New Beginnings for 2014!

Happy New Year to all my readers! How were the holidays like for you?

As for me, my December vacation was all about fulfilling my duties as a mother and wife.  Everyone in the family got sick and the baby and I were the only ones spared by the flu, which left me taking good care of everyone else.  It was so tiring but nevertheless we were still able to the New Year bug-free. 

But my blogging hiatus gave me the chance to contemplate and plan for my activities for 2014.  Oh I am so excited to be back in the blogging world and back on our daily routine of doing interesting stuff at home! I just couldn't figure out yet how we could have afterschool activities now that we have a new baby to care for as well :)  I guess, Mavi and I will eventually adapt and discover a routine that best suits us. (So expect some rants of handling two kids in my future post LOL)

To each and everyone, I thank you for a wonderful 2013! Thank you so much for participating in my blog, leaving comments, appreciating what I do and sharing some of your ideas as well.  Thank you for those who support my little shop and I promise to come up with more affordable learning materials this year.  And to show my appreciation, I will also be sharing a lot of freebies!

So cheers to new beginnings! And I am wishing you all a fabulous and productive New Year!

December Update :)

Hello! It's been a long time since my last post. As most of you know, we recently welcome the newest member of our little family and he's the reason why I haven't been on a the web lately.  My time is mostly spent nursing, and taking good care of the 3 boys.  And the fact that my Mom and sister in law are here for the holidays, we're skipping a few after school activities.

Anyway, here's a brief update on what we've been doing so far:

Weekends, my little family would visit parks to enjoy the good weather.

We also had a Mexican Unit.  I already posted the first part.  The second part of our Mexican Unit were mostly crafts and worksheets.

 

Then for Math, we're doing Snake Game...

 

and learning about quantities using math cubes: greater than, smaller than, one more than the other etc.

Language, we're using moveable objects for our blue and green series.  I will talk more about on this soon.

 

Mavi's busy with his Nativity Play.  He has a big role on it so he practices his line every day as well as reading lots of Christmas books :)

And as for me and hubby, we're busy raising a family :)

I am currently planning our 2014 activities and will share it once I'm done. It's a flexible plan and will serve as a guide.  With a new baby, anything can happen and change on the fly... so it is always best to have a guide. 

Taking pictures would also be challenge as I nurse little X most of the time.  So I'll attempt to "copy" the technique of Mari Ann of Counting Coconuts by taking pictures ahead of time so my hands will be free during the actual activity.

I am thankful for...

... the answered prayers.

... God's blessings we have received and yet to receive

... my mother who's with us right now

... a loving and supportive husband, my prince, my guiding star

... my 5 yrs old Mavi who rocked my world and turned my world upside down (in a good way)

... my 3 weeks old Zaev, who made me a morning person once again

and

... for old and new friends and fans (Facebook, Blogger and Pinterest) whom I met here remotely in the world wide web.  I have so much respect to all of you because of the inspiration you all have given me. 

Thank you!

Happy thanksgiving!

Artist Study: Frida Kahlo

Since we're having a Mexican Unit, I have been itching to tie in an artist that would go with our study.  And by no brainer, we had Frida Kahlo. 

Frida is a very famous Mexican artist who lived a very interesting yet sad life.  She's in pain because of the unfortunate events that happened in her life and one of which is having a vehicular accident.  Because of this, she stayed in the hospital for a long time.  To make herself happy, she painted.  She loves to paint self-portraits with things that would make her happy.

I wanted to delve deeper into the life of Frida but my knowledge of her is very limited.  Maybe when I have the luxury of time, I might as well spend it reading the life of famous artist so I can accurately relay the information to Mavi.  He loves learning about the lives of other people and how it reflects on their works.

Moving on... we started by looking at self-portraits of Frida from the web after which I made these portraits for us to work on.

Using an oil pastel, Mavi put colors on Frida's portrait according to his liking.

 

 

Then he made a self portrait.  He drew his face as I described it to him. He invested too much effort on this one!

"Mom! We should put this in the library!"

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!