National Book Day

National Book Day was actually yesterday but the kids had a friend over for most of the afternoon so we did something book related only today.

I asked the kids to tell me a story which I wrote down just the way they told it. I then read it to them so that they could hear it and make changes if they wanted to. Then I let them illustrate their little books (simply an A4 folded once).

These are the covers. The yellow one is Luana's and it's called "Monica's ball". Lucas' story was about pirates, guns, fighting, cars, trophies etc.

Lucas' book from the inside. Luana actually drew the trophy for him but he did the rest of the drawing.

And Luana's book. There was a ball in a circus and she drew the circus tent and a princess on the left.

It took them a while to get the hang of this. Lucas started telling me the story and I helped him along asking what happened next and what did the characteres do. Luana wanted to tell me an episode of the Flintstones that she had seen in the school but I encouraged her to invent her very own story. Last time we did this with her she told me about Jesus and how He got lost in the temple and His parents couldn't find Him. This time she did come up with her own story and I think it'll be easier for the kids next time around. I plan to continue doing this every now and then.

Green Hour challenge 6

Challenge number 6 was about collections. We went on our walk on Monday evening and it was already getting dark so I didn't take any pictures during our walk. I gave both kids bags and said we were going to collect anything they'd find interesting on the way. Both of them went for rocks :) Luana was also interested in flowers but didn't collect them. I think we'll collect and press some flowers later on.

On Tuesday we sat down outside and washed the stones so we could see their real colours as they were all covered in the same red dust we have absolutely e v e r y w h e r e :) (rainy season is starting though so soon it'll be red mud instead of red dust).

We then made good use of the egg and apple cartons that I had saved knowing that one day they would be used! We talked about the different colours and shapes the stones had. Some were all smooth and round and you could tell they'd been in the river for a long time.

The kids enjoyed washing the stones. I have to come up with more water-related activities as this is something they enjoy a lot.

And again, the pictures aren't in the order I wanted to have them but in the order Blogger wanted to have them... I've heard other people are having trouble with this too. Hope it gets fixed soon!

Painting

Blogger seems to think it knows better in which order my pictures should be and I'm too lazy to upload them again... Anyway we did some painting with the kids today. It's been absolutely too long since the last time and we all had such a good time (and a good shower afterwards!).

We had burglars while we were in Finland and although they didn't take that much with them (the laptop, the printer and some jewellery) they did make a mess. Apparently they had turned every single box upside down including my crafting supplies. My husband simply put things back in boxes and everything's still in a bit of a mess. But I did manage to find the finger paints and that's what we used today.

Gardening

I have to admit... as much as I love nature I'm not a gardener. Thankfully my husband is really into planting, mowing the lawn, cutting, trimming, getting new plants etc. I do give some ideas as to where I think a particular plant should be located but that's really it :)

Yesterday my husband came home with some new plants and asked us to join him in the front yard. At first I was going to decline but then I realised that I want my kids to appreciate gardening even if I'm not so keen on it. So I went along, took some pictures and ended up helping out quite a bit. It turned out to be a lovely afternoon all of us working together in the garden. I'm so glad I joined in!

Green Hour challenge 5

So we recently returned from Finland and are now back with the Green Hour challenge. Before we left Brazil in the end of April we had done four challenges and focused on the little river that runs behind our block. For this challenge we did another walk to see the river and afterwards talked about the things we'd seen.

Luana drew a picture of our walk and included a chicken and another bird as well as us three walking. We then sat down and made a list of all the different fruit trees that grow either on our backyard or nearby. This went nicely together with our Bible study of the creation - we also talked about how God created everything including the fruit trees.

So we have on our backyard:
Papaya, Carica papaya
Acerola, Malpighia emarginata (even 100 times more vitamin C than in oranges!)
Lime, Citrus x limon
Guava, Psidium guajava (also more vitamin C than oranges!)
Manioc, Manihot esculenta (Luana wanted to include this although it's not a fruit as we have some growing on our backyard)

And nearby:
Coconut, Cocos nucifera
Jambo, Syzygium jambolana
Carambola, Averrhoa carambola
Cashew, Anacardium occidentale (this is actually an accessory fruit the real fruit being the cashew nut)

Our focus has been the river and I actually thought we'd do more things regarding that but I see that the topic is so huge that it'll probably continue on the background and we can return to it whenever we feel like it. At the same time we'll get a new theme and carry on with the challenges. The first challenges have been really good in the sense that they have got us out of the house exploring our neighbourhood with a purpose. I was looking at the coming topics and garden flowers will suit us nicely as I just discovered that we actually have some flowers in our garden! :) There used to be just green but now there are flowers too!

This particular challenge was such an enlightening experience for me personally. The kids are so small that they don't care about the Latin names of the fruit trees or whether something is really rich in vitamin C but I found the little research I did most interesting! I also see that I have to find some good websites concerning tropical plants. Books are quite hard to get hold of over here but I might even try to buy a book about tropical plants.

Looking forward to collecting things for the next challenge!

Back to Green Hour

We played with these play dough animals on a rainy day last week. It's great to have been gone for several months because there are so many toys around the house that the kids don't remember anymore. These animals were one of those new-old toys.

Luana had been asking for several days to go for a green hour walk and we finally did that on Thursday. We went around the block behind our house as the kids wanted to see the river Mororó. It was also World Food Day so we tried to look for things to eat along the way. The only things we saw were chickens and mangos. The kids also drew what they had seen along the way and Luana came up with a really cute map of our walk :)

Later on we also talked about how usually one could drink water but the river is so polluted that the water's not good for drinking. Luana had some good ideas as to what pollutes the river and I think we can work on that later on as we continue talking about the river.

Water is really low at the moment as it's only the beginning of the rainy season. The river flooded a few times last year and I'm sure we'll see some of that later on as well.

There were so many mangoes hanging from the trees! We've already received some from my parents-in-law and we're all (especially Luana) really looking forward to the mango season to kick in.

Back at home

So we finally made it back home! We arrived on October 6th after four flights (Helsinki-Munich-São Paulo-Cuiabá-home) and we were all really happy to be back.

The five months in Finland were really good - I worked a lot and enjoyed what I did, the kids liked their nursery and learned lots of new things in Finnish. Although I often felt there wasn't enough of time for the kids I still think we managed to do many nice things together and I hope the kids have good memories of their Finnish summer.

Daddy had made such an effort here at home and it was so exciting to open the doors of the rooms in order to find out all the things he had done in each of them.

And now we're slowly getting into the everyday rhythm over here. The kids have been at school this week and they've enjoyed it. Lucas doesn't really speak any Portuguese although he understands most things. His teacher told me that he'd speak Finnish to everyone at school too although he knows people don't understand :) Luana didn't speak much upon arrival but she's really making an effort to speak Portuguese and it's getting more fluent every day. The kids still speak Finnish when they're together but I reckon that'll change with some time.

We've got two lovely puppies left at home. One is already reserved and there's one more to go. I keep telling the kids the puppies aren't ours to keep and they keep telling me they understand that. I bet it'll still be a sad day when the new owners come to pick them up... The big dogs remembered us right away and there haven't been any problems with them.

I'm really looking forward to our homeschooling afternoons, nature notebook, cooking together and Green Hour Challenge time. In fact Luana was already asking to go for a nature walk so we did that yesterday but I'll post about that separately. I'm still in the middle of organising things. There are some things still in the suitcases as I need to solve some serious storage issues first...