Crazy Life
My apologies, dear readers--I realize I haven't posted an entry in over a month! (And to be honest, it'll probably be another month or two before this happens on a regular basis.) Here are my excuses: First, one month ago I had major, but non-emergency, surgery from which I'm recovering really well.
 Second, about a week after the surgery, Daddy got new orders, and we move across the country in less than two weeks now! So, between being incapacitated and having a mile-long, PCS-related to-do list, the blog hasn't surfaced to the top of my priorities until now.

Fortunately for the entourage, that hasn't meant an end to their usual status of soaking up new knowledge and experiences like little sponges. Of course, my surgery and recovery in itself is endlessly fascinating for them, and I am as open and honest as possible about it (I'm not sharing the details here, but if any family/friends want more info, feel free to message me). They got a real kick out of watching me do things like empty the drains and change the bandages.

Between needing help post-surgery and just wanting seeing people before the move, we've had lots of visitors! Aunt K, Grandma, Aunt A, and Nana have all come to visit at some point during the past few weeks. The girls always love having the extra grown ups around to help with playing, reading, and, of course, answering their endless questions. We also had a potluck get-together with some neighbors this weekend, and the girls had a blast playing with their friends. We're hoping to get in more of that before we hit the road!

Obviously, prepping for the move itself has been an educational/emotional experience. We are all very excited about our new location and the cross-country road trip it's going to take to get there. The girls and I have spent lots of time talking about all the cool things we'll get to see on the way and things we're looking forward to once we get settled there. Particularly with Goose, I've also spent lots of time touring the house verifying that, yes, her toys are coming with us, and her books are coming with us, and the dishes are coming with us, but no, not the kitchen sink itself--we'll have a different one in our next new house, etc., etc. The big girls, particularly Bug, are a little nervous about making new friends, but fears have been alleviated with conversations about how we made our current friends, how we'll get to see some old friends in our new location, and stories about my own moving and making friends experiences as a military brat. We've also talked about the excitement of new experiences even if they're not the things we would have preferred--like celebrating Goose's birthday and Christmas in hotels.

The Three Rs
We haven't completely abandoned formal lessons, but I'm certainly being a bit more lax about them as I try to get things done leading up to the move (while simultaneously trying to "take it easy" as I continue recovering). We've kept up most faithfully with reading lessons, and both Monkey and Bug continue improving their fluency. Monkey has had the ego boost of already knowing all the new sounds as the book introduces them, and I've been impressed with how much of her lessons she can read the fast way (without sounding the words out aloud). Bug is rapidly gaining confidence in reading things other than her textbook: she spent a long time picking out individual words from a Clubhouse magazine, she sat down in the library and actually read the first several pages of a relatively unfamiliar Elephant and Piggie book (I think we checked it out once months ago), and she even volunteered to read a Bible verse out loud for their class at church!

For math, Monkey and Bug alternate between using their workbooks and using the cards I made to work on their addition. While we actually haven't done any formal lessons on it recently, they've also been sorting out telling time. In fact, since the time change, I've unplugged the orange light, and Bug has put herself in charge of letting her sisters know when it's past 7 a.m. and therefore an acceptable time to get up. Monkey and Bug have also been teaching Goose how to count up to 20. She knows up to 12 by herself, but the teens are challenging for some reason.

Hmmm. . . confession: I think I've only pulled out the composition books once for writing lessons since my surgery. So, I guess I only have two Rs to report on this go round.

Christmas dresses! We realized today might be the last time we
get to go to church before Christmas Eve, so the girls wore their
Christmas dresses to church today. They were SO excited!

Daddy Date . . . with weaponry
Since Monday was a holiday and Daddy got to stay home from work, we decided to ditch our usual lessons. I opted to escape the house for the morning to run a few errands and enjoy the peace and quiet of the local library, and the girls got some quality time with Daddy. They decided to stay home and shoot things in the backyard. They got out their air rifle and bow and arrows and did some damage to a couple of tin cans and empty milk jugs. Daddy got them a shooting stick recently, and it really helped them improve their aim.

Library Day
It was fire safety day at the library this week, so instead of the usual story time we listened to a couple of firefighters talk about safety, show us what they look like all geared up, and give us a tour of the fire truck. The girls were a bit disappointed that the librarian didn't read any firefighter books or have a project, but they loved seeing the truck! And of course, we came home with lots of books:
Swimming Lessons
When Turtle Grew Feathers (a hilarious Choctaw folktale similar to Aesop's The Tortoise and the Hare)
Rumpelstiltskin
Time-out for Sophie
Henny-Penny
Nuts to You!
Wee Little Bunny
The Pigeon Wants a Puppy
Pigs Make Me Sneeze!

The Three Rs
It's definitely still a challenge, but Bug is getting much more confident in reading "the new way" with regular text instead of phonetic clues. She's even managed to do things like read some of the directions in her math workbook! Monkey continues to improve as well, and I've been impressed with how much she can do at once and how much better she's getting at knowing when she needs a break and requesting one appropriately.

It's been hard to motivate them to practice handwriting, so we started a new thing that week that they're pretty excited about. Monkey and Bug each have a composition book where each page is half handwriting lines and half blank space for a picture. On the handwriting lines, I write several sentences with blanks for them to fill in. It'll be fun to have it all in one book, and see their improvement over time.

They've both been back at doing pages in their math workbooks--they're making their way through the addition one now. I also made a bunch of multiplication flash cards. Monkey wasn't interested and I haven't pushed it at all, but Bug loves them! She knows anything times 1 or 0 and up to 2x5. Any problems higher than that she still uses the abacus to figure out.

We acquired a variety pack of paintbrushes recently.
The girls had lots of fun using the spongey ones to mix colors.

Cartwheels & Somersaults
Monkey and Bug have been learning how to do cartwheels and somersaults in their karate class recently, and they are absolutely determined to get them right. They practice every single day--frequently more than once a day. They can both do somersaults, and they are SO close to getting their cartwheels right. This is actually the first time I've seen Monkey so self-disciplined in working toward a goal. She even has a plan for the steps she's going to take to teach Goose and their friend V how to do cartwheels once they're old enough.

Hypothetical Heroes
We watched Monsters, Inc. this past Sunday, which means my week was chock full of questions about plot points, character's motivations, and the practical logistics of magic portals in an alternate universe. By the end of the week Monkey and Bug had come up with a plan for what they would do if they lived in the world created by Pixar: When their monster came into their room, Monkey would roar back at it, then Bug would take advantage of the moment of surprise to knock it out with a few of her punching drills from karate class. After subduing the monster, they would sneak into the monster world and steal all the doors. Then--because they know how to break boards--they would destroy all the doors and save all the kids in the whole world from being scared by monsters.

Social Butterflies
We had a really busy end of the week! Friday at lunchtime we attended our homeschool group's fall picnic at the local riding stables. I didn't realize this, but the stables have a huge, fun playground. The girls had a blast playing on the playground, participating in (Bug) or just witnessing (Monkey and Goose) the breaking of a pinata, and making friends with a trio of donkeys. Meanwhile, I got to have a nice long conversation with a fellow milspouse who recently moved here from our next duty station.

Friday night we attended a formal military occasion--Daddy and I got to dress up and have fun with some of our friends, and the girls dressed up to come along and hang out in child care rooms. Goose even got to play with her friend V. Then on Saturday morning (after they all slept in!), we met our friends V, C, and Miss M at the big library playground. They had a great time. Fortunately for me and Miss M, my girls have gotten really good at chasing down V and herding him back in our direction. Monkey and Bug in particular seem to get a kick out of being the responsible big kids.

New Traditions
I realized we started a few new traditions recently. The first one just kind of happened as part of my lazy Sunday resolution: I realized that for the past month or so we've watched a movie together and had a picnic on the living room floor. Sometimes it's related to something they're studying (like Brother Bear for our Native American studies or Ninja Turtles for their karate classes) and sometimes it's just a good, fun movie (like the Aristocats). We've decided we're keeping this routine.

Then Daddy started a "great books and bonding with Daddy" tradition. On the four nights a week that he does the bedtime story he reads them a chapter out of a kid-friendly novel. (Goose isn't as big a fan of this new routine, but I read picture books on my nights to do bedtime.)They recently finished The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Monkey and Bug loved it! I got to hear all about the White Witch, Mr. Tumnus, Lucy, etc. Now they've started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. 

The last recently started tradition began with the coincidental timing of Bug's request that we do this and the same activity suggested from a parenting book I'm reading: Every day I try to spend a few minutes (like 5, maybe 10) with each girl individually. I know I spend all day, everyday with them en masse, but they rarely get one-on-one time. Now that Goose is turning out to be just as talkative as Bug, they're competing for conversation and poor Monkey never gets a word in edgewise. At the moment it's worked out to build these one-on-one moments into quiet time, and each girl gets to talk about whatever she wants. So far only Monkey has needed any prompting, but getting her going is as simple as asking what she's happy about today.

Mmmm....Pumpkins!
Speaking of traditions, autumn is here, and once again we decided to eat a pumpkin instead of decorating it. This year our grocery store actually has sugar pie pumpkins, and it was delicious! We roasted the seeds and just ate the rest of the pumpkin mashed with butter, brown sugar, and a few spices. It all disappeared quick, so I'm sure we'll be doing that again this season.

Zoo Day!
For our "no lessons" day this week, we headed to the zoo. The weather was looking a little ominous, but I'm so glad we took the risk. The weather stayed comfortably cool, but never rained, we had the zoo practically all to ourselves, and the animals were all awake and active. Highlights of this visit included riding the carousel, petting a boa constrictor (closely supervised by a couple of zookeepers), going nose to nose (through the glass) with a silverback gorilla, watching the other gorilla play in their indoor rooms, and finding at least one animal to represent each letter of the alphabet (at the end of the day we were only missing 3 letters in our list).

The girls insisted we take their usual photo atop the elephant statue!

Library Day
Storytime this week featured snakes--appropriately enough considering our zoo visit of the day before! We got to hear lots of fun books, and make construction paper chain snakes of our own. We came home with these books:
Tell the Truth, B. B. Wolf
Count and See
We Are in a Book!
Jump!
Wave
Shapes and Things
The Polar Bear Son (Inuit folktale)
How Rabbit Lost His Tail (Cherokee folktale)

The Three R's
Bug hit a major milestone in her reading lessons this week! She's now transitioning from reading with phonetic marks to just reading a normal serif typeface. She's was a bit intimidated by reading without all the clues, but the curriculum handles the switch well, and she's so excited about being able to read real books! She and I have already started talking about what her reading lessons will look like once she's done with the textbook. Monkey didn't have any major changes in her reading this week, but she's continuing to get better. She's also started taking more interest in how far ahead Bug is and what her lessons look like (we'll see if it's motivating enough for her to do the extra work and catch up. She's already working through the book at a faster pace than Bug did).

They did a couple pages from their workbooks this week, and they did lots of addition with manipulatives (the abacus is probably their favorite). We also played a game of Magic: The Gathering this week. They can definitely do more math in their heads than they'll admit to during a typical lesson! Monkey started figuring out multiplication on her own this week too. At some point while contemplating her own hands, she realized that two 5s made 10, then she borrowed her sisters' hands and sorted out multiplying by 5s up to 30. I love watching them make discoveries like this!

In addition to all the biology knowledge absorbed at the zoo, we watched The Magic School Bus episode touring the digestive system and looked it up in their anatomy book. On the way home from church Wednesday night, we had another discussion about the solar system. We discussed why the moon looked different on different nights (it was a crescent moon that night), and noted that the bright "star" we saw was actually the planet Venus (they thought this was awesome!). A sign that all this science talk is sinking in: Bug's first question after being informed it was a planet not a star was "Venus--is that one of the gas planets or the solid planets?"

Outside of reading the folktales listed among our library books we really didn't do any history this week. That probably means it's time to start planning our next unit!

Q & A
My days consist of an endless stream of questions, and it really struck me this week how far Monkey and Bug have come from the simple, "Why?" Here's a sampling of the questions the entourage has asked me (and I have attempted to accurately answer) this week:

• How does my body move?
• Who invented the toilet?
• Can anything really scrape the sky?
• How do birds land on cacti?
• What's the quadratic formula?
• Stars make an explosion or storm when they die, right?
• Do blue and orange make purple?
• Why do we have to get shots?

Library Day
Thanks to a well-child doctor appointment for Monkey and Bug (a whole learning experience in itself), we missed the actual storytime this week. Fortunately, we still got there in time to visit with some of our favorite friends, and of course, we came home with a ton of books:
Where is Coco Going?
Barn Cat
Silent Lotus
Are You Ready to Play Outside?
The Adventure of Louey and Frank
Brave Wolf and the Thunderbird
Pocahontas
Jackson Pollock
Claude Monet
The Christmas Star
Black Cat

Choosing Careers
I imagine when you ask most 5 year olds what they want to be when they grow up, you get answers like cowboy, princess, or firefighter, and this provides fodder for cute dress up and pretend play. Bug and Monkey seem to have been cut from different cloth: This week they decided they want to be an architect (Bug) and an artist (Monkey), and they are now seriously pursuing these careers (I imagine I will help them seriously pursue hundreds of careers before they actually find a real one).

Bug has been intensely building for weeks now, creating miniature versions of the Great China Wall, a variety of skyscrapers (with wider bases, so they wouldn't tip over), and--her most involved project--a Lego house complete with a floor, four walls, two windows, a door, and furniture (she noted that the roof had to be imaginary, so she could play with it). She even figured out that if she made the walls out of single-wide bricks instead of double-wide bricks there would be more room inside, that she needed to overlap the bricks at the corners so they wouldn't be wobbly, and that she needed to add stools under the windows after realizing she'd installed them too high for the Lego figures to see out of. After completing the house, she informed me that she wanted to build real buildings when she grew up; she wanted to be . . . "What was Uncle K?" "An architect?" "Yes! I'm going to be an architect!" I told her about the magazines with floor plans for houses in them, and her eyes just lit up! We did a bookstore trip for that and several other things, and she's spent a long time poring over the drawings in the magazine and in a book about skyscrapers we happened upon.

After Bug kept talking about her career choice, Monkey figured out what she wanted to be: An artist! "Because I like to draw and paint, and I can make pretty pictures or scary pictures! I'll practice a lot more now!" Of course, being a child of her parents, she also requested books that would help her learn to draw and paint. Fortunately, I still had a book about drawing techniques left from my college studies of graphic design, which she's very excited about. I also suggested she study famous artwork, and both she and Bug have been avidly looking through my books about art history and famous paintings. She wanted to get a book about a famous artist from the library this week, so I pulled out the first four artist biographies I came across and told her to pick one. She glanced at the covers and grabbed for Jackson Pollock with no hesitation! Anyone's who's seen Monkey's artwork will understand why he held such attraction for her.

I found the girls upstairs drawing and made my usual request: Tell me about
your picture. Bug's on the left is inspired by our history lessons and her explanation
is detailed and factual: "It's two Indians on horses hunting buffalo, and a teepee with
a fire inside, and two flowers and an Indian outside." Monkey's on the right gets
breathless storytelling: "It's at a fancy party--all the colored pieces are guests--
and the bad guys come--that's all the brown spots--then the Ninja Turtles come--
that's the green lines zooming around--don't worry, Mommy, nobody gets killed."

She loved going through the book and speculating about what emotions he was feeling while painting different works. Monkey was particularly excited about his energetic and experimental painting method, so we decided to do a "Paint like Pollock" project. We headed outside with a long sheet of paper, a variety of paint colors, and anything we could think of to paint with: feathers, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, foamy shapes, Popsicle sticks, and straws. All three girls got involved and had a blast!

Fancy History
Early this week Monkey and Bug woke up with a craving for making beaded necklaces, so being a good homeschooling mom I pulled out the beads and string . . . and the history book about Native Americans. While they worked on their creations (even Goose managed to string a few beads), we looked at all the different colors, shapes, and uses for beads from decorating clothes and baby carriers to being exchanged as currency.

Later this week, we decided to do some YouTube searching and found lots of good videos of Native American dances. They had fun admiring all the elaborate costumes, and they particularly liked the shawl dances and hoop dances. Of course, we got a couple of relevant books from the library this week too: a folktale that introduced them to Thunderbirds and another retelling of the Pocahontas story.

From Blood Cells to Outer Space
Inspired by the Magic School Bus, we continued talking about the solar system and we jumped in depth into some anatomy and physiology topics. The sporadically ask me to review the names of all the planets and key characteristics (Jupiter has the big red storm, Saturn has rings, etc.). They occasionally decided to go spinning around the living room pretending to be planets in orbit. They also asked if we could specifically review the earth's and moon's orbits by acting them out with balls and a flashlight.

Last week they had watched an episode in which Ms. Frizzle and her class took a tour through a sick classmate's body to explore the immune system. This inspired a number of questions that weren't addressed in their little kid-level body books. So, at the bookstore we found a great grown-up anatomy book with lots of colorful pictures and diagrams. This week we studied the immune system (they wanted to know all about antibodies, helper t-cells, etc.), the nervous system (different kinds of nerve endings, how impulses get to the brain, cross synapses, etc.), and teeth (baby teeth vs. permanent teeth and the why and how they switch). Monkey in particular has spent a lot of time just flipping through the pages and studying the diagrams.

Lessons
Of course, we did all the usual lessons too. Bug's getting even better at sounding out the words in her head, and her reading comprehension is really improving. Monkey even did double lessons a couple days this week, which meant she read a list of sounds, a list of words, and a brief story all in one day. She's also getting better at being able to tell when she needs a "brain break" before finishing the lesson--this means more gets done with less agonizing!

For math this week, we mostly worked with the addition flash cards I made--not using them like traditional flashcards, but I hand them each a small stack to work through however they wish. For the small sums, they can usually just tell me the answer, and they use a variety of manipulatives to work through the others. Bug really likes using the abacus, and Monkey uses whatever's close at hand--bits of felt from the felt board, screws from the play workbench, etc. Daddy also did some extra math, discussing positive and negative numbers and explaining the quadratic equation at their request (that came up because of a kid's CD, Brain Beats that includes a song about it). Funny note, when they asked about it in the car, I had to confess that I didn't actually remember it despite the fact that I studied when I was a big kid. I admitted that once we got past arithmetic Daddy (who taught high school math) would take over teaching math. Bug reassured me that once Daddy taught it to her, she would teach it to me and maybe I'd remember it this time.

One day this week, the girls decided to play restaurant, and they had quite the set up complete with a couple of little tables and a menu board that they wrote and illustrated themselves. In the midst of that I reviewed money values with them, so they could actually figure out how many coins to hand over based on the prices they wrote on the board. Lessons in handwriting and math--done!

Saturday's Outing
We got the girls out of bed early this Saturday to join a bunch of Daddy's coworkers for a busy and fun Saturday morning. Monkey and Bug went with Daddy to participate in a highway clean up, while Goose and I stayed behind to clean up the playground (cleaning the playground wasn't part of the official plan, but it helped Goose feel better about not participating with her sisters). All three girls were really excited about doing their part to keep God's world clean. Once the clean up was done we stuck around for the dedication of two memorials and a really tasty barbecue lunch. The girls made a couple of new friends, and I ended up following all five kids around while they explored the edge of the lake: watching boats, identifying geese and hawks, chasing butterflies, determining whether the thing floating in the water was a baby crocodile or a stick, and examining the sap dripping from a tree that had some of the bark ripped off. I did manage to keep them all from actually getting fully into the lake, but I think they all ended up muddy--just one of the hazards of being inquisitive little kids!

Library Day
This week's storytime had a birthday theme complete with real cupcakes to snack on at the end. We listened to several fun birthday stories, then made cards decorated with cupcakes out of tissue paper. Several of our favorite friends were there this week, so we hung out for a long time afterward, and came home with tons of books:
The Yo-yo Man
The Happy Hedgehog
Now and Ben (a neat picture book about how Ben Franklin's inventions effect our lives today)
Alphabet under Construction
An Invitation to the Butterfly Ball
Waking Dragons
Buzz!
The Island of the Skog
Prehistoric Pinkerton
The First Strawberries
Chief Crazy Horse
Black Elk
The Talking Leaves: The Story of Sequoyah
The Mystic Horse

Yellow Belts!
Monkey and Bug passed their third strike test on Thursday, and on Saturday we attended a graduation ceremony where they received their yellow belts! The graduation is a really big deal: it involved their being willing to be up on stage in front of an audience of a couple hundred people and join their classmates in showing off some of their skills before being given their belts. Their class demonstrated a strike drill (jab, cross, uppercut, hook punch), kick walking across the stage, and swinging their nunchucks while walking across the stage (that's hard enough to do while stationary!). Like the rest of their class, Monkey demonstrated a very nice figure eight with her nunchucks. Bug, however, has been struggling with figure eights and decided she would do something she knew she was good at instead. At the last minute backstage and without any adult involvement as far as I know, she decided to do her own thing (propeller spin, over the shoulder, around the back, repeat). I just really impressed that didn't freak out when asked to do something she wasn't confident with!

Monkey and Bug (far left) participating in a school tradition
of kneeling to wipe some sweat on their brand new belts.

 

Bug is SO proud of her new belt!

Lessons (Plus One)
Lessons continue. Monkey and Bug are both making progress with their reading. Monkey can now figure out most words with only one slow sounding out. Bug made a major breakthrough this week: she realized she could sound out words in her head and read everything the fast way out loud! They really finished the math concepts workbooks this week, and Monkey started on her addition book in earnest. I made a stack of flash cards this week for addition problems using all the single digit combinations. Bug's been working her way through that stack. We sorted out which ones she just knows, and she used Cheerios for counters one day to figure out some of the others. She continues working out multiplication spontaneously on her own by asking questions.

Thursday's lessons were made more exciting with an additional member of the entourage: the girls' best friend LA (a homeschooling 3-year-old who lives next door) spent most of the day with us, so her mom could get some serious work done for her at-home business. The girls had a blast. I did regular individual lessons for the big girls first while Goose and LA played. Then we dug up the sidewalk chalk and all went outside for a handwriting lesson for everybody (well, Goose just scribbled). LA's letter of the week was E, so they all focused on that and helped LA come up with a long list words that start with the letter E. Of course, that evolved into just playing outside and my girls helped LA conquer the climbing dome! Then everybody listened in on Goose's lessons: an alphabet book and a fairy-themed counting book, An Invitation to the Butterfly Ball. The latter inspired them to create their own version of the butterfly ball complete with costumes, dancing, and a plastic food banquet.

Happy little homeschoolers!

The beginning of the alphabet Bug was working on outside

Stories of the Plains
We read more picture book biographies and folktales this week, most of which involved the plains tribes: Black Elk, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Sequoyah for the biographies and The Mystic Horse and The First Strawberries for the folktales. For some of these readings we decided to pretend to be Native Americans and sit in our "teepee" (beach tent) in the backyard to hear the stories. The girls are fascinated by teepees because of the decorations and their mobility, so on Friday we decided to make miniature ones the right size for their Playmobil figures. We gathered sticks from the woods near our house, and the girls colored pictures on "buffalo skins" (cutouts from paper bags). Bug got frustrated with the instability of the teepees and decided to move her Playmobil to "pueblos" (the Playmobil police station). Monkey however had quite the camp set up.

The very latest in household fashion: paper bag hats!

Lessons

Formal lessons continue as usual! I don't have any big news to share, but here's what those actually look like just in case you were wondering: Lessons time is about an hour and half to two hours right after the girls eat breakfast and get ready for the day. I snuggle up with each girl individually for reading lessons while the other two play (Monkey and Bug work through their assignment for the day from our textbook, and Goose and I have been reading ABC books). This is the most challenging lesson of the day for Monkey and Bug, so we take a "brain break" before jumping into math--I set a timer and we dance to music, take a walk, or they just have a few minutes to play and relax.

Next Monkey and Bug usually do math simultaneously, though they rarely work on the same thing; I sit between them at our table in the study and help when necessary to read directions or point out what needs to be corrected. They've both almost finished their workbooks for numbers and math concepts, and they've both done pages from their addition book (the concepts books also involves addition). Bug has worked on subtraction, but Monkey decided she wasn't quite ready to go there yet. Goose will either color (sometimes they're even number coloring sheets) or listen to me or her sisters read a counting book. (Unrelated to lessons, Bug continues excitedly discovering multiplication. This morning she was sorting out the "times 10s" and "times 2s" and was explaining to me that "two 10s is 20, three 10s is 30, four 10s is . . . " and on up to 100, while "three 2s is 6, four 2s is 8, and five 2s is 10. [long pause] How many 2s would I need to make 100?")

Finally, the girls work on handwriting--once again simultaneously but not usually the same thing. At this point I let them pick their own letters to work on and medium in which to do it (workbook, dry erase book, coloring sheet, markers, crayons, paints, etc.).

After that we jump into our less formal lessons (history, science) or chores if it's a stay-at-home day or head off on our outing for the day (library, Y, shopping, homeschool group, etc.). At the moment my goal is to do formal lessons four days a week: Saturday is Daddy's stay-at-home day, Sunday is for church and resting, and we usually have one day during the week that just gets shot for whatever reason (appointments, field trip, etc.).

History
We're still having lots of fun with everybody's favorite subject. The girls recently saw a preview for Disney's Brother Bear, recognized that it was about Native Americans and decided we should watch that for one of our history lessons. I agreed, so we checked it out from the library and ordered pizza. There were some scary moments, but they loved it, and they were definitely paying attention to details like the kind of clothes they wore, weapons they carried, and things like kayaks. We also did our usual separating fact from fiction (for example, people don't really turn into animals--either while living or after death).

We read the true stories of Sitting Bull and Squanto this week, and much of the girls pretend play continues to involve "wearing clothes made out of animal skin," hiking through the country, and paddling boats. We also read the folktales The Legend of the Blue Bonnet and The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Fortunately, the big girls at least seem to have developed a very good sense of separating which stories are about real people from a long time ago versus stories written by those people a long time ago. After reading the Indian Paintbrush book, we talked about how most Native Americans didn't have a written language the way we do, so they often painted pictures on animal skins to help them remember stories and history--the way Little Gopher does in the book. Since we didn't have stretched buckskins like his, we made do with big pieces of construction paper instead, and I asked Monkey and Bug to paint about a story, then tell me about it.

Bug's story: He's an Indian warrior going to fight. He's riding a horse,
holding a spear, and the green arrow is showing which way he's going.

Monkey's story: A knight was going home, but a HUGE rainstorm came,
and he got lost. Before the storm, a monster attacked and ate his horse.
That's why he doesn't have one. But the knight found his home anyway,
so it was a happy ending.

Little Scientists
I haven't mentioned doing science lessons before because most of the time we just don't. These girls are insatiably curious, and I've checked off all the kindergarten science standards just by answering the questions they come up with every day (and of course we cover tons of subjects that aren't listed). This week though Monkey and Bug wanted to do some real experimenting since they happened upon a book about bubble experiments at the library. I gathered a bunch of supplies, took us all outside, and facilitated some intentional bubble play time. Then I explained that real scientist always keep a record of what they did and what they learned. I offered to write things down for them, and here's what they said:

• We made triangle, square, and rectangle things to blow bubbles with, but the bubbles all came out circles
• We made bubbles with straws and overflowed the cup.
• Bubbles stick to things that are bubbly. They can stick to water too.
• We made pictures with bubbles.
• We got soap all over our hands, and we could catch bubbles. We could see what a real bib bubble looks like. They had colors, but some just looked clear.

Later in the week, they asked me to help them make paper airplanes. They spent a long time playing/experimenting with those, and came up with these results:

• We can throw it really far.
• To make it flip we hold straight up and throw it that way.
• We threw them backwards, and they flipped that way too.
• We tried to hit things with them.

This week I also introduced them to the Magic School Bus (thank you, Netflix)--very popular! Ms. Frizzle introduced the girls to the Solar System, and of course didn't provide quite enough info for my crew, so we pulled out our book about outer space (thank you, Grandma & Granddad) and read up some more on all the planets. (Did you know Neptune has a pink moon?! The girls--especially Monkey--found this very exciting.)

Playing with Language
Thanks to a scene from Brother Bear (in which a kid bear tries to get a young adult bear to call him by name), we talked about syllables and practiced clapping out the syllables in our own names and other words.

Monkey and Bug have also discovered suffixes. They've gotten to be good enough readers that more of their lessons include words with -s, -ed, and -ing endings, and they recognize those as separate from the base words. This has resulted in their experimenting with other suffixes in everyday conversation with new words like these being added to their vocabulary:

• office: verb, any action taken by an officer; e.g., "What are you officing now?" (Monkey annoyed after being repeatedly "pulled over" by Police Officer Bug while driving the china cabinet)
• realizable: adjective, capable of being noticed; e.g., "I was being so quiet I was hardly realizable." (Bug proudly after a particularly quiet car ride)

Library Day
The theme this week was hats, and the girls got to make paper visors for the craft this week. The librarian also pulled out the parachute and a couple of balls this week.
There's a Dragon in the Library
Tap Tap Bang Bang
Truckery Rhymes
A Kiss for Little Bear
I Will Fly!
The Legend of the Blue Bonnet (Native American folktale)
1, 2, Buckle My Shoe
Eat Your Way from A to Z!

One Last Pool Day
The pool closes at the end of this week, so we did one last morning at the pool (it's amazing how quickly they get through lessons with that motivation). It was a bit cool, but we stayed about an hour and had a great time. They practiced jumping in, paddling around with and without noodles, and using their kickboards.

Dentist 
This week's non-lesson weekday was occupied by all three girls going to the dentist. They were awesome! Even Goose let the dental hygienist use the special spinning toothbrush to clean her teeth! Fortunately, our dentist is really good about explaining all her tools and what she's doing, so it proved to be quite the educational experience all on its own. I think we surprised her though when she expected (with three little girls) to see their "sparkly princess teeth" and was greeted with shiny monster grins and roars instead.

We made the unpleasant discovery that it's time to say goodbye to Goose's paci--at least during the day time. It's starting to effect her teeth, and so far Goose has willingly handed it over to be put away when she wakes up; although, we're still dealing with meltdowns a couple of times a day when I won't give it back until bedtime. Fortunately, she's been very motivated by "being a big girl" lately, so we'll make it.

Visiting Uncle K
This past weekend we decided to take the girls on a mini-vacation to visit their great uncle K, and we had a wonderful time. Uncle K lives in a lake house just outside a relatively big city, so we had quite a variety of activities to enjoy.

Into the Wild!
The girls had a blast just exploring Uncle K's yard, which (unlike our typically suburban postage stamp of grass) is all trees, bushes, and rock steps going down a hill to the dock. I know at some point they were actively hunting for spider webs and were really excited when they found a few with visible spiders.

Uncle K has three boats--a canoe, a kayak, and a motorized fishing boat--and the girls all got to take a ride in each of them. Monkey and Bug were particularly excited about the canoe and kayak originally being Native American boats that we've seen in our books. They didn't do any paddling themselves this time, but they've decided they're definitely going to learn how when they get bigger. At some point I went back to the dock to hang out (aah, peace and quiet with a good book), while Goose piled into the kayak with Daddy and the big girls joined Uncle K on the fishing boat for a longer excursion. They even got to explore up a small river that feeds into the lake.

Of course, we did more extensive exploring on land too. Uncle K led us down the road to a trail head in his neighborhood, and we followed the trail to a pile of huge rocks that were perfect for climbing around on. On the way home the girls decided they wanted to lead the hike and took off at a run down the trail. Daddy followed close on the heels of the big girls to make sure they really did follow the trail while Uncle K and I lagged behind to follow Goose's lead. All three girls actually did a very decent job of paying attention and sticking to the the trail. They only needed a couple of course corrections to get back.

Roaring from the top of the big rocks!

Urban Adventures
On Sunday we decided to take the light rail into the city to let the girls get up close and personal with some skyscrapers again. They were really excited about the train! It's the first time they've been on a real train (the kiddie one at the zoo doesn't count--it doesn't even have tracks), and they loved it. Particularly cool moments were the sightings of the first skyscrapers and getting to ride the train through a building!

Very excited about their first train ride!

Once downtown we just did some walking around and went through the book themed park that we discovered last time were in town. We got to explore some new sculptures this time though, since a different set of sprinklers were on.

We happened to be downtown just as an Indian Festival was getting underway. The girls played in a bouncy house for a while, then we did a quick walk through the booths to admire all the beautiful dresses, jewelry and pictures. After that unexpected adventure we actually got to go in one of the skyscrapers. Most of the building was closed to the public, of course, but we got to see a small indoor garden, and we went up to the 8th floor of the parking garage to look out. The parking garage had the added of fun of being extremely good for making echoes. We stopped for lunch at a deli a couple of floors up a different building and found seats by the window--very cool for a trio of little ones excited about big buildings!

We took the train back to Uncle K's, then got in our own car to head home. Not a long visit, but a good one. I doubt he could hear them, but he girls were yelling, "I love you, Uncle K!" as we pulled out of his driveway.

Pool Time
Monday was one of those "this is why I love homeschooling" days. By 10 a.m. the girls had finished all their formal lessons, so we headed out for a two-hour health & safety and PE class, i.e., we went to the neighborhood pool, which we had all to ourselves. This process involved answering questions about why we wear sunscreen and how swimming is a form of exercise, reviewing pool safety rules, and of course working on actual swimming skills. All three girls can paddle around the pool independently with floaty noodles tied around their waists. Monkey and Bug both practiced doing star fish floats (Bug has gotten really good at this), and Bug also tried actually dog paddling without the noodle on for a long time. Goose also worked on getting in and out of the pool by herself. Their favorite game during this pool visit was to throw sponge balls out into the pool to swim out to. I just tried to stay centrally located in case anyone needed assistance.

Library Day
Story time is back! The theme for the first fall session was simply books, and the librarian had some fun books about books to share. Then the girls got to make bookmarks that said "I <3 Books" by gluing magazine cutouts to strips of poster board. We got to hangout with some of our usual friends as well as make a new one (a fellow milspouse who's new to the area and her toddler son). As usual we came home with lots of books (including a small collection of picture book biographies for our Native American history unit):
Bye Bye Binky!
Can I Throw Your Ball?
Pamela the Camel
ABC
How Chipmunk Got His Stripes (Native American folktale)
Sacagawea
The Boy Called Slow (biography of Sitting Bull)
Squanto and the Pilgrims

Milestones

Bug's been very into skyscrapers, and she
constructed this huge one out of Legos. She
even thought through building a wider base,
so it would fall over as easily.

The big one this week was Bug's deciding that she is really, really done sucking her thumb. She's been trying very hard, but this week she said she was really having trouble remembering and asked if we could put a bandaid on her thumb to keep her from putting it in her mouth. We've gone through a lot of bandaids, but it's working!

Kind of funny milestone: Goose figured out how to swish and spit, so she's using big kid toothpaste just like her sister's now! It's a little thing, but she was very excited about getting to do something like a big girl.

Goose's other "big girl" thing is that she now gets to go to the preschool Bible study on Wednesday nights. Monkey and Bug are in there too (other church night activities don't start until 1st grade), and Goose was the only kid in the nursery. The nursery worker and preschool teacher talked it over, and we decided to Goose could handle the activities and would probably have a lot more fun with the other kids.

Lessons
We did official lessons (as opposed to the learning they do all the time everywhere) four days this week, which I've decided is going to be my goal.

Goose has decided that, at least at the moment and unlike her sisters, she's not that into coloring sheets (there goes that plan). However, Bug has been absolutely thrilled to read ABC and counting books to Goose, while I work with Monkey. Then whenever Monkey's done, she whisks Goose off into whatever their pretend play of the day is going be, so it all works out anyway.

For reading, Bug is getting to where most of her reading is done "the fast way" without having to sound out every letter, and her stories continue growing in length and shrinking in font size. Monkey continues working on her sounding out skills, but she's getting better everyday (only a few words requiring sounding out half a dozen times before it clicks; she goes through most words just a couple of times). I've also made her lessons a little more enticing by incorporating her word lists into short somewhat nonsensical stories and having her read just the words from the list, while I read the rest. (Interesting learning style difference: Bug loves conquering a list and seeing just how far she can go; Monkey couldn't care less about how many words she read--she needs them to mean something more significant!)

They're still very into the math workbooks, and both girls continue to usually do more than required. This week Monkey did more addition and practicing writing numbers, while Bug did more shapes, measuring, and comparisons. They got their new Puzzle Buzz magazines, so I let them count completing some of those dot-to-dot, mazes, and hidden picture puzzles as their math lessons. Bug has also been discovering multiplication on her own this week. A typical totally-out-of-the-blue interchange goes like this:
     Bug: How many is two 10s?
     Me: Twenty
     Bug: So, that means four 5's is twenty, right?
     Me: Yep

This week I finally remembered to make handwriting part of our usual lessons. Bug is very into it, and has systematically written the entire alphabet (upper and lowercase) a couple of times by going through a dry erase workbook. She also wrote a couple of sentences all by herself (interesting--she had all the write letters in each word, but not always in the right order, i.e., over her drawing of a sheep "Cna ti baa?" = "Can it baa?") Monkey is practicing letters more at random. She has a favorite pen she likes to use, and she practices on blank paper whatever letters catch her fancy, verifying with me that she has them facing the right way. She can write her name all by herself now!

More Native American Adventures
This week we talked a lot about houses and boats. We actually flipped through the DK book looking for all the different kinds of houses they lived in, noting what materials they used and how many people would have lived in each one. The girls were most intrigued by teepees: "When they need to move, they don't need to find a next new house like we do. They just pack up the whole house and move it with them!" They were very excited when we went for a playdate at their friend V's house, and he had a teepee they could play in. They noted with disappointment that it was just made out of cloth though, not animals skins like a real one. The topic of boats came up after reading the story of Sacagawea (which they loved). We talked about different kinds of boats the Native Americans used (canoes, kayaks, and bullboats are the ones that came up), and the girls have spent a long time exploring "new lands" by paddling their "great big canoe" (the couch).

We made mini totem poles this week too. I found some good templates online that the girls used to color faces. We also watched some YouTube videos about how real totem poles are carved. While the girls colored, I discovered NativeRadio.com--a great source of free streaming Native American music. The girls really liked all the drums featured in the songs we heard.

In addition to reading the Sacagawea story, we read several Native American folktales that we happen to own copies of. We didn't get to the other biographies from the library this week, but I'm planning to keep them around for a few weeks anyway for repeated readings.

Business as Usual
While we did our official beginning-of-the-year breakfast several weeks ago, this is the first week that we actually returned to the usual fall routine. Karate is still going, and mid-week church activities and our weekly homeschool group have started back up. We even managed to consistently do our formal lessons first thing every morning!

I've even been a bit more organized for Goose now. I printed up ABC and number coloring sheets for her to work on while her sisters are busy with their work, and I've made a point to do more Goose-specific read-alouds in the morning (the kind of books the big girls had read to them repeatedly when they were 2, but that tend to get passed over now that they're 5). Goose knows the ABC song, so now we're trying to work on more letter recognition, and Bug has been really on top of teaching Goose her numbers (she can count objects accurately up to at least 6).

Goose and Monkey also worked on their names--Monkey in actually writing hers using a worksheet I made that removes one additional letter from her name each line until she's written out the whole thing; Goose colored in/traced her name on an outline version. Bug's real name is actually really short too, so she's mastered it already and she did her own thing while I worked with Monkey.

Monkey and Bug continue their reading lessons. They know all the basic phonetic sounds now, so they're just plugging away at actually sounding out words and picking up on common sight words. In fact, just to satisfy my curiosity I printed up a checklist for each of them with the twenty most common words. Bug knew 17 of them--many of by sight and some by sounding them out. Monkey knew or sounded out 5, but then decided to dig her heels in and refuse to sound out any more (we had a small bug perched nearby issuing less than encouraging comments about ones Monkey had to sound out that she just knew. Serious discussions were had with both of them). I've managed to get Monkey back to reading from the textbook or at least from Bob books (a set of easy readers that correspond pretty nicely to our curriculum), so her lessons will be a little more systematic now.

They were really into math this week! In addition to spontaneously breaking out into sums (confirming aloud at random sums up to 10), they each did at least three pages a day from their math workbooks (they each have ones for numbers, math concepts, addition, and subtraction--at this point I let them choose which they work from). They've both been working a lot on actually writing numerals this week. Monkey also spent time on measuring activities and shapes pages (not just identifying standard shapes, but doing activities like figuring out which shapes were put together to create 3-D shapes, i.e., two circles and a rectangle make a cylinder). Bug chose to spend time working on subtraction problems and counting money.

Finally their favorite subject--history! Our studies of Native Americans continues. We read through the book about Pocahontas several times, and we even managed to find some coloring sheets that were more historically accurate than the plethora of Disney ones out there. The girls were particularly excited about finding one that pictured her as a child and one with a grown-up Pocahontas with John Rolfe and their son Thomas. We spent lots of time perusing the DK book, of course (it's organized by geographic region instead of by topic, which is what the girls would prefer since they tend to ask about subjects not places). This week we looked at different Native American masks--and made our own obviously. Then we studied all the different styles of clothing and the pictures and patterns they decorated them with. For this subject, we went with the classic paper bag vests and construction paper & feather headdresses. For the bases of the headdresses, the girls suggested we use the crowns they made at church earlier in the week. It all worked beautifully! (Unfortunately, the pictures did not turn out--they won't open on my computer. Hopefully, I can get this sorted out for next week's post.)

Library Day
There's no storytime yet (it starts up next week), but these girls were desperate to get more library books since we never made it to the library last week after returning from our trip. I got in touch with a friend and we met up for a playdate at the library Tuesday. The kids had fun playing and looking at books, and Miss M and I got to chitchat. Of course, we came home with lots of books:
Time to Sleep, Sheep the Sheep!
There Is a Bird on My Head!
Leonardo the Terrible Monster
Turk and Runt
The Tiny Tortilla
Night Rabbits
Pocahontas
How Thunder and Lightning Came to Be (a Native American folktale)

Dragon Club Members!
Monkey and Bug were super excited about getting back to their karate classes this week! They were invited  join Dragon Club, an extra 15 minutes of class for a select group of students to learn weapons (nunchucks and bow staff) and "kicks & tricks" (a bit more advanced combinations plus a little gymnastics). They actually picked up on the nunchuck routines faster than we anticipated they would.

Church: Study & Service
All the regular activities have started up again at church. On Wednesday, the girls and I enjoyed a church night supper with a couple of other members, then Monkey and Bug went cheerfully off for the pre-k and kindergarten Bible study (where they studied the story of King David and made those crowns). Poor Goose was the only one in the nursery. There wasn't even a nursery worker at first, but after waiting awhile I dropped her off in the class with her sisters, so I could get to my own class. The nursery worker did eventually appear, but she decided to keep Goose in the pre-k class anyway (curious to see what happens next week).

On Friday I took the entourage to assist a couple of other moms and I with setting up the fellowship hall for a potluck luncheon happening on Sunday. They were thrilled to have a real job to do at church. Bug learned how to properly set a table and took over the task of placing the forks and spoons. Monkey and Goose handled the centerpieces--for a football-themed event this involved setting out megaphones, mini-footballs, and confetti on every table (I was impressed with how little confetti ended up on the floor actually). All three of them helped us set out plates, and we grown ups were impressed how quickly we got the job done!

Lessons? Traveling!
Formal lessons didn't really happen much for the last two weeks. (The big girls practiced a bit of reading and some simple math, and they reviewed shapes and colors with Goose.) Instead we traveled--albeit in different directions. We all drove to Nana and Papa Bear's house first for a day, then Daddy and I left the girls behind and flew to Seattle for a couple of days to visit friends before embarking on a week-long Alaskan cruise (don't worry, family, I'll send out an email with photos about that later). As the pictures below will show, the girls had a blast!

Morning milk and snuggles with Nana; reading an Oz book with Papa Bear
at bedtime; snuggles with Uncle K, who came to visit for a few days too

A day the county fair with farm animals, cotton candy (and lots of other yummy foods), and rides.
The two photos on the bottom right were taken on the ferris wheel.

playing on a really cool wooden playground

playing in the local lake

riding around the neighborhood in style with Uncle K

making pillows with Nana (the girls got to pick out the fabric
and help with the sewing and stuffing)

coloring on their awesome collapsible cardboard playhouse

Birthday
Monkey and Bug's fifth birthday fell at the end of our trip, so we celebrated at Nana and Papa Bear's house before returning home, where they had more presents from Daddy and I and Grandma and Granddad waiting for them. They are thoroughly enjoying all their new things, and they even cooperated with cleaning out some old toys from the playroom to make more room!

Celebratory cupcakes at Nana and Papa Bear's house!

Monkey trying out the BB gun she and Bug got for their birthday.
Bug was actually even more enthusiastic about shooting than Monkey,
but my computer refuses to let me download the photos I took of her.

History Closer to Home

Monkey's little "pottery" bowl

While we didn't finish my list of topics and activities for imperial China, we decided to move on to a new unit when the girls returned from our travels with an intense interest in Native Americans. Daddy and I returned from Alaska with several pieces of Native American art that they admired, but mostly the interest came from watching Disney's Pocahontas. They're smart enough to realize that movies do not always match reality, so they came home with lots of questions. We sorted out the fantasy from reality, and they placed the era portrayed in the movie in their mental timeline ("after cavemen, but before people invented cars"). Once we got home they peppered me with questions about food preparation and storage, houses, and clothes. I pulled out the DK book about Native Americans, and they spent a long time just looking at the pictures and soaking it all in. We specifically read the sections about the Northwest and the area where we currently live. We even did two activities already: The girls searched the book for examples of pottery, and we pulled out the Playdough to create dolls and bowls; we also played a slightly modified version (we don't have room for a 100 ft long court) of a game called chunkey.

"First Day of School"
As year-round learners who are constantly soaking up information and who informed me that I needed to teach them to read when they turned 4 years old, declaring a first day of school just because "they're old enough" seemed pointless--especially since over the past year since that declaration we've slowly added a number of other academic subjects.  However, I stole a great idea from a fellow homeschooling mom's blog for turning everyone else's first day into a fun milestone for us: When the public school kids dragged their feet to the school bus on their first day of school this Tuesday, we loaded up into the car and headed to IHOP for a scrumptious breakfast and discussion of our own educational efforts.

My little foodies: Monkey and Bug decided to ditch the kids menu in favor
of splitting a Belgian waffle topped with cherries and vanilla cream. Goose
went for the chocolate funny face pancake that her sisters (quite cheerfully)
helped her eat.

We talked about all the things they're learning at home (reading, math, history, etc.) and the fun activities we have coming up (home school group, Wednesday nights at church, etc.). We talked about things they're going to be doing in the future (handwriting, studying locations along our cross-country trip in February) and what some of their favorite things are that we should do more of (history projects, visits to the zoo). We also talked about kindergarten--that kids their age would be going to school now and that if anyone asked, yes, Monkey and Bug could say they did kindergarten at home. At some point later in the week Bug gleefully announced that "We don't have to go to school! We learn ALL the time!" Home schooling win!

History
Monday turned out to be a sick day--only Monkey, fortunately, and she wasn't terribly sick, but it was just easier to declare it a general sick day and make lessons optional for everyone. They really wanted to do history though, so I pulled out a more involved lesson that actually turned into two back-to-back topics. We started out studying the Chinese invention of printing. We read about it in our Eyewitness book, then created our own "woodblock" print of their names using a sheet of Styrofoam and tempera paints.

From there of course they wanted to just paint, and they asked about what ancient Chinese paintings looked like. We watched a slideshow of traditional Chinese paintings (thank you, Google Images) and got out their brushes and paint palettes. Bug even picked a favorite painting of flowers that she wanted to emulate.

Later in the week we learned about Chinese medicine. I think they were a little weirded out by the idea of acupuncture, although they thought the maps of acupuncture points were pretty cool. The idea of herbal medicine definitely had more appeal, and at bath time they pretended to make an herbal soup, so they would stay healthy (fortunately, they knew better than to actually drink the bathwater).

Lessons
They didn't actually do much in their workbooks this week, but we did a lot of spontaneous math problems. Monkey and Bug would just start asking me to verify simple addition problems with sums less than 10. Monkey and I also spent some time doing math with their abacus, and Bug created a few of her own dot-to-dot activities (draw dots, connect and count them, figure out what the picture looks like afterwards). Bug also decided to intentionally do math during our grocery shopping trip, and she helped me figure out the cost of all the produce.

For reading Bug has continued reading from her textbook, and she reads more and more "the fast way." Monkey asked me to write a few sentences for her to read, but mostly she likes to pick a book for us to read together. I get her to sound out a word or two on each page, and we do repetition reading for the rest. Monkey has also been making letters out of found objects a lot--necklaces, blocks, string, etc. She has yet to spell any real words this way, but she has fun sounding out what she does put together.

Home School Group Kick-off Party
Our home school group is starting up again! This year we had a kick off party at Monkey Joe's--a warehouse-sized place with huge bouncy house things, included a massive bouncy pirate ship. We got there just as it opened for us, so the girls could explore the place before it turned into complete chaos. The timing turned out to be perfect: They played on the smaller things for about 40 minutes until the actual meeting started, at which point they were really ready for a rest. They were perfectly content to just sit quietly for the 20 minute meeting. Afterwards we ate the lunch we brought, and they were brave enough to experience the larger bouncy things. While the girls were too busy having fun/being overwhelmed to make friends with the other kids, I got to chat with friends from last year and meet a few new people with kids the same age.

Karate
Because the girls will have to miss several classes over the next couple of weeks, they went to an extra class this week in order to have enough lessons to qualify for yellow belt testing next month. No complaints from them though--they still initiate their own practices almost every day at home, and Goose has been insisting on going with them to watch their class (she practices with them at home). This week they even spread out a flat sheet on the living room floor, so they have a "mat" to bow on and off. They've particularly been practicing some of their new skills: hook punches, upper cuts, and side kicks.