Library Day
We skipped storytime at the library this week in favor of having our own time with fewer kids running around (well, really Mommy wanted to clean on Wednesday before family arrived, so we went on Tuesday). We had a lovely time sitting in the beanbag chairs reading with just the entourage, and spent lots of time looking for books. Our "what do you want learn about this week?" was a little more involved than usual. Monkey wanted a book about ice cream. The kids section didn't have any, so she helped me track down the Dewey decimal number in the adult section. However, the one recipe book we found didn't meet her criteria (no pictures). Bug also had a little trouble with her topic of choice; we couldn't find a book specifically about Christmas trees, but from the holiday section she found a great book that talks about Christmas traditions from around the world. Goose also decided that we absolutely had to bring home The Dangerous Book for Girls. I don't know where she found it, but she spent most of our library visit clutching that massive book to her chest (I suspect it had to do with the sparkly cover). The girls are a bit too young for the book yet, so they didn't spend much time with it, but we did determine that's it's a book we'll need to buy someday, so we can keep it.
We came home with these books this week:
The First Thanksgiving
The Invisible Mistake Case
Christopher Counting
Jack in a Box
We're Going on a Bear Hunt
The Alphabet Tree
Arthur's Teacher Moves In
The Best Picnic Ever
The Dangerous Book for Girls
Christmas around the World
Visitors!
It was a visitor filled week for the entourage! Last weekend Aunt A and her boyfriend, Mr. M, came to visit, and the girls had a great time with these grown ups who had nothing better to do than read books, build with blocks, help with puzzles, etc. Aunt A and Mr. M had to leave Sunday, but Aunt A was back on Tuesday to be here when Mommy's family gathered at our house for Thanksgiving. Grandma, Granddad, and Uncle N arrived Wednesday night, so the entourage had even more playmates to choose from! I think some of the highlights were wrestling with Granddad and sitting on the couch with Grandma to read from her anthology of 20th century classic kid's stories.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The girls have been preparing for Thanksgiving by checking out books from the library about the first Thanksgiving, talking about what it means to be thankful, and what we were thankful for. The girls don't have a great understanding of time in terms of how long ago the first Thanksgiving happened, but they were very excited about hosting our own feast! They all helped with the baking on Wednesday (lots of measuring and dumping, counting scoops, and smelling spices), although we sent them to the park with Granddad and Uncle N while we were cooking Thursday morning. As expected, plenty of delicious food was consumed; though I think the cranberry ice was probably their favorite.
Thanksgiving with Mommy's family involves a traditional after-the-feast walk in the woods. This year we delayed the walk until Friday morning and went to a local nature park with a stroller friendly trail. At some point though we left the stroller behind in order to explore a narrower trail; we admired some huge leaves, talked about how leaves decompose and turn into dirt, and finally laid eyes on the creek the park is named for. Goose did a particularly impressive job walking the whole way while holding Aunt A's or Grandma's hand.
A Hop, Skip, and Jump
The entourage has been actively working on some gross motor skills lately. Monkey and Bug are learning how to skip. After a brief demonstration Monkey took off with aplomb, but it's a little more challenging for Bug. She decided that she needed to get steadier on hopping on one foot first, so she's been practicing that. Goose has been doing a lot of hopping herself (with two feet at this point), and practicing jumping off of things (like Daddy's back when he's lying on the floor). Monkey and Bug have also been trying to teach Goose how to climb in and out of her crib (she hasn't succeeded yet, but I'm expecting that to happen any day now).
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Advent Comes Early
I've always been firm about the household Christmas season beginning with the first Sunday in Advent: we break out the Christmas music after church and put all the decorations up in one afternoon. This year, however, I broke down and decided it was worth it to pull out a few things early, so the entourage has a better understanding of what Christmas really is. We can't go anywhere without seeing signs of commercial Christmas with its focus on Santa, presents, and desserts. Santa seemed particularly confusing, and Bug wanted reassurances that he was "just in stories, right?" We also marveled that the couple of Christmas books they found at the library last week completely failed to mention Jesus (who has a party and forgets about the birthday boy, right?!) So this week we dug into our storage boxes and pulled out our Christmas books (a handful of nativity books and a St. Nicholas storybook), a Veggie Tales nativity set, and our iTunes Christmas library. We also visited the local Christian bookstore to purchase a kid's Advent study that we're all very excited about. The holiday season is a little more balanced now.
Project
Inspired by all the Christmas preparations, Bug decided she wanted to do a Christmas project and flipped through our craft books until she found the inspiration for these wreaths.
Playground
It's been awhile since the entourage got to play at our favorite playground, so one morning this week we got out the door early enough to fit in some playground time after running a few errands.
Haircut!
Goose finally had enough hair to warrant a first haircut! Sadly, I failed to take any photos of the actual event, but she was a very brave girl! She was obviously nervous about it, but she didn't actually cry until they broke out the hair dryer.
Reading
Reading lessons continue, but it was definitely a week of "slow and steady wins the race"! Monkey is slowly improving her sounding out and rhyming skills, and I let her add a new sound before the curriculum introduced it. Bug added two new sounds this week (d, i) and is sounding out three and four letter words all by herself. She's even dealing with the concept of silent letters (the English language is so confusing!). Both girls had some tough lessons to get through this week, so we reviewed a couple several times before moving on. Bug has also been actively memorizing more picture books and reading them to her sisters after bedtime.
Games
Monkey and Bug watched me assembling a deck of Magic cards and suddenly remembered that they hadn't played in a while, which means of course that this week involved a lot of Magic games. Bug even developed a more sophisticated strategy. She realized that it's really fun to have a long line of winning cards and that she can increase her odds of having that if she plays her highest card, so every round now involves Bug eyeballing her hand and picking out the biggest one, then adding up the numbers and comparing it to the cards Monkey and I have thrown down. Monkey, like me, doesn't care much about whether or not she's winning or losing. We have fun admiring the artwork on the cards and talking about what all the creatures are supposed to be. Both girls are improving their math skills, of course. There are even some low number cards that they've realized they don't even need counters to add up.
We also played several rounds of a Peter Rabbit board game. At the moment we play this by taking turns rolling the dice and seeing who can get to the bunny supper at the end first (math skills: recognizing numbers, counting, one-to-one ratio). Important lessons in playing by the rules and good sportsmanship were also learned. Just a note: anyone who's argued against an original sin nature has obviously never witnessed a preschooler who's just grasped the concept of winning attempt to cheat at a simple board game!
While those are the only two games we've really played this week, all three girls pulled out lots of others to play with: building and making patterns with UnoStacko blocks, sorting and mimicking the motions on a set of Eric Carle animal cards, fishing with a magnetic pole and fish, identifying the objects on Memory game cards, and lining up and identifying the letters on Scrabble tiles. So much fun!
Germs
All three girls got nasty colds this week, and poor Monkey even spiked a fever for 24 hours. The health and science lessons learned here were, of course, all about germs, how they spread, what we can do to keep that from happening, and what we can do to help our bodies get better and keep from getting sick in the first place. As a result we missed several of our usual activities (library storytime, church night supper, the homeschool playgroup, and a visit to the Y). For some of those days, the girls only had colds, but declared that they just weren't up for playing with friends. They definitely validated the declaration by spending a large part of the time lounging around the living room, listening to lullaby music, and looking at books. We also watched some extra TV: at Monkey's request we saw the VeggieTales The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything and more 1940s episodes of Superman (also a particular favorite of Goose).
I've always been firm about the household Christmas season beginning with the first Sunday in Advent: we break out the Christmas music after church and put all the decorations up in one afternoon. This year, however, I broke down and decided it was worth it to pull out a few things early, so the entourage has a better understanding of what Christmas really is. We can't go anywhere without seeing signs of commercial Christmas with its focus on Santa, presents, and desserts. Santa seemed particularly confusing, and Bug wanted reassurances that he was "just in stories, right?" We also marveled that the couple of Christmas books they found at the library last week completely failed to mention Jesus (who has a party and forgets about the birthday boy, right?!) So this week we dug into our storage boxes and pulled out our Christmas books (a handful of nativity books and a St. Nicholas storybook), a Veggie Tales nativity set, and our iTunes Christmas library. We also visited the local Christian bookstore to purchase a kid's Advent study that we're all very excited about. The holiday season is a little more balanced now.
Project
Inspired by all the Christmas preparations, Bug decided she wanted to do a Christmas project and flipped through our craft books until she found the inspiration for these wreaths.
Playground
It's been awhile since the entourage got to play at our favorite playground, so one morning this week we got out the door early enough to fit in some playground time after running a few errands.
 |
| Hooray for fall leaves! (They've been disappointed that our little maple sapling didn't produce enough leaves to play in, so they were thrilled with all the leaves falling at the park!) |
Haircut!
Goose finally had enough hair to warrant a first haircut! Sadly, I failed to take any photos of the actual event, but she was a very brave girl! She was obviously nervous about it, but she didn't actually cry until they broke out the hair dryer.
Reading
Reading lessons continue, but it was definitely a week of "slow and steady wins the race"! Monkey is slowly improving her sounding out and rhyming skills, and I let her add a new sound before the curriculum introduced it. Bug added two new sounds this week (d, i) and is sounding out three and four letter words all by herself. She's even dealing with the concept of silent letters (the English language is so confusing!). Both girls had some tough lessons to get through this week, so we reviewed a couple several times before moving on. Bug has also been actively memorizing more picture books and reading them to her sisters after bedtime.
Games
Monkey and Bug watched me assembling a deck of Magic cards and suddenly remembered that they hadn't played in a while, which means of course that this week involved a lot of Magic games. Bug even developed a more sophisticated strategy. She realized that it's really fun to have a long line of winning cards and that she can increase her odds of having that if she plays her highest card, so every round now involves Bug eyeballing her hand and picking out the biggest one, then adding up the numbers and comparing it to the cards Monkey and I have thrown down. Monkey, like me, doesn't care much about whether or not she's winning or losing. We have fun admiring the artwork on the cards and talking about what all the creatures are supposed to be. Both girls are improving their math skills, of course. There are even some low number cards that they've realized they don't even need counters to add up.
We also played several rounds of a Peter Rabbit board game. At the moment we play this by taking turns rolling the dice and seeing who can get to the bunny supper at the end first (math skills: recognizing numbers, counting, one-to-one ratio). Important lessons in playing by the rules and good sportsmanship were also learned. Just a note: anyone who's argued against an original sin nature has obviously never witnessed a preschooler who's just grasped the concept of winning attempt to cheat at a simple board game!
While those are the only two games we've really played this week, all three girls pulled out lots of others to play with: building and making patterns with UnoStacko blocks, sorting and mimicking the motions on a set of Eric Carle animal cards, fishing with a magnetic pole and fish, identifying the objects on Memory game cards, and lining up and identifying the letters on Scrabble tiles. So much fun!
Germs
All three girls got nasty colds this week, and poor Monkey even spiked a fever for 24 hours. The health and science lessons learned here were, of course, all about germs, how they spread, what we can do to keep that from happening, and what we can do to help our bodies get better and keep from getting sick in the first place. As a result we missed several of our usual activities (library storytime, church night supper, the homeschool playgroup, and a visit to the Y). For some of those days, the girls only had colds, but declared that they just weren't up for playing with friends. They definitely validated the declaration by spending a large part of the time lounging around the living room, listening to lullaby music, and looking at books. We also watched some extra TV: at Monkey's request we saw the VeggieTales The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything and more 1940s episodes of Superman (also a particular favorite of Goose).
 |
| Monkey was feeling yucky, but Bug and Goose asked me to pull out the camera, so they could "cheese"! |
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Daddy Date All Day!
The entourage got to spend almost all day with Daddy on Saturday (Mommy took a day of personal retreat to hike at a local state park--absolutely lovely). Daddy and the entourage headed to a nearby larger city to shop for cleats for Daddy for ultimate frisbee, eat lunch at a restaurant (a big deal in this household), and run around a children's garden. The entourage loved the children's garden! Although Daddy admitted it will probably be prettier if we go back in the spring.
Election Day
The entourage came with me to vote, and I prepped them ahead of time, so I didn't have to try answering all the questions while actually voting. I explained that all the grown ups get to cast a vote to say who they think should be the next leader of America, the person who gets to make the rules. Among the litany of questions:
When we got home they were still trying to sort out how this whole voting thing worked, so I held a mock election: An Animaniac figure and a fairy doll campaigned for leader of the playroom. We used pennies to vote with, and the fairy won by a landslide.
Projects
This is the project the entourage did with our homeschool group this week. Miss J brought her girl's favorite current favorite book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, to share, and conveniently it just happened to be one that we checked out of the library the day before! The entourage was excited about a book they were familiar with and they loved making their own fun shaped clouds out of cotton balls.
The entourage also chose to pull out our own craft supplies this week, and I love seeing their artistic skills develop! They went for multi-media pieces this week, using crayons, dot paints, and tempera paints.
On Beyond "Why?"
Life with the entourage has involved answering a plethora of questions from the moment they could utter the word why. Now that Monkey and Bug are older though, they ask more in-depth questions, and they stick with a particular curiosity for longer than a single question. These are the random things that sparked their interest this week:
Sumo Wrestling
At some point this week, Bug pulled out my set of wooden sumo wrestlers to play with (a leftover from a childhood partially spent in Japan). She was intrigued by the idea that there were real ones, so Monkey, Bug and I spent about 20 minutes watching YouTube videos of sumo wrestling matches and training stables. Monkey was mesmerized. Talking points during the viewing included: rules of the sport, the special clothes (or lack of them) required for this and other sports, the purpose of referees, the significance of trophies and traditions, and the importance of training and perseverance in sports and other endeavors.
Surgery
Out of the blue, Bug started asking questions about surgery and anesthesia (deep thoughts from the carseat). I answered what I could while driving, but during our lessons time at home I finally had the chance to satisfy her curiosity. We found a great site with a virtual tour of the surgery suite at a children's hospital, so the girls got to see everything from the waiting room to the recovery room with cartoon staff people explaining what would happen at each stage. They seemed particularly concerned about the patient being put back together, but I was able to allay their fears by showing off my own surgery scar. Who knew having two c-sections would be so educationally helpful? (Note to Granddad: If you're up for a show-and-tell session, your grandkids would love to see some real surgeon's tools!)
Track Races
The entourage organized races around our downstairs one evening this week, and Daddy picked up on the fact that they were saying "March! Set! Go!" at the beginning of each race and declaring that they were each the winner at the end. His attempt to set them straight on proper terminology and logistics led to watching clips of women's track races from this summer's Olympics, explaining things like starting blocks and starting guns, relay races verses regular sprints, etc. They also discussed good sportsmanship and perseverance after watching one runner trip and stop running.
Reading
I had a breakthrough idea this week, and reading lessons got much easier! Monkey was still interested in learning to read, but completely failing to be engaged by the actual lessons. So, I made a simple change: instead of us sitting and staring at rather crowded black-and-white pages, I started writing out the relevant parts of the text on her white board in the marker color of her choice. You would think I'd flipped a switch in her head! She loves it and is progressing much faster now. While Bug had never been put off by the original format, she decided the new one looked like more fun, so we've been doing her lessons on her white board too. Bug is now back up to the lesson in which we decided to go back to the beginning, and she conquered it without a hitch! She has even sounded out words entirely by herself without my promptings about what sounds come first, second, and third.
Monkey also decided to jump in on the sight reading part of reading lessons. We added the word and to their reading vocabulary this week. In addition to finding the words in picture books as I read them, I had them pick out a couple of pages from a chapter book, I made copies for each them, and had them circle the words they knew and tell me what they were as they found them.
Library Day
The storytime theme this week was colors with some fun books about mixing them. Sadly, the craft was unrelated. Starting this week, the kids will be making ornaments to put on the children's section Christmas tree. This week's ornament only involved gluing two paper circles together with a loop of paper between them at the top, so a ribbon could be strung through to hang it on the tree. It didn't really involve any creativity on the kids' part, so the entourage lost interest pretty quickly. They were supposed to make two (one for the library and one for home), but they were only willing to make one, and I ended up slapping three more together to leave for the library. Oh well, we did come home with a stack of great books:
Milo the Really Big Bunny
Thanksgiving
Time to Sleep, Sheep the Sheep
Snowed in with Grandma Silk
It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Peek! A Thai Hide and Seek
How an Egg Grows into a Chicken
The Human Body (the previous two were our "what do you want to learn about?" books)
The entourage got to spend almost all day with Daddy on Saturday (Mommy took a day of personal retreat to hike at a local state park--absolutely lovely). Daddy and the entourage headed to a nearby larger city to shop for cleats for Daddy for ultimate frisbee, eat lunch at a restaurant (a big deal in this household), and run around a children's garden. The entourage loved the children's garden! Although Daddy admitted it will probably be prettier if we go back in the spring.
Election Day
The entourage came with me to vote, and I prepped them ahead of time, so I didn't have to try answering all the questions while actually voting. I explained that all the grown ups get to cast a vote to say who they think should be the next leader of America, the person who gets to make the rules. Among the litany of questions:
- Why am I voting for that one? (Because I think he'll make better decisions--I chose not to get into partisan politics.)
- Will the one who doesn't win be sad? (Probably)
- What will he do instead of being President? (I don't know--probably make speeches and write books.)
- Will we get to see them [the candidates]? (No, but we looked at photos later.)
- So, who won? (This immediately after I cast my vote. I explained that everybody has to vote first.)
- Will we go somewhere later to find out who won? (No, we'll just look it up online. This was met with disappointment. Bug thought there should be a party.)
When we got home they were still trying to sort out how this whole voting thing worked, so I held a mock election: An Animaniac figure and a fairy doll campaigned for leader of the playroom. We used pennies to vote with, and the fairy won by a landslide.
Projects
This is the project the entourage did with our homeschool group this week. Miss J brought her girl's favorite current favorite book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, to share, and conveniently it just happened to be one that we checked out of the library the day before! The entourage was excited about a book they were familiar with and they loved making their own fun shaped clouds out of cotton balls.
 |
| Top to bottom: Goose, Bug, and Monkey |
 |
| Bug was the most prolific artistic today with one experimental abstract piece (using a paint brush to make prints), a field of many colored flowers, and a school bus full of people. |
 |
| Goose created the painting on the left (with remarkably little paint on herself!). Monkey made the other two experimenting with prints and layering colors. |
On Beyond "Why?"
Life with the entourage has involved answering a plethora of questions from the moment they could utter the word why. Now that Monkey and Bug are older though, they ask more in-depth questions, and they stick with a particular curiosity for longer than a single question. These are the random things that sparked their interest this week:
Sumo Wrestling
At some point this week, Bug pulled out my set of wooden sumo wrestlers to play with (a leftover from a childhood partially spent in Japan). She was intrigued by the idea that there were real ones, so Monkey, Bug and I spent about 20 minutes watching YouTube videos of sumo wrestling matches and training stables. Monkey was mesmerized. Talking points during the viewing included: rules of the sport, the special clothes (or lack of them) required for this and other sports, the purpose of referees, the significance of trophies and traditions, and the importance of training and perseverance in sports and other endeavors.
Surgery
Out of the blue, Bug started asking questions about surgery and anesthesia (deep thoughts from the carseat). I answered what I could while driving, but during our lessons time at home I finally had the chance to satisfy her curiosity. We found a great site with a virtual tour of the surgery suite at a children's hospital, so the girls got to see everything from the waiting room to the recovery room with cartoon staff people explaining what would happen at each stage. They seemed particularly concerned about the patient being put back together, but I was able to allay their fears by showing off my own surgery scar. Who knew having two c-sections would be so educationally helpful? (Note to Granddad: If you're up for a show-and-tell session, your grandkids would love to see some real surgeon's tools!)
Track Races
The entourage organized races around our downstairs one evening this week, and Daddy picked up on the fact that they were saying "March! Set! Go!" at the beginning of each race and declaring that they were each the winner at the end. His attempt to set them straight on proper terminology and logistics led to watching clips of women's track races from this summer's Olympics, explaining things like starting blocks and starting guns, relay races verses regular sprints, etc. They also discussed good sportsmanship and perseverance after watching one runner trip and stop running.
Reading
I had a breakthrough idea this week, and reading lessons got much easier! Monkey was still interested in learning to read, but completely failing to be engaged by the actual lessons. So, I made a simple change: instead of us sitting and staring at rather crowded black-and-white pages, I started writing out the relevant parts of the text on her white board in the marker color of her choice. You would think I'd flipped a switch in her head! She loves it and is progressing much faster now. While Bug had never been put off by the original format, she decided the new one looked like more fun, so we've been doing her lessons on her white board too. Bug is now back up to the lesson in which we decided to go back to the beginning, and she conquered it without a hitch! She has even sounded out words entirely by herself without my promptings about what sounds come first, second, and third.
Monkey also decided to jump in on the sight reading part of reading lessons. We added the word and to their reading vocabulary this week. In addition to finding the words in picture books as I read them, I had them pick out a couple of pages from a chapter book, I made copies for each them, and had them circle the words they knew and tell me what they were as they found them.
Library Day
The storytime theme this week was colors with some fun books about mixing them. Sadly, the craft was unrelated. Starting this week, the kids will be making ornaments to put on the children's section Christmas tree. This week's ornament only involved gluing two paper circles together with a loop of paper between them at the top, so a ribbon could be strung through to hang it on the tree. It didn't really involve any creativity on the kids' part, so the entourage lost interest pretty quickly. They were supposed to make two (one for the library and one for home), but they were only willing to make one, and I ended up slapping three more together to leave for the library. Oh well, we did come home with a stack of great books:
Milo the Really Big Bunny
Thanksgiving
Time to Sleep, Sheep the Sheep
Snowed in with Grandma Silk
It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Peek! A Thai Hide and Seek
How an Egg Grows into a Chicken
The Human Body (the previous two were our "what do you want to learn about?" books)
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Halloween
So on the afternoon of Halloween, the entourage settled on their costumes: Monkey was a firefighter wearing a princess dress, Goose was a purple butterfly fairy, and Bug was The Greatest One (an everyday dress and tights plus a police vest, superhero cape, and fairy wings). They were very excited and pretty darn cute! Of course, when it came to the actual trick-or-treating, it took them three houses before they would say "Trick or treat" instead of glaring at our neighbors over their thumbs. Once they got the hang of it though they were golden, and they had a lot of fun joining their friend LA in finding all the houses on our street with lights on.
Reading
Reading lessons continue, and even Goose joined in for a lesson or two this week! She thinks pointing to letters and repeating their sounds is a great game, but of course she doesn't actually remember them 30 seconds later. Bug has displayed an interest in learning to sight read, so I've added learning Fry's 1000 words to her reading plan. We have the first ten words on flash cards and she knows two of them now (the and of; she's very proud of this, and wrote her name on the back of the cards so everyone would know that she learned them). She's been asking me to point to words as I read them (much to Monkey's displeasure), and if I'm reading without pointing she'll occasionally ask "Where does it say . . . ?" She got a huge kick out of helping me read several books this week by reading her sight words and sounding out the words I find that she's covered all the sounds for in her phonics-based lessons. Monkey digests her reading lessons in much smaller bites, and she'd rather know an entire book than have me point out specific words on a page. Almost every day, she and Goose snuggle up on the couch under a reading light with a stack of books that she has memorized or almost memorized, so she can "read" to Goose, who loves it. Monkey has also started pulling out their favorite counting book and is attempting to teach Goose her numbers (she's almost mastered 1-3).
Music
Monkey and Bug have recently been requesting to listen to "bad guy/good guy music." They're talking about our iTunes library of instrumental music that's a combination of classical pieces and movie soundtracks. They take their cues from the music to guide their pretend play (when the bad guys are coming, when the good guys are winning, etc.).
The girls have done a lot of dancing this week too, though sadly, I failed to ever catch them on camera. Goose even requests that I turn music on and will call out dance steps for her big sisters: "Turn 'round. Turn 'round. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!" It's funny though, some of the moms in our neighborhood have been taking their two year olds to dance classes, which at least one of them confessed was just chaos set to music. Maybe it makes a difference having more than one kid, but I just can't see taking two year olds to dance class. They can get the same benefits (gross motor play, rhythm practice, and appreciation for different styles of music) just by turning on a Pandora station and having some fun. And it's free! And besides, you don't need to teach a two year old to dance. Any healthy toddler knows how to (as Bug recently put it) "shake that business!"
Library Day
In a nod to Halloween, the theme this week was pumpkins, and we came home with some cute suncatchers to add to the fall leaves the girls made at home last year. Goose lost interest pretty quickly (the contact paper kept sticking to her fingers), but Monkey and Bug did a great job (the fall leaves are completely covered only because we did them in multiple sessions). We came home with these books:
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum
Mice (Our "what do you want to learn about?" book)
Night Rabbits
Airshow
Spider Storch's Carpool Catastophe
Teasing
Ten Rosey Roses
Intrepid Explorers
This week Bug pointed out that it had been awhile since we'd gone for a walk in our neighborhood to gather things for our Collection (a bin full of things from outside that sits on the shelf next to our big magnifying glass and handheld microscope). So, Monkey and Bug each grabbed a bucket, and I took my camera (for things too big to bring home) and Goose, and we set off for adventures. First we searched for all the red maple trees on our street (based on leaf shape and color; they picked this activity because the one in our yard is turning). At the back of the next cul de sac, however, we decided to leave the sidewalk and head into the woods. In addition to a dismaying amount of trash, which the entourage insisted we collect to throw away properly because "God doesn't like trash in His world" (score 1 for learning stewardship at an early age!), we discovered a pond and a large meadow on the other side of a bunch of "spiny trees" (thorn bushes). The girls were really excited about the meadow: "We made it into the sunshine!" They immediately proclaimed themselves Heidi and Peter and went frolicking about with their imaginary herd of goats. Science, theology, literature . . . I love a good walk!
So on the afternoon of Halloween, the entourage settled on their costumes: Monkey was a firefighter wearing a princess dress, Goose was a purple butterfly fairy, and Bug was The Greatest One (an everyday dress and tights plus a police vest, superhero cape, and fairy wings). They were very excited and pretty darn cute! Of course, when it came to the actual trick-or-treating, it took them three houses before they would say "Trick or treat" instead of glaring at our neighbors over their thumbs. Once they got the hang of it though they were golden, and they had a lot of fun joining their friend LA in finding all the houses on our street with lights on.
Reading
Reading lessons continue, and even Goose joined in for a lesson or two this week! She thinks pointing to letters and repeating their sounds is a great game, but of course she doesn't actually remember them 30 seconds later. Bug has displayed an interest in learning to sight read, so I've added learning Fry's 1000 words to her reading plan. We have the first ten words on flash cards and she knows two of them now (the and of; she's very proud of this, and wrote her name on the back of the cards so everyone would know that she learned them). She's been asking me to point to words as I read them (much to Monkey's displeasure), and if I'm reading without pointing she'll occasionally ask "Where does it say . . . ?" She got a huge kick out of helping me read several books this week by reading her sight words and sounding out the words I find that she's covered all the sounds for in her phonics-based lessons. Monkey digests her reading lessons in much smaller bites, and she'd rather know an entire book than have me point out specific words on a page. Almost every day, she and Goose snuggle up on the couch under a reading light with a stack of books that she has memorized or almost memorized, so she can "read" to Goose, who loves it. Monkey has also started pulling out their favorite counting book and is attempting to teach Goose her numbers (she's almost mastered 1-3).
Music
Monkey and Bug have recently been requesting to listen to "bad guy/good guy music." They're talking about our iTunes library of instrumental music that's a combination of classical pieces and movie soundtracks. They take their cues from the music to guide their pretend play (when the bad guys are coming, when the good guys are winning, etc.).
The girls have done a lot of dancing this week too, though sadly, I failed to ever catch them on camera. Goose even requests that I turn music on and will call out dance steps for her big sisters: "Turn 'round. Turn 'round. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!" It's funny though, some of the moms in our neighborhood have been taking their two year olds to dance classes, which at least one of them confessed was just chaos set to music. Maybe it makes a difference having more than one kid, but I just can't see taking two year olds to dance class. They can get the same benefits (gross motor play, rhythm practice, and appreciation for different styles of music) just by turning on a Pandora station and having some fun. And it's free! And besides, you don't need to teach a two year old to dance. Any healthy toddler knows how to (as Bug recently put it) "shake that business!"
Library Day
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum
Mice (Our "what do you want to learn about?" book)
Night Rabbits
Airshow
Spider Storch's Carpool Catastophe
Teasing
Ten Rosey Roses
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| This is what story time looks like for the entourage: Monkey and Bug in rapt thumb-sucking mode and me responding to Goose's questions and comments (apparently one of the librarians had a camera last week) |
Intrepid Explorers
This week Bug pointed out that it had been awhile since we'd gone for a walk in our neighborhood to gather things for our Collection (a bin full of things from outside that sits on the shelf next to our big magnifying glass and handheld microscope). So, Monkey and Bug each grabbed a bucket, and I took my camera (for things too big to bring home) and Goose, and we set off for adventures. First we searched for all the red maple trees on our street (based on leaf shape and color; they picked this activity because the one in our yard is turning). At the back of the next cul de sac, however, we decided to leave the sidewalk and head into the woods. In addition to a dismaying amount of trash, which the entourage insisted we collect to throw away properly because "God doesn't like trash in His world" (score 1 for learning stewardship at an early age!), we discovered a pond and a large meadow on the other side of a bunch of "spiny trees" (thorn bushes). The girls were really excited about the meadow: "We made it into the sunshine!" They immediately proclaimed themselves Heidi and Peter and went frolicking about with their imaginary herd of goats. Science, theology, literature . . . I love a good walk!
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