Traveling Russia: Week 2

After our first week studying Russia, I found even more to study the next week. There are times when the resources seem to be overwhelming, especially when you find them on the tail end of your studies.

Both of our girls love to pretend to be ballerinas, so this week we spent some time listening to famous Russian composers and watching some ballet in action. Needless to say, there have been lots of tights flying, tutus twirling and spinning like crazy. Zachary included. :)

Monday

• Quick review from previous week's studies
• Look at the currency of Russia (see notebooking page I made below)
• Review geography song (from Geography Songs cd)
• Pick a meal to make and put grocery list together
• Watch a little of Fiddler on the Roof (since this takes place in Russia)

Tuesday

• Sing geography song and point to countries on map
• Talk about some of the geographical/climate features of Russia and do map activities: Ural mountains (divide Russia between Europe and Asia); coldest inhabited place on Earth is Verkhoyansk; dry climate and poor soil; Volga River is longest river in Europe, three of longest rivers in world are in Russia (Ob, Yenisei, and Lena); Lake Baikal is deepest, largest fresh water lake in the world; three differenet land areas: tundra, taiga, and steppe
• Listen to Tchaikovsky and have fun dancing

Wednesday

• Use Draw Write Now to draw picture of a brown bear and also copywork about bear
• Talk about some of the different animals in Russia
• Review geography song
• Talk about the history of Russia using notebooking pages
• Watch a little bit of Nutcracker

Thursday

• Sing geography song and point to countries without using cd
• Talk about religion in Russia and what happened during Communist rule (atheism). You can read about Laurianna and McKenna's reaction to atheism on our family blog - too funny.
• Compare Russian alphabet to our alphabet
• Work on making meal (Beef stroganoff)
• Stamp passports

Websites that we visited:

• National Geographic Kids - facts and pictures about Russia
• Enchanted Learning about Russia - members only
• Travel for Kids - fun things to do with kids in Russia. Also includes book ideas for helping kids learn about Russia
• Time for Kids - learn more about Russia's culture, landscape and resources
• Mission Friends - resource available from the Lutheran Church. This is the student pdf version that you can print off and use as a great resource for you teaching of Russia. It includes the map activity that we did and a lot of wonderful information. Our kids really enjoyed this!
• Nutcracker on youtube - this is the first of 16 mini-videos of the Nutcracker performed at the Royal Opera House. The girls loved this!

The currency notebooking sheet that I put together on the ruble: Next week we are going to be moving our studies to England/Great Britain, so stay tuned for more!

Resources that we used: