Knorr Family Adventures

We haven't traveled much this month, just trying to finish up setting some stuff at the house plus the weather is not really that great for going places - hankering around 32F with constant rain.  Anyway, below are some pictures from the weekend.  Lusha is working on the sticker book that Suzanne got in Paris (putting uniforms on soldiers starting from ancient Rome to Napolean's army to both World Wars and US generals), then the whole family was learning about tessellations (lizard project).  The last set of pictures is from the kids putting on a show in the basement.  Ilya did a combo of rhythmic gymnastics with a dance routine that he came up with all by himself and Andrei did martial arts demonstration.  Anton was driving his little car around :)

I would like to start by saying that this post is specifically talking about the school that boys are attending which is a private bilingual school and not a general German public school.  The school is a loosely based Montessori type of school where kids work at their own speed on the subjects they want to work.  The classrooms have grades 1 through 4 in the same classroom.  What it means in reality is 2 things: 1) if the kids feel like doing math and not German, then that's what they do - there is no regular structure where one class follows another; 2) teachers spend a couple of minutes explaining the material to a small group of kids who might be on the same topic but a lot of times kids are on their own for doing work. This last week we meet with the teachers for all 3 boys.  Here is the summary starting with the youngest. Anton Adjusted to school really well, eats most of the food given (and a lot of it), plays nicely with kids but sometimes can be a littl...

For some reason since we have arrived in Germany, my older boys have ripped most of their pants and we are now in dire need of pants for them.  In USA, this would be easily solved by a trip to a number of various stores such as Macy's, Gymboree, or anything else I would have a coupon for.  Here, however, things are a little more complicated.  Yesterday, I stopped by a department store Karstadt which had the maybe 10 pairs of pants to choose from (in the boys section) with most of them either costing 40 euros (definitely not in the budget!) or they have skinny leg which Andrei does not like.  So today, after I dropped the kids off at school, I went to the local mall.  I've been there a couple of times before and it's a rather large open air space that has a lot of stores but not a single map.  I kind of knew where was I going - C&A which seems to have a decent selection for decent prices.  I spent the next 45 minutes in the store but walked out with...

It's been very interesting to find (or not be able to find) some products here that we were very used to having.  Below is a prime example - product I love and very useful to have with 3 kids: Wetjet.  Simple spray with a little disposable pad, nothing to it,  bought at Target. Oh, how much I miss Target!!!  American cost is under $20, price in Germany is over 150 euros!!!