Nature Park
We started off the week with a trip to a nature park about 20 minutes away and had a fantastic time. It has a relatively short loop trail, so it works beautifully for an outing with the entourage. We brought our  nature journal with us, of course, along with several field guides at Bug's suggestion. We took lots of pictures of things to put in our journal and stopped at a gazebo to make rubbings of leaves we collected along the trail. We stopped at the pond, and the girls asked about a drain-looking thing out in the middle. They speculated that it might be for sucking up the water, but then they worried about the fish and we decided to track down a worker to answer their questions. We found one who was very excited to answer the questions of a preschooler (Bug was brave enough to ask him herself!). It turned out their original theory was right! When the water reaches a certain level, it goes down the drain and gets carried to the wetlands a couple dozen yards away. He assured the girls that the fish would be fine. In our attempt to find a knowledgeable worker, we stumbled into the interpretive center, and the entourage spent quite a while poring over pinned bugs and taxidermied local wildlife. Fascinating.

They had a great time trying to balance on the cypress knees.

Everybody loves a taxidermied beast!

Lessons
Reading lessons continue daily! We went back to lesson 1, and I sit with each girl separately. This has worked out well since they're definitely absorbing all this at different speeds. Whoever isn't actively participating usually sits nearby and colors or looks at books. I figure it can't hurt for them to hear it an extra time anyway. This week I also started keeping an eye out for words in regular books that I know they could sound out, and I walk them through it. By the end of this week they read 4 pages in a Bob Book! (tiny paperback readers that follow the same letter order/phonics concepts that our curriculum does) I think this has provided the breakthrough in helping them understand that reading means sounding out, not just memorizing.

Also as part of our lessons time this week we made a number line and an alphabet line. We used bulletin board borders, and I wrote with a Sharpie while they looked over my shoulder and told me what came next. Our number line goes up to 20, and they almost know it (the upper teens are still iffy). Our alphabet line includes uppercase and lowercase letters, and its creation involved lots of renditions of the ABC song as they tried to remember what letter came next.

We've been rereading The Wizard of Oz during our lessons time as well at their request. I think they realized that it's easier to get through chapter books without Goose around, and this book is definitely their favorite so far!

Library Day
The girls loved the craft at storytime this week. The theme was bears, and they made bear paper bag puppets. Watching their coloring styles was pretty fascinating. Goose colored a few faint random scribbles before going roaring around the room with it. Bug picked out two colors (one as an overall color and the other for accents like eyebrows and nose), and methodically filled in the spaces. Monkey picked up one crayon after another, putting down layers of color within the prominent facial features. She commented when she was done that she like how the colors looked all mixed up together.

Left to right: Monkey, Goose, and Bug

We came home with lots of books this week:
Turk and Runt
Hey, Mama Goose
Four Scary Stories (a Tomie dePaola book about imps and goblins being scared of kids)
Pigs Make Me Sneeze!
A Kiss for Little Bear
Best Buds
I Spy Super Challenger! (This is a game book, not a storybook, and the girls have had a great time challenging each other to find items in the pictures.)
Klondike Gold
Jellyfish
Farm Animals (The previous two were our "What do you want to learn about?" books.)

Costumes
The girls have been loving the new additions to the dress up box! Almost everyday they come up with an idea for what they want to be for Halloween, so I'm curious to see what they actually end up wearing. Monkey pretty consistently goes for some version of Captain Hook (what is it with this girl's fixation on the bad guys!?). Bug marched into the living room one afternoon and informed me that she was The Greatest One. I had to agree with her: she had on a queen's crown, a police vest, fairy wings, and a superhero cape (she may also have been wielding a light saber). Goose will wear anything she can actually put on herself, which usually involves her purple sparkly fedora and a variety of shiny necklaces and bracelets.

Projects
We pulled out the paints this week, and the girls are getting far more intentional with their creations. Well, Goose still scribbles obviously, but she's getting a better part of the paint on the paper now. Monkey painted a robot with a bird overhead, a dinosaur on each side, and snake curled up at the bottom. Bug used a dot paint marker to create two neat lines, then turned them into flowers using a crayon.

Left to right: Monkey, Goose, and Bug

Pet Store Field Trip
We joined our homeschool group for a field trip to the pet store this week. One of the workers led us around the store  and took a number of animals out of their cages for the kids to look at and touch while she talked about them: a couple of turtles, a variety of lizards, a ball python, a guinea pig, and several ferrets (who actually got to run around a bit with the kids). The girls had fun but they never did get brave enough to actually touch anything (Of course, I think Bug was more put off by the fact that she'd have to use hand sanitizer afterward than the animals themselves.) Perhaps the cutest moment was Goose putting a finger to lips and whispering to the big kids to "Shshsh! Quiet!" when the worker brought the reptiles out.

Meet Oswald
The entourage has a new pet! A photographer friend of ours rescued a number of goldfish who were being used as centerpieces for a wedding she photographed, and she convinced me to let the girls have one. Bug suggested the name Oswald, and Monkey thought it was a brilliant choice (Goose just calls him "go-fish"). They asked if they could keep him in their room (on the dresser, so Goose and our cat couldn't reach him). I agreed, and they've so far been very faithful to feed him and keep an eye on his water quality.

Watches
Monkey has been fascinated by knowing what time it for a while, and Bug has been asking for a watch for ages. At first, I told them they could have watches when they learned how to tell time, but then a homeschool book I was reading (Joyful Homeschooling by Mary Hood--love it!) suggested buying the kid a watch and frequently asking them what time it was as a way to teach them how to tell time. That made sense to me, so this week I let them pick out watches (it had to have all 12 numbers on it, so that limited their options). Of course, now that they own them they haven't actually worn them much, but at least now they're available when they decide they're into it again.

Pumpkin
It seems to be a tradition now: The entourage has no interest in carving a face on our pumpkin. They'd rather eat it! This year Bug requested that we make pumpkin soup. Of course, the girls favorite part was the initial cutting up of the pumpkin. Monkey and I were quite cheerfully up to our elbows in pumpkin guts, and Goose helped us pick out the seeds to give to Bug who carefully rinsed them off and placed them on a paper towels to dry before we roasted them. Yum! That crunchy treat served as a good appetizer while we (ok, mostly me) did the rest of the work: cutting, peeling, boiling, pureeing, draining, and finally adding the additional ingredients for a really tasty soup! We had fun with the process and loved the result, but I've declared this a once a year project--any further pots of pumpkin soup will be made with the canned stuff!

Lessons
Lessons continue, but Monkey and Bug's enthusiasm in the moment is pretty hit or miss. They are, however, consistently excited about the fact that they're learning to read when we're not actually doing a lesson, so I'm going to persevere until it clicks. This week we ran into a hurdle in getting them to sound out words by themselves instead of following my lead, so we'll be going back to some earlier lessons to strengthen their confidence in their sounding out skills.

At one point this week Bug got several pages ahead of Monkey (I think the gap will be closing soon). I was worried about how we'd handle their being in different places, but having separate lessons actually turned out to be a good thing. Getting them through the tasks individually made me realize that the curriculum was set up to support Bug's love language (words of encouragement), but not Monkey's (physical touch). Fortunately, that was a problem easily fixed by pulling Monkey into my lap for her lesson and giving out high fives, fist bumps, and hugs for tasks well done. (To anyone not familiar with the concept of love languages I highly recommend any of Gary Chapman's books. They've made a huge, positive difference in our family and marriage.)

Zoo Day!
Our homeschool playgroup got cancelled this week, so the girls and I decided to spend a day at the zoo--always a popular event! It was a lovely, cool weekday morning, so the zoo was practically empty and the animals were far more active than we've seen them, which was fun. The big cats in particular were fun since we got to see more than just a patch of fur through the bushes. We also ended up talking alot about what or how different animals eat (did you know flamingos eat with their heads upside down?) and talked about omnivores, carnivores, and vegetarians. The big excitement, though, was that we decided to ride the carousel this time. So many smiles and giggles!

Monkey sitting on some  penguin "eggs" to keep them warm

Library Day
Storytime had a numbers focus this week, and the craft was making numbers flashcards (notecards with a numeral printed on it and instructions to place the correct number of stickers on each card). The entourage was more interested in the stickers themselves than the counting, and they all lost interest before they got to 10). The entourage ended up picking out all the books this week, and we came home with these:
Merry Christmas, Maisy!
STUFF!
Barkely
Leaving Vietnam
Visual Guide to the 500 Most Popular Freshwater Aquarium Fish (They wanted to learn about goldfish this week--for obvious reasons--and this was the only one I could find)
Once upon a Bedtime Story (a treasury we kept from last week since there were so many stories we didn't get to yet. So far, "Stone Soup" is their favorite)

Deep Thoughts
Car rides seem to be give the girls time to think deep thoughts and ask big questions, so we have a lot of really good discussions between point A and point B. This week we talked about:

• What does God do?
• We say God made everything, but what about cars or buildings?
• Why did the soldiers hurt Jesus? 
• What did Jesus say before he died?
• Why is the Bible important?

Of course, not all discussions are so profound. For example, this week's rides also included a giggle-filled "argument" over which backseat occupant passed gas. Some of my favorite lines: Goose - "I not fart. I [Goose]!" Bug - "I didn't fart! My buns were laughing!" So, I guess we know who the culprit was!

Fancy Party
This week Daddy and I attended a military ball, which the girls got to come to (child care was provided on-site). The entourage loved watching us get dressed up, getting to go in a really fancy hotel, and being allowed to stay up late. Even when we left at 2230 they were wide-eyed as we passed through the crowd of fancy uniforms and evening gowns. And, of course, Mommy and Daddy thoroughly enjoyed an evening among grown ups!

Lessons
We made some changes to the daily routine this week when two unrelated issues were resolved. First, Monkey and Bug rarely sleep at naptime anymore and instead that time had become a near daily battle over being quiet and staying in one place. Second, Monkey and Bug's self-declared goal of learning to read when they were 4 had come to a standstill. Daddy and I discussed both of these things and possible solutions, but they both came to a head with a serious disussion between Monkey, Bug, and I following our pre-naptime storytime.

Goose was down for her nap, and Monkey and Bug insisted they were not tired at all. I was sympathetic and explained the need for at least a quiet time (Mommy's an introvert, just like them; we need time alone, so we won't be grumpy. We spend enough time together that they understand this concept.) We came to a compromise: Since they are 4 now and don't need as much sleep, they can do a shorter quiet time, not in a bed, but they have to actually be alone for a solid 30 minutes.

Since they were paying attention and taking it all very seriously, I decided to segue to the next issue: "Speaking of being 4 years old, remember, how you told me when you were 4 you wanted to learn how to read?" Eyes brightened. I apologized for not reminding them about doing reading lessons more often and suggested that maybe if we decided on a special time everyday just for lessons we would remember to do them. They agreed that this sounded like a good idea, and we talked about how they learn things all the time just by playing but some things are easier to learn if you have a grown up who already knows how to help you. I asked them when they thought would be a good time. A moment of silence. Then Monkey suggested it needed to be a time without Goose (she's too little for lessons and she interrupts a lot). I agreed. Another moment of deep thought. "Naptime!" So, for the past several days, when the timer for quiet time goes off, we gather in the study for a brief reading lesson (we do about half of a lesson per day) and a math "lesson" (I gathered our mathy games upstairs, and giving the girls the choice of which to do first gives them more ownership of the time).

So far, so good! We've yet to add an additional letter sound, but they're reviewing the ones they know (m, s, a, r, t, e), working on the reading skills needed to sound out words, and practicing writing letters. For math we're working numbers 1-20 (counting objects and recognizing numerals), very simple addition with counters, and skills like sorting and patterns.

Costumes
I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, but we decided to take advantage of the plethora of costumes available now to add to our dress up box. Rather than buy full-body character costumes, we headed to Jo Ann's with $30 to spend on generic bits and pieces. We came home with costume starters for a pirate, fairies, a police officer, princesses/queens, a firefighter, and superheroes (or whoever else decides to wear a cape). And, of course, the girls were in on the important skills of budgeting and bargain shopping.

a "queen rescuer," a baby fairy, and a firefighter

Showing off their new capes
(adult large t-shirts minus the front and the sleeves)

Goodbye, Friends
On Monday we had Miss K and her boys, N and G, over for one last playdate. The kids had a fantastic time as usual. This time they played with Playmobil people and blocks, then went outside to climb on the dome and cover it and the fence with chalk drawings. Miss K and I enjoyed our last in-person chat, and we explained to the kids about them moving away on Friday. Goose was oblivious, and Monkey and Bug seemed to handle it well. Bug even exclaimed that they were moving to a new house just like we're going to move to a new house someday, and we talked about how the kids can still write letters to each other (with help until they all get a handle on this reading and writing thing). On Friday though we realized that Monkey wasn't handling saying goodbye as well as we thought, when she had a total meltdown after I explained why we couldn't invite N over to play that day. We had a long tearful conversation about it, and she seemed to find a little closure when we drove by their house later that day at her request to see if the moving truck was still there or if anyone new had moved in.

Down on the Farm
Our homeschool group did a day at the farm this week (a local dairy farm goes all out for fall with a corn maze, hay rides, etc. and they had a half price day for homeschoolers). We didn't end up staying with our group (we're one of the few families with only preschoolers), but we had a great time! Monkey and Bug did a great job leading us through the short version of the corn maze and loved being able to see corn really growing on the stalks. Next we checked out the animals: calves, piglets, a heifer, goats, ponies (they got to pet all the previous animals) chicks, chickens, rabbits, and turkeys. We got to see a milking machine, which I explained, but we missed the actual demonstration. We took a hayride ("The farmer's tractor is MUCH bigger than Papa Bear's!"), played on wooden playground structures (a boat, castle, and tractor) and a massive bouncy pillow (this thing was probably twice the width of our house!), and explored a pumpkin patch (noting all the different sizes as well as the different colors of ripe versus not yet ripe). Each of the girls also got to bring home a mini pumpkin, one of which is already covered in sparkly stickers!

Library Day . . . with a Fire Truck!
This week was fire safety day at the library. After the librarian read a book about a fire station, two real firefighters came to talk to the kids about things like not playing with matches, paying attention to smoke alarms, and how to stop, drop and roll. They also put on their full gear to show us how they would look if they arrived at a house to put out a fire and gave us a tour of their fire truck. When we went back inside, the librian had fire safety coloring books for us a take home. We also came home with these books:
Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late
Bearsie Bear and the Surprise Sleepover Party
The Three Pigs (The girls are now familiar enough with the traditional tales to get a real kick out of this alternate tale in which the wolf accidently blows the pigs out of their own story and into others)
Spiders (our "what do you want to learn about?" book)
Once Upon a Bedtime Story
I Want Your Moo


Life Skills
For Goose lately, just about every task we have to accomplish is met with "My do it!" or "Self! Self!" She's gotten quite good at climbing up and down her changing table (from which she can reach the light switch), and she's working on climbing into her crib (she's yet to climb out fortunately). She also now quite consistently tells me when she's pooped ("Poop! Gross! New biper [sic]!"), and she likes to sit on the potty, though she's yet to actually go there. (Now I just need to brace myself and do the whole potty training thing.) She's also decided that I am no longer capable of picking out her clothes.

Monkey and Bug have been working on their independence as well. This week they successfully poured their own juice and cereal, and Bug spread jelly on crackers by herself. Bug has also been spreading her wings to do things like return an item across the produce section at the grocery store by herself and return to our seats at church from the bathroom where I'm still helping her sisters.

Monkey and Bug were also more actively helpful at the grocery store week. I printed up an illustrated list of the produce we needed, so they could find the items, have me teach them how to pick good ones, and then cross things off.

Library Day
We were back at storytime this week. The girls were excited to see their friend H (she lives across the street but her attendance at storytime is a new thing), and I was excited to meet another military wife with her 3 kids under the age of 4 in tow. While this week's librarian-led time was a little too participatory for the entourage (they want her to just read good books, not try to get them to sing and dance), they loved the craft: decorating construction paper shapes with foamy shape stickers. This week we came home with:
Little Bear's Friend
Green Eggs and Ham
Sheep Out to Eat
Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet
I Like Dogs (this week's "What do you want to learn about?" book)

Rocks
We acquired another math toy this week. We've been looking for some form of small counters for the girls to use and settled on smooth aquarium gravel. While we haven't formally used them for counters in any games, they've been very popular. Monkey and Bug like to count and sort them (by color or size, discarding the ones they deem too tiny to be counters), and Goose loves having some dumped into a pan for a sensory activity followed by the fine motor practice of placing them one by one back in the container. Monkey and Bug have also taken advantage of the fact that Goose thinks it's fun to go diving under the table for any rocks that get dropped.

Pet Store
Of course, acquiring aquarium gravel meant a trip to the pet store--always an exciting errand! The highlight this time was the reptile section which contained several varieties of dragons among the creepy crawlies. A trio of very friendly water dragons was particularly fun: they were extremely curious about us and followed us from one end of their tank to the other.

Necklaces
Now that Goose is old enough to understand being gentle I've started wearing necklaces again. Monkey and Bug have been particularly fascinated by this new trend. They always want to see what pendant I have on, and I quickly realized that all the necklaces I wear have significance beyond their aesthetic value (the fairy stone I bought on a middle school field trip, the descending dove from a mission trip to Mexico, the coral heart from Daddy and my honeymoon, the mother's necklace Daddy bought when Monkey and Bug were born, etc.). The girls love hearing the stories and remembering what the pendants stand for when they see me wearing them. Of course, they've also requested "real necklaces" of their own to wear. Fortunately, I have an abundance of chains and a couple of small cross pendants I was willing to pass down. We talked (at a preschool level) about what the crosses mean as well as what a responsibility it is to own "real" jewelry. They have their own jewelry box on their dresser now, and Zoe wears her cross almost every day.

Projects
Of course, pulling out the crayons and coloring sheets is a near daily occurrence, but this week I also taught them how to weave using construction paper. Monkey picked it up very quickly and cheerfully self-corrected when she missed a strand. Bug faced some initial frustration in acquiring a new skill, but was encouraged/challenged by (?) Monkey's success and returned to try again and complete her project. We decided to turn them into wind socks, which they embellished with shiny stickers and hung from the art string in their room.

Look! A Box! Let's Get in It!

Home Again!
Much as we loved visiting Nana and Papa Bear, the entourage was very glad to be home again. In fact, they skipped this week's library day in favor of staying home to just play with their toys (mostly Playmobile plus fairies) and read our own books.

Of course, staying home to play may have seemed even more enticing with the addition of a new playtable for the playroom. (The drive home always feels longer than it ought to, but this time we decided to split it by making a very productive stop at Ikea on the way home. The girls loved exploring all the rooms set up in the store--particularly the kids rooms and the toy section.) All three girls have really enjoyed the new storage bins for easy access to Playmobile parts and the fact that they can now leave out the buildings and some of their toys on the table instead having to put them away and rebuild every day.

Reading
We decided to start reading Winnie the Pooh this week (the original A. A. Milne chapter book), and they love it! I suspect I'll be re-reading many times in the future. I've also started having them to narrate back to me parts of the book we've read. They have an easier time explaining Winnie the Pooh than some of the other books we've read, and they've used this excercise to help clear up some things ("What is a bell pull, Mommy?") In addition, sitting down to "read" to themselves and to Goose was particularly fun this week since we acquired new reading lights for the living room (You know you're raising bookworms when your barely-readers are just as excited about new reading lights as you are!) and "new" seating in their upstairs reading corner (new throw pillows for the living room meant the old ones ended up in their room with the promise of new pillowcases for them at some point). We haven't done any more actual reading lessons, but Monkey and Bug have excitedly practiced writing letters (even some that haven't been in our lessons yet). Goose has also been grabbing a pencil and paper with them and proudly showing off her own "letters."

Goose Milestone
I realized this week that Goose has started learning her colors. I've heard her use pink, blue, and yellow. She knows the words for green and red, but she doesn't always use them accurately. Monkey and Bug took longer to learn those too, and I blame it on my own uncertainty with those two shades (oh the joys of being colorblind!).

Playdate
Our homeschool playgroup was cancelled again this week, so Miss K and I set up a playdate for just our kiddos instead. Miss K was recovering from surgery, so the girls and I had a serious talk beforehand about what that meant and how they might need change what they do. The kids had a great time as usual, and this time I let the girls bring some of their Playmobile things to show N. N was especially thrilled to have friends for playing Busytown and Monkey and Bug were greeting with an enthusiastic "Hi, Huckle! Hi, Sally!" Many mysteries were solved.

Church Night
Monkey and Bug, my little introverts have finally adjusted to the Wednesday night routine, and nobody actually cried when I left them in their "new" class with "new" teachers. Despite their anxious looks when being dropped off, they excitedly showed off their crafts afterwards. After we left her sisters, Goose, however, walked back down the hall looking up at me hopefully and asking, "My class? My class?" Same gene pool...very different kids! Goose and I spend the predinner hour hanging out in the library while we wait for Monkey and Bug. Goose does a very good job of being gentle with the library books and helping me put them away when we're done. Fortunately, childcare for all three of them is available while I go to a class of my own.