (and I should have written before Christmas).  However, finding the time to do it seems impossible.   We've had a very busy and fun Christmas, and the festivities aren't over yet.  I'll be back to share our handmade gifts and finish up our Christmas activities posts in a few days (so you'll have ideas for next year, and so I can look back and remember what we did and what we made).

Dream Snow & Coffee Filter Snowflakes

Dream Snow was one of our advent books from last week, and we finally found time to do the activity last night!



Cutting snowflakes from coffee filters is one of the simplest activities we've done so far!  It's SO much better than cutting them from typical paper!  We didn't follow any directions, but just folded and cut.  O(5) cut one of hers without folding it at all which she thought was really fun.  E(2) and I cut ours together, and we had fun folding the coffee filters and cutting little triangles all over it.  This is definitely an activity that we'll be doing again this winter.  Maybe next time we'll dip our coffee filters in dye to make rainbow snowflakes!
 

The Cat Who Climbed The Christmas Tree

We love this book!  When we read it, I tell the girls about how our cat, Gracie, used to climb the Christmas tree when she was a kitten.  This is hard for the girls to believe since our sweet Gracie is now 11 years old and doesn't go near the Christmas tree anymore.


Our go along activity was to make beaded candy canes.  O(5) really enjoyed this activity, and I was so glad because I've offered this craft to her for the past 2 years and she hasn't been interested.  I remember making candy cane ornaments just like this when I was a girl scout, so it's fun to make them with my sweet girls!

Laura's Christmas Star

Laura's Christmas Star was one of our advent books.  I'm sure it's a good book, but we haven't read it yet.  It was our advent book on a very busy day, and we didn't read the book that day....and now I can't find it.



The go-along activity was to make a glitter star wand.  O(5) loved decorating her wand with LOTS of glitter and glue.  E(2) took a nap while O did this, and she hasn't decorated her wand yet. 



 
Keeping up with our daily Christmas books and activities is harder than I anticipated!  While we make time to read aloud every day, we don't always have time to craft.  Sometimes, it's just more fun to play outside and dance and sing and play dress-up (which is mostly how we spend our days!).