Asia:Russia 

Do Now: Invent a new sea creature. What does it look like? What is it called?

Today we continued our study of Asia, moving on to the world's largest country: Russia. 

We were very lucky to have 2 guests, Mr. and Mrs. Lushtak. The Lushtaks have two children in our 1st and 2nd grade classroom, and all four of them were born in Russia! Mr. Lushtak and the two children left Russia when they were very young, while Mrs. Lushtak spent most of her life in Russia. 

They told us know that today is a very big holiday in Russia, because it is the 70th anniversary of the end of the Siege of Leningrad during World War II. 

Next, Mrs. Lushtak shared with us her experiences of going to school in Russia. School is only from 9am-12pm, but it is 6 days a week!

Mr. Lushtak is a musician, and he brought in his guitar to sing us some Russian songs! The whole family helped sing along. 

After some more stories, students had a chance to ask the Lushtaks additional questions. While they asked, we began to work on our project, Russian Nesting Dolls. 

Russian Nesting Dolls, called "Matryoshka" or "Little Mother" in Russian, are wooden toys invented in Russia in the late 1800s. 

Mr. Lushtak showed us how to write "Matryoshka" using Russian letters.

For our project, we colored in Matryoshka dolls, cut them out, and arranged them in size order from largest to smallest. Many students are still working on their projects, so take a look at what we have so far…