Monday, October 7, 2013

Kloocheh

Oh my! This was once a treat that for it to be truly authentic, one had to travel on the craziest road on earth from Tehran, to the Caspian Sea. Now, lo and behold, it can be purchased at the new Persian Bakery found right here in Edmonton, Alberta. It was glorious, and delicious. This particular Kloocheh was brought in, I'm pretty sure, from Vancouver, but I am assured by the non-English speaking baker that he will be making them from scratch in-house within a week or two of opening. Good thing I know Farsi. They had walnut, coconut and one other filling, that escapes me presently, but the taste was divine.




Sorry, I've forgotten the name of the bakery, but it's next to the newly relocated  Sabzy restaurant at 9314-34 Ave. Edmonton.  Sabzy is a great restaurant, that while on Whyte Ave. was too expensive. The food is wonderful, and one can only hope that they will be able to offer lower pricing - b/c let's face it, no matter how good, $50 for two to eat lunch isn't going to happen too often. 

HomeSchool at Grammies - Art and Writing

Here are photos of our first few classes in the new school room (craft room) - we manage to get together once a week, for 2 lessons in both Art and Writing. It's been so fun - the children are excited to learn, a testimony to their mother's remarkable views and dedication to nurturing their love of learning. It's really something to see - they are absolutely unabashedly happy to learn whatever lesson comes up for the day. We have used art pencils, crayons, play dough, and watercolours so far, whilst painting the sky ("Grammie, there are no clouds in the sky - it's just blue!" " Go back out and take all your blue pencil crayons, and see how many blues you see!" was the reply) outside on a blanket, drawing with  music, and another day while listening to a story...all to get the creative juices flowing.





Here we are in our new 'classroom' upstairs - it's a beautiful space to teach and learn in - with plenty of natural light, and inspiration int he form of books and materials.






Writing is our other pursuit; the children do tons of writing already, at home, so we have gone back to the beginning to refine grammar and punctuation. They are so quick to learn - it's hilarious - even poems are gobbled up like candy. They are so quick to memorize - and that includes Scarlet who has her own Grammie School day  - she's equally eager to work hard and learn!

Jane, Charlie, and Jacob memorized The Goops By Gillett Burgess in a few minutes and Scarlet and Jacob learned The Caterpillar by Christina Rosetti equally quickly - we'll move on to more difficult material once we work into it a little...what we're doing now is probably not challenging enough.

Our class motto, for which we have been mocked (haha) is:

"In the circle of creativity, we are free to be we!" We say it together, of course if you were to say it on your own, you would say "I am free to be me!"











Notice Scarlet's grammie bun :)

Last day we had to make a few rules...one of which is that to learn, play, and create the way we want to, we have to all be free to make a few mistakes without them being quickly pointed out by each other...so basically we each have to let each other be, while each person figures out their own mistakes. There was a little too much unsolicited criticism and correcting (which is my job), but I think we have put a stop to it. We'll see next day.



Thursday, October 3, 2013

More Scarves...One Good Thing about the end of Summer


More scarves many of which were gifts from friends and family...the 2nd one from the top is a lovely scarf from my mom - a gift for my birthday, the there's the orange fringe scarf from Sorour, and the next one down, pink, from my sweet cousin Brenda. The bottom too are gossamer thin cashmere scarves from Restoration Hardware's after Christmas sale last season - they are the most wonderful endless loop scarves - perfect for my next visit to Iran b/c they are so light and airy...and breathable. I get hot with a scarf on all the time!

I love scarves, even though I'm not technically a 'scarf' person in terms of wearing them in fancy ways, I still like to recall where they came from and they look so nice on the shelf! It's a refrain of mine... "look at all the pretty colours!"  I do wear them too, I promise!