Clay workshop no. 3

Again it was Tuesday, and again we went for our clay workshop. This time, we made a beautiful small candle-holder in the shape of a maple leaf and a hedgehog.

Our reptiles project

We finished reading the chapter on reptiles in our Animal World encyclopedia and made our final projects. Each of us chose one reptile that we liked. Mamma made the picture of it with pencil, then we outlined it and coloured it to look as close to life as we could. Uzair himself wrote facts about his reptile (the ringed snake), while Hafsa got some help in writing about her reptile (iguana) from Mamma. Mamma also made a separate page with main facts about reptiles in general and the places, where reptiles are mentioned in the Quran. Uzair was really excited to learn about the snake-charmers of Pakistan, so after reading about them, he made a picture of a snake-charmer, showing how he plays for the snakes and snakes come up from their basket. We did also an arts and crafts activity - mamma made the shape of a lizard on a page and we glued into it red and yellow daals as scales of the lizard.

The beauty of the fall

Have you ever wondered, why the fall is called the fall? To Uzair and Hafsa is pretty obvious - because the leaves fall! Today, we went in the forest for a stroll to pick good handfuls of colourful fall leaves. The weather was just perfect - no wind and wonderful freshness of just 14 degrees outside. We had a long walk and were looking for as different colours and shapes of leaves as we could find. We took the leaves home and put them for pressing between pages of books - this way, they will get pressed straight and will dry out. Later, we will use them for some nice fall season crafts. Come back to our blog later on to see what we would make from our leaves! Meanwhile, enjoy walk with us through our photos (read also the descriptions) here: stroll in the fall 

Clay workshop no. 2

In this week's clay workshop, we made three things under a common theme of the fall: a mushroom, a peapod with peas inside and a carrot. We also coloured the worms we made the weak before.

Caaaaaaarefully painting those tiny dots on the worm.

Hafsa working on the antenae of her worm.



Peapods are bursting open with ripe peas ready to be harvested.



Uzair's mushroom has got an attitude in talking with Hafsa's one.



Our visit to Jelgava

At the beginning of September, we visited Mamma's maternal cousins in Jelgava - Inese aunty and Ilze aunty. We stayed with Ilze aunty for two days and had a great chance to see some of the nice places in Jelgava city. We visited one of the parks, where we saw an exebition of sand sculptures. You can read more about it in our earlier post: http://welive-welearn.blogspot.com/2011/09/sand-sculptures.html

We also visited a history museum in a church tower. The tower had three floors, each of which was devoted to one topic of history - we learned about history of Jelgava city, Zemgale region, Latvian presidents and also about Latvian handicrafts and folk costumes. We liked that the exibitions were very interactive - had lots of puzzles and touch screens. We were taken to all the floors by an elevator. The fourth and last floor (the top of church tower) was a viewing point of Jelgava city. It was made of glass and we could see the city of Jelgava all around! Here you can see the photos from this museum: church tower history museum

Some of his free time in Jelgava, Uzair spent working in Dzintars uncle's wood workshop, as he loves woodwork. He made his very own house, which you can see in an earlier post: http://welive-welearn.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-house.html

Thank you to Ilze and Inese aunties for making our visit to Jelgava so memorable!

Beads work workshops

For three weeks in August, we had invited a local lady Dženjana to show us some basics of beads work. We had three workshops with her, during which she showed different techniques of arranging beads for necklaces and bracelets. Even our Mamma participated in all the work, as she was also very eager to learn this. By clicking on this link, you can see how we are working and what kinds of things we made: beads workshop with Dženjana

Clay molding workshop

Today was Uzair's and Hafsa's first day at a clay molding workshop, which they will be attending every Tuesday from now on until we leave back to Karachi. This workshop is organized for the local schoolkids, who are interested in working with clay. The workshop takes place in the afternoons, after the school hours. Both Uzair and Hafsa really enjoyed the first session - they learned how to make a leaf and a little worm on it. Their teacher, Inta aunty, is a professional ceramist and has been working with clay for tens of years. Take a look at more photos from the first session here: clay molding