Bye Bye, Daddy. Hello, Daddy!
Daddy was gone for less than a week this time, and Monkey and Bug were very happy to have a countable count down. This time, in addition to having the "Daddy TVs" to watch, he happened to send them a fist bump via picture text before he went off the grid. Having a Daddy fist bump on hand staved off more than one of Goose's meltdowns this week!

Nature Journal
I've read about nature/observation journals in a number of places, and I always thought, "That'll be so much fun when the girls are big enough!" However, they've been so enthusiastically exploring the outdoors and really getting into their field guides that I decided there was no point in waiting "until they were big enough." I explained the concept to three excited little girls, and we made a special trip to the store to buy a proper sketchbook. At this point they pick the topic, I write down what they dictate, and they've collected specimens (a new word for their vocabulary). I'm looking forward to having their drawings in there soon, too. Their first topic of study: ants! First on the agenda of course was to find some--unfortunately, a pretty easy task where we live. For closer observation, I caught a few on pieces of scotch tape, which Monkey and Bug insisted should be put inside our book. They gleefully ran inside to retrieve our magnifying glass and handheld microscope for an even better look. We looked them up in our field guide, read the paragraph and compared the pictures to determine, which kind of ant we have. Then the girls dictated a list of all the things they know about ants (topped by "They bite!"). Finally, we wrapped up with a rousing rendition of "The Ants Go Marching." Later this week we spotted a huge anthill in the median of a parking lot and stopped for a few moments to observe all the scurrying around.

Math
We played more games of Magic this week, so the girls got lots of practice in counting, addition, and greater than/less than comparisons. This week I decided to step up the game and made them actual counters instead of letting them add up their cards on my fingers. They now each have a small Gladware container with 20 squares cut from foamy sheets. Goose insisted on participating of course, so she also has a container with 5 squares, which she happily counts out while we play: "free, free, free, . . . " Playing with the counters has hardly been limited to while we're playing Magic. Monkey and Bug have had a great time stacking them, arranging them in various patterns, and dividing them into groups of different numbers, which means they're discovering things like "there are 2 tens in 20."

Heidi
We finished reading Heidi this week, and I let them start watching a movie version (it's about 3 hours long, so we'll finish it eventually). They are much bigger fans of the book than the movie (these apples didn't fall far from the tree, did they?). What's been particularly interesting to me is that they haven't been nearly as taken with Heidi and the goats as they have been with Clara and her wheelchair. They've spent lots of time pushing each other or a stuffed animal around in a kid-size rocking chair attempting to navigate our house while only one of them can walk. They've also been playing doctor quite a bit, and Goose has made a very willing patient, although she's not terribly good at answering questions about her well-being.

Library Day
It was another quiet library day, with just one other little boy and his mom in the kids section. He sat in on some of our story reading. The librarian made sure we knew that storytime starts up again in just a few weeks. I love having a library where they know us by name! This week we came home with these books:
Father Comes Home (Little Bear)
Fairy Poems by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Sheep in a Shop
Just One Bite
I'm Going Now! (Elephant & Piggie)
Starting Life: Butterfly (what they wanted to learn about this week)

FOUR Years Old!
Monkey and Bug turned 4 years old this week! This is the first birthday they've actually been aware of ages, so it was a big deal for them. The day started with coloring projects from Uncle K and Aunt A and Aunt E.

We decided to skip the big party for our little introverts, and instead opened presents with just our family, had one of their favorite meals for dinner, and invited our next door neighbors, Mr. S and Miss N and their daughter LA, to come over and play. Miss N offered to make them "fancy cakes" in their favorite colors for their birthday--very popular (and tasty)! The grown ups got to chat, the kids got to play with the new toys, and everybody had a great time.

Thanks to generous grandparents the entourage started their Playmobil collection for their birthday, and they have spent hours since then taking their "little people" on adventures--visiting the doctor, fighting bad guys, playing house, going fishing, going camping, going shopping . . . the possibilities are endless!

The next day they went straight to the Playmobil sets!
They didn't even bother eating breakfast first.

Magic Math
As a testament to the true geekiness of this family, Monkey and Bug have been asking me to teach them to play Magic: The Gathering for weeks. (For the uninformed, Magic is a strategy game involving battles between mythical creatures played with trading cards.) While the actual game is above their ability, it finally dawned on me that I could come up with a simplified version, which they love! Most of the time, Monkey is the first to lose interest in an organized game, and it usually happens pretty quickly. Not with this game! She was highly motivated to see what creature she would draw from the deck next (Dragon Hatchlings and Invading Fairies were her favorite cards), and she was very willing to do the math to figure out whose creature would win a fight (each card has two numbers at the bottom; I have the girls add the numbers and compare cards; whoever has the larger number wins the fight). Bug is also a big fan, of course, and we discovered that she is capable of doing math in her head. At some point, when we each presented our chosen card, she quickly declared that we tied. When I asked why, she explained: "Because I have 2 and 2, and you have 3 and 1, so we both have 4!"

Job Charts
We decided that as part of Monkey and Bug being 4 years old, and therefore old enough for more responsibilities, they now each have a job chart that includes tasks for keeping up their own well-being (like brushing their teeth) and for helping with the household (like feeding the cat and participating in the nightly clean up of toys). They get to put a sticker over the clip art that represents each job as the task is done. Right now it just lists the jobs they already do, but I'll be adding new jobs over time as I decide I'm ready to fully enforce their getting done. So far, the charts are a big hit--we'll see how long the novelty lasts!

Playgroup
With the academic school year starting up for the rest of America, our homeschool group is also in full swing again! Things are a little more formally organized this year since someone volunteered to lead a real gym class for the elementary school aged kids. (We even have a list of tentative field trips for the school year--looks like fun!) For the preschool set, there's a gathering to include storytime, crafts, games, songs, or whatever the mom volunteering to lead that week decides to do. Somehow I ended up as coordinator of this gathering, and my first week leading went really well. I shared Pete the Cat with 8 little ones and 3 moms, and everybody brought crayons for Pete the Cat coloring sheets I brought. Then we migrated to the gym and the little ones got to run around and play with basketballs on one side while the big kids finished up their gym class on the other. Despite not having this gathering all summer, the entourage jumped right into the chaos and had a blast. They were particularly excited because their friends N and G are in the group this year.

Outside!
It's finally a little cooler in the evenings, and we've been regularly going outside to play with their friend LA after dinner. They've been organizing alot of races around our postage stamp yards, but so far they've been declaring each girl the winner when she crosses the designated finish line.

We pulled out the field guides again this week. Goose pored over the insect guide, while Monkey, Bug and I identified the trees in our and our neighbors' yards.

For the entourage's Daddy Date Night this week, they bought and assembled a bench for our front porch. They were quite proudly sitting on their creation when I came home from my pilates class. It's going to get a lot of use!

Daddy's Home!
The biggest event of the week actually came at the end of the week: We got to pick up Daddy from the airport! We are all really excited to have him home again, and the entourage has already gotten in lots of snuggling and roughhousing. Goose continues to occassionally exclaim, "Daddy home!"

Daddy also brought with him two new games for the girls. One is a magnetic fishing game, and they have already inquired about the names of all the different creatures in the game (turtle, seahorse, saw fish, etc.). The other was a pack of playing cards with cartoon camels on them. Daddy taught the Monkey and Bug how to play War, which they really enjoyed.

Field Guides
We actually used our field guides for the first time this week, and the girls have spent plenty of time since then just looking through them. We used the insect one to read about cicadas (we found one in the front yard) and praying mantises (we found one on the patio) and to identify the kind of evergreen in the woods behind our house (longleaf pine tree). For the last, we used a chart of leaf samples to narrow down that it was a pine tree, then we went throught the pine tree section comparing the shapes of the trees and looking at the maps on each page to see if each tree lived where we do.
Overheard
Bug explaining the following while she was teaching Monkey how to make rockets out of a set of magnetic pyramids: "Rockets go into space. Do you know what space is? Space is big and dark. And it has one sun and one moon always up at the same time, but they follow different paths, so part of the world is bright and part of the world is dark." After a fleet of rockets had been completed, Monkey decided that our house was a rocket and informed me that soon we'd be blasting off to go "up higher than the trees and the clouds and into space."

The entourage hijacking the the Three Bears story and enacting it as follows: The three bears (Monkey, Bug, and a teddy bear) stay home while the porridge cools. Goldilocks (Goose) shows up and the bears are the perfect hostesses. They pull up an extra chair, serve Goldilocks her own porridge as well as a cup of tea. Nothing gets broken, and everyone has a lovely time.

Projects

Monkey and Bug finally dug into the collage materials box that I've been filling. This is the first time they've used glue bottles instead of glue sticks, and we're still working on how much glue is really necessary. They loved showing me all the odds and ends they "discovered" and had a blast getting them all onto paper.

This week I also decided to attempt working on my own project while the entourage was awake (a very ambitious cross-stitch project that I've picked up off and on since before any members of the entourage were born). It worked! And, of course, it spiked their own interest in sewing projects. I set them up with pieces of felt and embrodery needles and floss. I showed them a couple of sample stitches and they took it from there. Pictures didn't show up, but Monkey made remarkably neat stitches around the edge, while Bug decided to concentrate a vast number of stitches in one corner of the felt.

We also made a trip to the fabric store this week, which resulted in an impulse buy of a $1 bag of a variety of pretty beads. Monkey and Bug made bracelets while Goose played with a pile of colored noodles and a string.

Math
This week Monkey grasped the pattern in counting (repetitions of 1-9) and with my assistance counted all the way up to 50! She accomplished this by lining up Bug and a number of dolls on the couch and counting all of their toes. Monkey and Bug also like to play a game with their fingers that involves adding/multiplying/counting depending on how you look at it. First, they hold up both hands open, "How many is 2 fives?" Then, closing one finger, "How many is 2 fours?" and so on all the way down to 2 zeroes. Sometimes I tell them the answer, but more often I make them figure it out. Of course, playing War also involves numbers and figuring out more and less than.

Reading
Our reading lessons continue. They've added officially added the letter r, and they're realizing that they know a lot more letters sounds that we haven't formally covered yet, which they think is pretty exciting. This week Bug even sounded out her first word outside of our lessons: We got a new book in the mail called Zoom! and Bug noted that z-o-o spells zoo. I pointed out that she knew the last letter sound too and she pulled it all together by herself. She was so proud! I also made the girls a reading toy/game out of paint cards from Walmart that include the words they know how to read from our text book.

We've also started reading the Illustrated Classic edition of Heidi, a choice inspired by a picture book they enjoyed while visiting Nana and Papa Bear.

Goose now kind of has memorized a few of her favorite books (Pete the Cat and Go, Dog, Go! among them). One of her favorite activities recently has been to pull a stack of books off the shelf and settle in on the floor leaning against the couch to look at them. At some point this love of books got the best of her. We heard a little voice yelling "I stuck! I stuck!" and Daddy walked around the corner to discover Goose pinned beneath a stack of about a dozen books she'd been attempted to carry all at once.

Library Day
This week we came home with these books:
Bedtime for Frances
Little Bear (the original, not the ones based on the TV show)
Matthew's Dream
Kittens Are Like That
Honey Bees (These last two were our "What do you want to learn about this week?" books)

We ended up at the mall playground twice this week, and the entourage loved it.
They tried to climb to the top of everything. Photos of Monkey successfully atop a caterpillar,
and Bug attempting to climb the tree--they actually got several feet up the trunk.

Dance Party
Our big social event this week was an end-of-summer dance and pizza party at church. Monkey and Bug were expectedly a bit overwhelmed by the situation, so we ate our dinner first and took it all in. The ice was broken when the big kids left the dance floor to eat and half a dozen fellow preschoolers took over. Shrieking, giggling, leaping, spinning, jumping and running ensued. Goose and another toddler probably spent more time on the dance floor than anybody else. Goose in particular loved when everybody returned to the floor for the Hokey Pokey. Monkey and Bug decided to sit out the organized dance, but Goose and I participated in every verse.

Library Day
Storytime is on a hiatus until the fall program starts up, so it was just us and a nice quiet library. We came home with:
Milk Makers (they wanted to learn about cows this week)
On Beyond Zebra
Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late!
Elephant & Piggie: I Love My New Toy!
Brave Charlotte
The Black Swan

Dentist
Our visit to the dentist this week was mostly educational for me in that it confirmed how much I really need to prepare the girls for big events like this (I forgot we had the appointment until the night before) and how much I really dislike having to join the dental hygienist in physically restraining a screaming, flailing preschooler, so the dentist can pry her mouth open to get a quick look inside (we only took this drastic measure after spending the better part of an hour trying to get her to cooperate). Meanwhile, Goose played quite happily with the office manager, and the third sister did a beautiful job and practically fell asleep in the dentist chair.

Zoo Day
This was our fourth visit to this particular zoo this summer, so this time we went with a couple of particular goals instead of trying to see everything. This meant of course that we started by practicing map reading to see what paths we could need to take to get to our destinations. First, we went to visit the new calf in the farmyard section, and all three girls pet her. Conveniently enough we had checked out that book about dairy cows, and Monkey and Bug figured out whether she was the kind of cow who gives milk and we discussed the whole cow to store process. Next we rode the train, which they loved! Each car is painted with an animal print, so we spent some of the ride figuring out what animals they were from. After this we decided to go exploring and crossed the bridge into the Botanical Garden. We found a nice paved trail through the woods along the river where we admired lots of moss and lichen covered rocks and discovered a number of different nuts and leaves on the trail. (We decided next time we come we're going to bring our field guide and actually read about this stuff). We got back to the zoo in time to attend the zoo keeper talk about gorillas and watch feeding time. Of course, we stopped briefly to watch some of the animals we passed on the way to and from these stops, and everyone had a great time. 


We're riding a TRAIN!

The entourage explores a trail in the botanical garden

Reading/Literature
Monkey and Bug continued their reading lessons, but at a much slower pace this week. We did lots of reviewing of sounds and skills, and the letter t has been introduced. Bug informed me that her favorite parts of reading lessons are sounding out words (2 and 3 letters) and practicing writing. This week they both figured out how the write the letters s and t all by themselves. They've also independently been practicing writing their names all by themselves. Bug's got it down; although it sometimes comes out backwards. Monkey still needs help spelling hers and remembering what the last couple of letters look like (this is no indication of a lack of skill--she has a significantly longer name than Bug does).

In addition to all the usual picture books, we've gotten into the Jungle Book again, and this week we had Netflix deliver the Disney version. Although they enjoyed identifying characters as they appeared on screen, they noted several glaring discrepancies between the book and the movie. The ones that particularly stood out to them are that the movie made a Kaa the python a bad guy (he rescues Mowgli from the monkeys in the book) and the movie didn't show Mowgli all grown up as the book does.

"Look, Mommy! It's Bagheera!"
(confession: Monkey asked me to draw the shape of a jaguar for her,
then she decided it would be Bagheera instead)

 Et cetera

• We pulled out our "big pool" again this week, and even Goose got in this time! Monkey and Bug continued practicing starfish floats and putting their face underwater. They each also discovered what fun it is to hold her hand over the end the hose and let the water spray through her fingers and onto her shrieking sisters.
• Thanks to my temporary incompentence in getting our ladder to extend our garage didn't have lights for awhile. The entourage took advantage of this and requested a flashlight. I overheard them checking out all the nifty shadows they created and talking about how things look different when you shine light on them. Bug panicked, however, when Monkey closed the door and clicked off the flashlight. Monkey, of course, thought this hilarious. 
• Monkey figured out how to count backwards this week, and both Monkey and Bug did lots of counting in general, though we're still straightening out that 19 does not come after 15--there are several more numbers in there!
• The entourage did a lot of coloring on big paper this week! (Goose unfortunately also colored on the walls. I'm not nearly as excited about that.) Monkey and Bug mostly still scribble, but they are starting to draw more actual objects and the scribbles are starting to have purpose (for example, Monkey drew a sunset over the ocean with scribbles of all the right colors in the right places). They also spent time drawing on their white boards, and on Saturday we pulled out the watercolors.

Goose had far more success and fun in painting herself than her paper.

This week we had our own "big trip" while Daddy was gone and went to visit Nana and Papa Bear. The girls were fantastic travelers, and they spent a fair amount of time trying to remember things about Nana and Papa Bear's house (we haven't been in over a year; although they've come to visit us). There were loud cheers coming from the backseat the moment we turned onto their road!

Movies of Books

On the drive to Nana and Papa Bear's we pulled out the portable DVD player (a lifesaver on these long roadtrips), and the entourage was very excited about watching Disney's Peter Pan since we recently finished reading the book. They noted that Tinker Bell looks very different from the book pictures, but that Peter Pan still rescues his friends, and that Captain Hook is still silly. While at Nana and Papa Bear's, we also watched the Wizard of Oz (One of Papa Bear's favorite movies, so that worked out nicely). Monkey was absolutely enthralled. Bug was scared of the witch and the flying monkeys, but it definitely helped that we had read the book and she knew that Dorothy would get home in the end.

Swimming

We went to a church pool party with Nana and Papa Bear, and Monkey and Bug loved being able to show off their skills to such an appreciative audience. This was another pool where they could touch the bottom. Goose loved having an adult's undivided attention the whole time, so she never had to be fished out when she jumped in. This pool also had a real kiddie pool that was probably a foot or so deep that Goose loved bouncing in. She even made a new friend who had a bottle she could make bubbles underwater with--very popular.

Zoo Day

Tuesday morning Nana and Papa Bear took the entourage to the zoo, and I got a morning off. They were very excited to tell me all about it when they got home! They saw lots of animals (zebras, elephants, and flamigos among the favorites; the howler monkeys were disappointingly out of sight), remembered to squish pennies (our family's tradition), and even got to ride the carousel.

Gone Fishin'

I don't remember anymore what initiated it, but Monkey and Bug have been insisting for months that when we went to Nana and Papa Bear's they wanted Papa Bear to take them fishing. He was more than happy to oblige and bought them little poles for the purpose. He made a pretend one for Goose with a dowel rod, a bit of string, and a wooden fish that she loved. The actual stand-at-the-edge-of-the-lake-and-fish part didn't last long, but the girls were fanscinated with the process and particularly with the live worms used as bait (Bug, peering at the wiggly worm on her hook: "Does that worm know he has a hole in him?"). Monkey and Bug didn't catch anything, but Papa Bear did! They were pretty excited to see the fish up close, but disappointed that we had to throw it back instead of eating it.

Perhaps as much the fishing, they loved the hayride that Papa Bear rigged up for them in a trailer behind his big riding mower to get them to and from the fishing spot, and the watermelon that Nana had waiting for us when we got back to the house. It was one of those evenings that perfect childhood memories are made of!

Bookstore!

We didn't have library day this week, but we did visit an absolutely fabulous used bookstore about 45 minutes from Nana and Papa Bear's house. The girls had a good time looking at books and getting Nana to read some, and we came home with the following books to add to our library:

• King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, Heidi (these three are Illustrated Classics the girls picked out)
• Whinnie the Pooh (the A. A. Milne chapter book, not the Disney versions)
• The Wizard of Oz (a nicely illustrated original; we've already started reading this one at their insistence)
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• The Golden Guide to Birds, The Golden Guide to Trees, A First Guide to Insects (these three are small full-color field guides that you might say will be a large part of our science "curriculum" for the next couple of years at least)
• Half a dozen or more small Bible story books to put in rotation in the girls busy bag for church.
• We also came home with a book for me to read, Frames of Mind, about multiple intelligences, which I expect will be influential in the entourage's education for years to come.

We ate at a Japanese restaurant one night,
and Monkey proved pretty adept with chopsticks.

Nana and Papa Bear's neighbors have a couple of pet ducks that we went to visit.
Goose, at least, thought it was great and was willing to feed and pet the ducks.