Kenya Day 1

 Here is Eva's "passport" for traveling to different worlds.  She gets a new stamp each time.

 Working with fruit sorting after reading Handa's surprise.

 Here are the books we read today

 Eva enjoying her Ugali with stew for lunch

Making a Globe out of papier mache

Working on a cheetah craft

Napping along the way

Today we started our "preschool home school".  Every week Eva, Emma and I will "travel" to a new place, real or imagined, and learn all about it!  This week, we are traveling to Kenya.  We got on our airplane and when we arrived, Eva got a stamp in her passport.  She was a bit disappointed that we weren't really going to Kenya (which she pronounces "ikea"), but she quickly let her imagination take over.  We got in the mood by listening to Kenyan radio stations and sampling an East African dish, Ugali.  I asked Eva to list the African animals she knew, and was amazed when she immediately named 10 correctly!  We played with animal flashcards and she sorted them into reptile, mammal and bird piles, and said the German and English names of each of them.  When I was tending to Emma, Eva worked on coloring pictures of giraffes and elephants, and watched the Lion King.  We read Handa's Surprise and then did some activities based on the book, like fruit sorting.  When we went to the grocery store, Eva pointed out the fruits that Handa carried in the book.  We even picked up a mango to eat later during snack.  We went to the playground for a bit, but then it started to rain :(  After nap, we learned some words in Swahili using the internet and some flash cards. We started to make a paper mache globe that we will use throughout our projects in the next few months.  We also learned about cheetahs by reading and watching some clips on youtube about how cheetahs hunt and communicate.  We examined a cheetah skull and discussed what it means to be a carnivore.  Emma simply enjoys listening to the interesting music and watching what we are up to!  After a very busy, "awake" day yesterday, Emma has been napping most of the time today.  I was amazed that the first day alone with the two girls went so smoothly (I even got time for a shower and laundry).