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
 

Migrating birds

The fall has arrived in Latvia, and the birds have began to head south for spending the cold season in warmer lands. When we are in Karachi, during winter we can feel this influx of birds from up north countries (Russia), as in the mornings we can wake to the singing of so many different birds! Today, we were lucky enough to see two 'hooks' of wild geese travelling over our village - you can se them in the photos below.

We see the great wisdom of Allah (swt) in all creation, Subhanallah. One of Allah's (swt) great miracles is this migration of birds - the birds of Latvia travel thousands of kilometers every year back and forth, in search of food and warmer places to live. The geese we saw today arrange themselves into a 'hook' type formation for their travel, which is not just a coincidence. The first bird in the hook gets the strongest winds and has to make the most effort for flying. The waves of air formed by the first bird's wings give uplifting effect to the second bird, easing his flying. The waves of air from the second bird give relief to the third, a.s.o. The last bird in the line gets the easiest flying time, as his flight is suppored by the uplift of air formed by the previous birds. When the head bird of the hook gets tired, it retreats to the very back of the hook, giving his place in the head of the hook to the next bird in line. Thus, the tired head bird renews his strength at the very end of the hook. This way, the birds can fly for long periods of time, without sitting down to rest, Subhanallah.

Julius Ceasar's crown

Today, in our history reading, we read about the consul of Rome Julius Ceasar. We read that all the powerful people of Rome at his time, liked to wear crowns of leaves on their heads, as a sign of their importance. Julius Ceasar had asked to make for himself a crown of goldden leaves. Here is an old coin, depicting Ceasar in his crown:

Since it is the autum season here in Latvia, we used the great chance to make our own crowns of goldden leaves. First, we cut out strip of paper long enough to go around our head. Then we ran outside to collect the leaves. When we cam ein, we glued the leaves on our strip of paper. Do we look important enough in our goldden crowns? :)

Our birds project

Today we finished reading the chapter on birds from our Animal World encyclopedia and made our final projects. Each of us chose our favourite bird. Mamma made a picture of them with pencil, we outlined them, coloured them and wrote some facts about them. Mamma made one more page with general facts about birds and wrote, where the birds are mentioned in the Quran.

This Sunday, our uncle Ralfs (our mother's brother) invited us to come and see his carpentry workshop - he is a professional furniture carpenter. How could we refuse such a wonderful offer? The day for the visit turned out really excellent - it was sunny with a feel of autumn coolness in the air. Since the walk to the workshop was about half an hour long, all of us had a pleasant stroll in this beautiful early autumn weather.

When we arrived to the workshop, we were surprised by the size of it - it was HUGE! We had expected that many machines would be there but had not anticipated such vast space and so many different machines. Ralfs uncle showed us around, starting from their recreation room, through the different workshop stations and ending with the office of their boss.

Ralfs uncle showed us every single machine in operation, so we could see, how he makes those beautiful doors and windows we saw ready made. To demonstrate the process of work, Ralfs uncle made for Uzair a one meter long and 6 milimetres thick wodden ruler. After coming back home, Uzair made on it number marks by a permanent marker and is ready to take his treasure back to Karachi with him.

Ralfs uncle let us try out the paint-sprayer he uses for painting. That was really fun, even though he put for us just water in it. :) We also learned that they make not only furniture but also bird feeders and bird houses, and even real coffins! For getting the feel of our trip, take a look at our pictures here: photos from carpentry workshop

11th elections of Latvian parliament (Saeima)

Today, we went together with Vecmamma, Mamma, Ralfs uncle and Sandra aunty for elections, which took place in Liepa school. These were the 11th elections of Latvian parliament (Saeima), which were famous as out of term elections - the previous government was dismissed by a vote of Latvian citizens in a referendum. We had a great chance to see, how elections happen in Latvia, and drop into the voting box the ballots of Vecmamma and Mamma. Here, Latvians get a special stamp in their pasports, which prevents them from voting twice in the same elections.

Fun with acorns and chestnuts

On our recent trip to a park in Cēsis, we managed to collect quite a good amount of acorns and chestnuts, which have now started falling down from the trees, as the fall is approaching. Mom told us that in her childhood, she used to make great crafts from acorns and chestnuts. The next morning, we transformed our study time into an extended arts session (homeschooling rules!), spending a few hours making all kinds of figures out of our collected findings. We realized that immagination is all we need for coming up with as many different crafts from acorns and chestnuts as we like. In the pictures below, take a look at our raw material and the collection of ready made figures. For a more detailed look at each figure, click here: crafts from acrons and chestnuts