Holy Week
We kicked off Holy Week by making sugar cookies in spring-themed shapes at the girls request (we made Christmas cookies after all. Why not Easter cookies!) I switched our daily Bible readings to the Holy Week stories starting on Palm Sunday. They were so excited about waving palm branches! Bug decided to wear a special dress for the occasion--her Christmas dress, red velveteen and white faux fur and all!

The next "big events" for the girls were on Friday: I decided to start a tradition of having fresh cut flowers for Easter decorations, and I let the girls pick them out from the grocery store. Monkey chose pink roses, Bug picked purple irises, and Goose went with orange tulips. When we got home we searched the house for vases, and the girls helped me pick appropriate ones.

That afternoon we dyed Easter eggs. The girls colored them with crayons first (they only dropped two!), then I made six different colors of dye to drop them in. I had to do quite a bit of convincing to get the girls to leave them in for any length of time. (We're working on the whole concept of patience. Cue Bug wailing: "But, Mommy, I don't have any patience!").

(Monkey dyed eggs too. She has a habit of stepping out of photos though.)

Most of our Easter celebrating took place on Saturday with two parties! The first was an event at church that involved several tables of craft projects, snacks, a retelling of the Easter story, an egg hunt, and a couple of bouncy houses. Let me just say that our children's minister is awesome. She had them hunting for empty Easter eggs, but she explained beforehand that the empty eggs stood for the empty tomb the disciples found and that at the end the kids could trade them in for a treat bag to celebrate Christ's resurrection. Besides the sheer fun of finding (Monkey and Bug compared it to a hidden pictures puzzle "only in real life!"), the kids were motivated to find several metallic eggs or to collect the most eggs, both of which would earn them an extra prize. (The obvious upsides for the grown ups: the parents didn't have to deal with dozens of plastic eggs to take home, and our minister could reuse the eggs next year.) We went straight from church to our second party: a neighborhood potluck that was actually taking place in our front yard (hosted by our next door neighbors with my permission). We all enjoyed lots of tasty food, and Bug and Goose had a blast in our neighbors bouncy house. Monkey decided she'd been social enough for the day, and retreated into the house to get some alone time with a brief appearance to acquire food. (Let me just say I'm very thankful for a self-aware preschooler who can declare that she needs alone time instead of having a meltdown.)

I had three happy girls Easter morning when they woke up to chocolate bunnies and hot cross buns for breakfast! I decided to make it a relative stress-free Sunday morning, and we got to church too late for Sunday school, but early enough for the service that we got to watch the guest musicians warming up. They were particularly impressed with the tuba: "It's HUGE!" They left halfway through for children's church as usual, but I rushed to get them back at the end so we could process out to the lawn with flowers to place in the cross.

Bug and Goose were thrilled to have a pic taken in their beautiful dresses.
Monkey exited the frame, and I had to catch a candid later. 

Nana's Here!
Nana came to visit this week! We did some shopping for spring clothes, which the girls were very excited about. They even tried to help me find a new dress for Easter; I came away with a new blouse and some strappy shoes at least (Bug in particular was concerned that I should have a pretty dress too). They got to play on the play space at the mall and at Chick-fil-a--always popular activities. They also got some time with just Nana to play, read books, and watch a movie, while I got to leave the house solo to do things like go for a run, browse the library, and take myself out for dinner and a movie.

cheesing for Nana

Library Day
This week's storytime was pirates and princesses, and all the kids were invited to dress up. Bug and Goose donned crowns, but Monkey grabbed a hook and a bandana. (I think I had the only female pirate in the crowd.) We had a guest librarian from the "big library" who dressed up as Fancy Nancy to read a few books about pirates and princesses. They had several craft station set up, and my girls made pirate hats and fancy wands.

Bug took this photo of Goose modelling a pirate hat Bug made.

Their book selection this week certainly followed a fantasy theme! We came home with:
The Sleeping Beauty
Not All Princesses Wear Pink!
Puff the Magic Dragon
Child of Faerie
Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy
Hey, Mama Goose! (they've checked this one out multiple times--it's a cute book about fairy tale characters going house hunting.)
Strega Nona's Magic Lessons
Jump Up!

Movies
Since ceasing our morning TV time, we've stopped watched typical preschool cartoons, but we haven't stopped watching everything. Over the past few weeks, we've watched Linnea in Monet's Garden (lovely little movie about a girl and her elderly neighbor who visit Paris to see Monet's paintings, house, and garden; it cuts between animations of the characters and real footage of paintings, photos of Monet himself and his house and garden, which are currently a museum. The girls were excited to recognize paintings from our prints and from their Monet picture book.) and The Red Balloon (classic French film from the 50s; the drama crossed barriers of language, culture, and time; they loved it.) They also watched The Land Before Time with Nana (what preschooler doesn't love baby dinosaurs, right?) and rewatched one of their favorites, The Lion King, when Miss J came over to watch them for a couple of hours. Apparently she was treated to play-by-play commentary throughout the showing.

Reading & Math
We took a break from the usual lessons with Nana here, but we picked it up again at the end of the week. Monkey and Bug each learned a new letter sound (a as in ape for Monkey, and v for Bug). Goose insisted on doing a few of her own reading lessons this week too. For her of course we just review letter sounds. She has the first several sounds from the book: m, a, s, and e.

Math was similar: review and confidence building. Mostly we worked on counting--also skip counting for Bug, who wants to learn how to count "the fast way." During one of these lessons Monkey opted to just listen in while quietly working on her own spatial reasoning skills with a set of magnets--building different forms, laying them out to make shapes on the floor, lining them up in rows of equal length and rearranging them, etc. Once again Goose insisted on her own formal lesson. I used the abacus with her to practice identifying colors and counting to 10.

History
We only did one history project this week. I printed up 8 or 10 samples of ancient Roman mosaics, which we admired then talked about how they were made. The next obvious step: We made our own! Of course, ours were just construction paper.

Outside
We had some truly gorgeous days this week, so we headed outside to enjoy them! It was even warm enough for some water play inspired by the fact that we had to try on bathing suits (Last year's still fit the big girls, and Goose has several hand-me-downs to choose from!). I wasn't willing to go through the hassle of getting out the big pool this time around, but they love the hose and the sprinkler this year!

One day we also found a HUGE toad sitting beside the house. The girls were intrigued but kind enough to give him his space. By the next day he had apparently found a new, less social location.

The girls also thoroughly enjoyed our steep, still-unlandscaped hill at the back of our yard. In fact, they turned one patch of particularly long grass into a preschooler-sized nest by flattening out the grass and adding extra pine-straw for padding.

Books This Week
The theme for storytime at the library this week was spring, and the girls made butterflies out of paper hearts, popsicle sticks, and stickers. We came home with these books:

• Strega Nona's Gift
• Curious George Counts to 100
• Bob's Best Ever Friend 
• Rooster's Off to See the World
• Doctor Ted
• Food for Thought (all the preschool basics--shapes, colors, numbers, letters, and opposites--illustrated with hilariously sculpted vegetables)

I forgot to mention this last week, but before Daddy left he recorded himself reading the Illustrated Classics edition of Howard Pyle's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We've been listening to a chapter every night, and the girls love it. The storylines and vocabulary are pretty advanced, so we pause it frequently to talk about what's going on, and we always discuss what happened yesterday before we get started. They love the characters though--kings, villains, princesses, and wizards . . .

Friday was a very Seussical day. We read a number of books from our Dr. Seuss collection, and the girls watched a live action Cat in the Hat (not the full-length movie; a 30 minute British theater version that's wonderful and true to the book) and cartoon versions of Green Eggs and Ham and The Sneetches.

I checked out The Book of Virtues from our church library, intending peruse it myself and decide if it should be a purchase for our home library. For reasons unknown to me, Bug desperately wanted me to read it to her and her sisters (really, it's an 820-page book with small print and no pictures! At least I know I've succeeded in instilling a love of books!). She made the right call though. They sat for far longer than I expected listening to me read, they were intrigued enough by a few of the poems and stories to talk about them later, and the selection we read from "Self-Discipline" has already had an impact on their behavior--they're consistently closing the back door behind them now and saying "please" has become something of a game. Needless to say, this book is now on my must-own list (I see a trip to the used bookstore in my future!).

It's fun to see how the girls pull quotes from their favorite books into everyday things. We made angel hair pasta with alfredo sauce one evening, and as we were getting started, the girls recited Strega Nona's song to see if my Dutch oven could possibly be a magic pasta pot like hers. They even remembered to blow three kisses in for the "ingrediente segreto." Sadly, we still had to cook our noodles the normal way, but they thought the exercise was hilarious. The really wonderful literature in life moments have been whenever anyone tries to turn their nose up at a dish at dinnertime. Thanks to Green Eggs and Ham, the culprit is instantly accosted with "Try it! Try it and you may!" along with threats of "Do I have to chase you around like Sam-I-am?"

Reading
Of course, in addition to all these books, Monkey and Bug are continuing their reading lessons. Monkey added the sound sh, and Bug added o as in go along with the question mark. The paragraphs Bug is required to read are getting longer and the type is getting smaller. She balked when she first noticed the change this week, but her enthusiasm when she conquered each one was so much fun to watch. Monkey's sounding out skills seemed to take a leap this week! She's been wanting to do my pre-made sentence and picture sheets this week, and she sounded out two full sentences by the end of the week! At her request I also taught her to read the Star Wars easy reader book this week. She can sight read all the major characters names and some other key terms like "father."

At some point in the week, Monkey and Bug vehemently disagreed about who got to use the writing pad. I'm all for encouraging them to write, so I solved the problem by purchasing them each a composition book that has early writer lines and space for a drawing on each page. They were thrilled! In fact, Bug has informed me that she is writing a chapter book for kids, so it's going to take a while until it's done. Not to be left out, Goose has a notebook of her own too, in which she practices writing "letters" with a great sense of pride.

History
We started off the week by revisiting the story of the Apostle Paul. Only this time instead of talking about his travels and Roman transportation, we talked about the epistles and Roman writing tools. After reading the introduction to the epistles in their Bible, we read the DK section about Roman writing, looked up photos online of reproductions of scrolls and wax writing tablets, then made our own scrolls complete with a verse from the Letter to the Romans for the girls to trace. They thought it was so cool to have a real scroll with a real sentence that Paul wrote to the Roman Christians.

Most of the rest of the week was involved with exploring the Colosseum and Roman games. When exploring topics about Ancient Rome online or in books, images of the Colosseum are everywhere, and the girls realized that something important must happen inside that huge, neat looking building. So, to satisfy their curiosity, we read all the appropriate sections in the DK book, watched a History Channel clip about the architecture of the building itself, watched clips from Spartacus about the gladiator school and a gladiator fight scene (classic movies were definitely a good way to get a gore-free look at the games), watched the chariot race scene from Ben Hur (the girls got really into the chariot race, and it resulted in some good discussion about sportsmanship), and looked up information online about the water battles staged in the Colosseum (Monkey remembered water battles being mentioned somewhere and wanted to know how exactly they got all that water into the arena).

We also finally got around to reading the Ancient Romans book we checked out of the library last week. It covers many of the same topics as the DK book, but instead of containing photos of ruins and artifacts, it's illustrated with detailed artists' renderings of what things would have really looked back then. Monkey in particular was fascinated.

Math
We're still working on all the same concepts: counting to 100 by rote memory, understanding the teens, and simple addition. We've read the Curious George book several times already, and Bug will spontaneously decide to count to 100 almost every day. Monkey verified with me at some point this week that 100 meant one hundred. She informed me that, while she knows that number, she can't count that high yet, but she will when she gets a little bigger. It's encouraging to know that she's looking forward to that increase in her knowledge even if she isn't ready to be there yet. We worked on the teens and twenties with drinking straws this week: I bundled two sets of 10 straws and got out 10 loose straws, then had the girls help me build whatever number I called out. (I wrote out a number line for reference, which definitely helped.) At the end of the week, I decided to experiment and wrote up a couple of flash cards with addition problems with sums of 6 or fewer. I've never had them do additional without some kind of manipulative, so I wasn't sure how they'd handle this. Bug was thrilled to discover she could come up with answers to almost every question without counting it out. Monkey isn't ready for numerals only problems, but I was having Bug check her own answers with the abacus, so it wasn't a big deal for Monkey to count hers out from the beginning.

You've Got Mail!
In a homeschooling book or blog somewhere along the way, I read about a mom who said her kids had learned a lot informally by getting them their own magazine subscriptions on different topics of interest. I tucked that away as a good idea "for later." Then one day this week I checked the mailbox and only the kids of the household had received any mail! It struck me that "later" has arrived already. So for the record, here are the subscriptions the entourage currently receives (despite the fact that they're barely reading):

• Clubhouse Jr. (a great publication of Focus on the Family that I grew up with)
• National Geographic: Little Kids (tons of fun pictures, facts, and activities all about animals)
• Puzzle Buzz (a Highlight's produced magazine of puzzles, mazes, quizzes, etc.)
• Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (not a magazine, but a free book subscription; they each get one book per month until they turn 5. Parents and grandparents of babies and preschoolers, if you don't know about this, check out ImaginationLibrary.com and see if it covers your location.)

Bug, the Photographer
Bug borrowed my camera one afternoon to practice her photography skills. She frequently picked a subject and took multiple pictures to get the angle and the clarity right. Her are a few of her favorites (she took about  100--thank goodness for digital cameras!).

Goodbye Again, Daddy
We thoroughly enjoyed a few weeks with Daddy home, but we had to take him back to the airport this week. The girls decided to see him off while wearing their Team Daddy shirts, which he appreciated. They miss him already (so do I, of course). Goose was explaining to me at some point that her baby doll needed her pacifier because she missed her daddy, and Bug was in tears that she couldn't go with Daddy on big trips like this--even when she got to be a big kid. I helped comfort the baby doll, and Bug decided she wanted to write Daddy an email by dictating to me. Monkey tends to internalize things, but we're all finding our coping mechanisms.

Reading

They've graduated to a bigger work table for the study. Now

 that they're old enough to take their work seriously arguments

 kept arising over elbow space. 

Monkey added two sounds this week: g a in goat and i as in ice cream. The latter isn't actually in the order the book I use introduces it, but she requested to learn that sound, so I went with it. She's been alot more attentive to what sounds are found in words this week, which means my conversations are frequently interrupted with comments like, "Hey! Frog starts with f and ends with g!" At least I know it's all sinking in! She also decided this week that writing her own sentences would be far more interesting than simply tracing the ones from the book. I had actually purchased a pad of paper with writing lines and space for a drawing a while back, which she thought was awesome. She dictated the sentences which I wrote lightly in pencil, then she traced over them and drew a picture.

Bug has been really busy this week! She added the sounds k and h this week as well as the sight words was and has. She also learned about quotation marks. She even wrote her first sentence: "Zac plade [outside]." She asked me how to spell "outside," and I decided not to correct her spelling of "played" this time. I didn't want to discourage her first effort, and she has no reason to know that that word uses "ay" for that sound since our book hasn't covered that letter combination yet.

Math
For math this week, we played with the abacus a good bit: counting to 100, counting by 10s, adding together two or three rows of beads, etc. Monkey and Bug can both do sums totaling 5 or fewer without actually having to count out the beads. This is the first week that's been possible! They also did some worksheets to practice writing numerals. Bug in particular liked those. Monkey opted out of them one day, and she and I did some "toy" math instead. I found her playing with little toys on the play table, so I started asking her to count toys in various categories (how many dinosaurs? trucks? people?). Then I had her add different categories together (how many airplanes and school buses?).

Legionaries and Cavalry

We read tidbits on a variety of topics from the Ancient Rome DK book, but the girls were mostly interested in the Roman soldiers this week. We talked about what their lives were like and what they wore, and our major project was creating our own armor over the course of several days. Construction paper, duct tape, milk jugs, scraps of ribbon, a dress-up clothes construction helmet, and carboard boxes were all involved. As usual distinct personalities emerged: Bug was interested in having a "fancy" uniform to be a cavalry officer or legionary in a parade, while Monkey was far more interested in the sword and shield. In fact, at some point she stripped down to underwear, sword, and shield to go for the gladiator look. She and Goose had quite the epic duel through the living room and kitchen.

While we were working on all this, the girls asked me to tell them stories about Rome, and we covered Horatius at the bridge, Spartacus (though I confess I stopped short of the unhappy ending; we've been reading the story of Moses during our morning Bible reading, so they were very interested in the topic of slaves trying to gain their freedom), and Romulus and Remus (their favorite since R & R were twins like Monkey and Bug and since R & R were raised by a wolf like Mowgli from their favorite novel).

Library Day/New Books
Storytime took place in the children's section this week instead of in the storytime room, which was being painted. The girls seemed to enjoy the novelty, and Monkey and Bug even headed to the front to sit without me. They even piped up to answer questions! I was so proud. The theme this week was green, and the girls made construction paper leprechan hats with rainbow streamers attached. We came home with these books:
Mossy
Snow White and Rose Red
Sea Shapes
Ancient Romans
Strega Nona (sequel to the one we got last week)
George & Martha: Back in Town

I also acquired two e-books for the girls. Monkey and Bug have been really into their Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls this week, so I looked up the original Raggedy Ann Stories and Raggedy Andy Stories from the early 1900s and discovered free e-books complete with illustrations (Thank you, Project Gutenberg!). They love these books!

Farmer's Market
A farmer's market recently started up a few minutes from us, so on Thursday afternoon we went to check it out. We didn't actually purchase anything on this trip, but the girls were fascinated by getting to actually see the farmers who grow food. They also got to do things like sample local honeys, admire gorgeous flowers, and watch a couple of women working a spinning wheel and drop spindle (they even got to feel the wool before and after spinning). While this may have been more of a highlight for me than for the entourage, the local retired greyhound organization also had a booth, and we got to meet a lovely greyhound and talk to the guys running the booth. The girls weren't feeling brave enough to pet the dog, but they were definitely inching closer over the course of the conversation. (Now I just need Goose to potty train, so we can adopt one of these awesome dogs).

Neighborhood Playtimes
The weather has been gorgeous, and we've gotten to see alot of our neighborhood friends this week. We went for a long walk with friends B, D, and A and their moms, and Monkey and Bug proved very good at helping their younger friends follow the rules of not running too far ahead or going into the street by themselves. We got to play in B and D's backyard--the highlight was seeing a huge lizard who was trying desperately to be camouflaged with their terrace wall (for the record, one cannot hide from inquisitive preschoolers). At some point B, D, and H came to our house to play for a bit. We also had a picnic lunch at the big library's playground with LA, H, and Baby D. Some really cool new equipment had been added since we'd been there last, and all the kids had a great time exploring it all.

Spring Flowers
Spring flowers are out in all their glory now, and the entourage is loving it--especially when I showed them the bud vase I was given for Christmas, and they realized they had a special place to put the best little flowers they found (Thank you, Uncle K and Auntie A!). It's been a permanent fixture on our kitchen table this week. True to form the girls and I not only admired, but attempted to identify the flowers with our wildflower field guide. We have lots of bluets, dandelions, and we think some gromwells. However, we've been unable to identify these two:

Any ideas?

Library Day
The theme for storytime this week was rainbows, and the craft was creating a rainbow on construction paper by gluing Fruit Loops to it. I'm pretty sure the entourage ate more Loops than they glued, though! Another mom and I did a quick scan of the table before the kids really got into it, and we removed all the toxic craft glues. Apparently the librarian forgot that toddlers are likely to eat cereal even after they've put glue on it. We came home with these books:
The Story of Strega Nona
Eric Carl's Animals, Animals
Wanda's First Day
This Place in the Snow
The Romans: Activities, Crafts, History
Reptiles
Cinderella (kept from last week)

Other "New" Books
We've also been spending lots of time with some "new" books in addition to the library books. I recently relocated my complete collection of Beatrix Potter books to the entourage's bookshelves in the living room, and I think I've succeeded in passing on my love of her beautiful illustrations and "twaddle-free" storytelling. Monkey and Bug even seem to be attempting to memorize The Tale of Peter Rabbit in its entirety. We also made a trip to our favorite used bookstore this week and acquired a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, which has also been popular.

Workshop with Daddy
Last Saturday a teacher store near us offered a free Lowe's workshop for kids, so Monkey, Bug, and Daddy headed out for a morning Daddy date. The girls each got a nice Lowe's apron and built working binoculars. They're still pretty young for such projects, but Bug actually managed to put some of the nails in all by herself. Goose was extremely disappointed about being left behind, so we took a walk in the rain to distract her--a bit damp, but highly entertaining.

When in Rome . . . 
I was hoping to get more prepping in before we started, but the books arrived amid much excitement and Daddy wanted to know what we were going to be up to before he left, so . . . off we go! I gave Monkey and Bug four options that they have reference points for (for example, they know Baby Moses was born in Ancient Egypt and that the Sphinx and Pyramids were built then). They chose to study Ancient Rome first, and they are really into it!

Checking out the new history books with Daddy

We've been reading from the DK Eyewitness book every day and seem to talk about it endlessly: i.e., question from the backseat while driving down the highway, "What were roads like in Ancient Rome?" They've done some Rome-themed coloring sheets, and we examined a map of the Roman Empire at its height. This inspired questions about why the Romans didn't conquer the rest of the land and we got into the logistics of huge armies and the people who wouldn't let them come any further. We found a book at the library with activities and crafts inspired by Ancient Rome, and the girls are excited about getting into those. We went through the DK book looking at pictures of Roman clothes and both girls chose outfits they wanted to create, went through the house looking for appropriate pieces, and dressed up in period costume. We even made sandals with cardboard cut outs and laces from their sewing cards.

Bug wanted to dress up as a Roman lady and tried out a couple different looks.
Monkey wanted to be a little Roman boy.

We also talked about how Jesus and the Apostle Paul were alive during the Roman Empire. The girls thought it was very cool that we could see pictures of Ceasar Augustus from the Christmas story on coins and statues. We haven't really talked about Jesus'  interactions with the Romans at the end of his life yet, but I'm sure we will with Easter approaching. We did read the story of Paul's travels in their Bible story book, and  talked about how Paul was able to travel to so many places because of the relatively safe Roman roads and ships. The girls were pretty excited that there were Christians in Ancient Rome and that part of the Bible was even written to them.

This was definitely the right time to jump into studying history as it has certainly sparked their imaginations! At some point this week Monkey decided to play with blocks and built a piece of Hadrian's Wall complete with watchtowers.

Reading
You've probably heard the educational truism that children first learn to read, then they read to learn. Monkey would seem to prefer to skip straight to that second part. Early this week, when we sat down for her reading lesson, she informed me that she wanted to learn about alligators for her lesson. So, I went with it. I taught her to sight read "alligator" and wrote the word in big letters on a blank sheet of paper for her to trace. She added a drawing of an alligator underneath. Then we looked up alligators in their Encyclopedia of Animals and read the entry together (I traced under words with my finger, she repeated them, and she read "alligator" all by herself). Later in the week she also asked to learn how to read The Tale of Peter Rabbit with the same trace-and-repeat method. She also learned two new letter sounds, l and w and spent a long time tracing her whole first name (she can write her nickname by herself, but her full name's pretty long).

Bug is really making progress. This week she added the letter sound a as in ape and the sight word said. She has fewer and fewer occasions when she actually has to sound out a word slowly aloud before really reading it, and she discovered she could read another Bob book all by herself! She's also gotten alot braver about "reading" books to Goose, which is fun for both of them.

Math
Here's the round up of math activities from this week: We played with dice alot. I always start by rolling one and seeing if they can name the number without actually pointing and counting, then I throw in a second die and they take turns adding them up. We played with the 1-20 note cards 52-card-pickup style, and they have gotten significantly better since last time we played. Also, Monkey proved she can count up to 20 accurately all by herself, and Bug will count up to 30 by 1s, then switch to skip counting by 10s and get all the way to 100. Oh, and we played Magic: The Gathering (with my kiddie rules). They are really good at addition with the right motivation! They use counters, but they can both do some of the smaller sums without the use of manipulatives.

Preparing for Worship
We attend a traditional liturgical worship service on Sundays, so I added a portion to our morning Bible reading routine. I'm teaching the girls to sing the Doxology and the Gloria Patri, so they'll actually be able to participate in parts of the service before they head back to children's church.

It actually took less time than I expected for the complaining about the lack of TV to stop. Watching TV is no longer a built in part of their day, which makes me happy. Mind you, it's not completely off limits. I have educational "TV" for us to watch (thank you, History Channel and PBS for history-themed clips), we'll still do special movie nights (we had a pizza and Star Wars event last week), and there will inevitably be times when we just need to chill in front of something fun.

Planning for the Past

About a month ago I wrote about realizing my big girls were approaching "school age," looking up kindergarten standards, and discovering that they were in kindergarten actually. Since then we've been continuing the reading program I have (amended for Monkey's learning style, of course), finding lots of fun math activities to do, checking off every science standard just by answering the "Why, Mommy?" questions that fill my days, and letting them do their own thing for anything one might classify as fine arts and physical education. The only real hole in my planning/record keeping binder was history, which I hadn't even given much thought to yet. So . . . Daddy and I have been giving it thought, and here's the plan!

My personal experience is that history class was painfully boring and involved a lot of day dreaming, doodling, and memorizing the pertinent facts the night before a test. Thanks to my parents enthusiastically taking my siblings and I to historic locations, museums, living history venues, and reenactments and passing on a love of reading that included historical fiction, I discovered that history itself was a fascinating topic. So, with the freedom of homeschooling, we've decided to introduce them to the topic, not the textbooks. Daddy and I did some research into world history timelines and came up with fifteen historic periods that we think would be important and/or interesting for our girls' elementary education. This list, of course, is subject to change and will certainly be added to--at the moment it doesn't include anything more recent than World War II, for example.  (Please note the obvious: This plan is significantly bigger than a kindergarten history class. We anticipate spending a couple/few of months-ish per era and moving on whenever I deem we've "covered it" for their current level of understanding. Periods will be revisited throughout their elementary education.)

• Ancient Mesopotamia
• Imperial China
• Ancient Egypt
• Ancient Rome
• Ancient Greece
• Vikings
• Middle Ages
• Aztec, Inca & Maya
• Native North Americans
• The Renaissance, Reformation & Great Explorers
• Colonial America/American Revolution
• American Westward Expansion & Pioneers
• Industrial Revolution
• American Civil War
• World War I & II

I know there are certain aspects of each era we want to cover: major events; important people; appropriate maps (contemporary and modern, ideally); representative art, literature/mythology, and music when available; and details of everyday life, such as language, clothing, architecture, etc.

Rather than choosing a formal history curriculum, we decided to look for real books specific to each period. As our starting point, we found the DK Eyewitness books--big, beautifully illustrated volumes that cover the basics of most of the periods (We're still looking for similar resources for a few eras). We'll expand our study into each era by reading biographies, literature from the period and historical fiction (sponsored by online lists of recommended living books and the local public library), watching movies and documentaries (thank you, Netflix and Hulu), finding resources and games online (for example, the History Channel has lots of clips organized by historic period and BBC Kids has great games and activities available online), visiting museums and reenactments, making crafts, playing games, dressing up, acting out events and characters, etc. I anticipate projects like building the Great Wall of China in the living room and creating our own version of the Medieval illuminated manuscripts. There are so many options that don't involve sitting at a desk with a dry textbook!

How to begin? My mind was tangling with the questions--do we get into this chronologically? start close to home with American history and expand geographically? et cetera, et cetera--when Daddy pointed out that, really, the knowledge that's going to stick with them is the information they're actually interested in. Why not let them pick what we study first? Brilliant! So, the plan is to pick out fewer than half a dozen periods, spread out their reference books on the floor, and give the girls a chance to look them over and pick one. Then we run with it until we run out of steam, and I let them choose the next one. Ideally, I'll acquire a timeline (a book or a wall chart) that will help us place whatever period we're currently studying in the bigger picture of history.

Right now, we're eagerly awaiting the arrival of our DK Eyewitness books while I search for additional resources, pin things online (what did homeschoolers do before Pinterest?!), and add my own ideas for activities to note cards I've started for each time period. Have a great idea for a craft, activity, or book? Add a comment or send me an email!

Library Day
The storytime theme this week was trucks--very popular with the entourage, especially since one of the books was one of our favorites at home: I Want My T-R-U-C-K. They were disappointed though when the librarian just read "truck" instead of spelling it out--messes with the rhyme pattern. The craft this week was recreating an illustration from one of the books by gluing cut-out animals into the back of a picture of a pickup truck. We came home with quite a few books this week:

Cinderella (Goose wanted a princess book, and we found a gorgeously illustrated one that she's been almost inseparable from)
Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy Town
Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg (This one's a chapter book Monkey and Bug stumbled upon, and they were very excited about finding a fairy book--there aren't many out there, at least in our library.)
There Was an Old Woman
More Bears!
Plantzilla
Monday on the Mississippi
When the Library Lights Go Out
The Butterfly's Dream
Teddy Bear Counting

Reading
Bug added the letter sounds g as in got and sh this week as well as the word I. She's also moving a lot faster through the lessons and will actually do a full lesson in one sitting now (previously I've divided them into two, sometimes three lessons). She and I also spent some time reading the beginning of Heidi together: I traced under all the words with my finger, and she read the ones she could sound out while I filled in the others. She was so excited to be reading a real book! And, of course, she gets in on Monkey's reading activities.

This week Monkey added f and u as in under and reviewed several other letter sounds using coloring sheets. Building on the activities we did with alphabet blocks last week, I pulled out the Scrabble tiles this week, which gives us a lot more freedom in creating words (the blocks each at two letters per block and each letter was only represented once; from her perspective the tiles are practically limitless). This also meant we had enough letters that Bug could build her own words simultaneously. We built some real words with her new sounds, and then the girls built nonsense words for me to sound out. Monkey came up with her own sight reading activity this week. The process started at breakfast when she began spontaneously listing words that rhyme with at. When we went upstairs, she asked me to write down a few of them for her trace. After that she came up with other, much longer words that she simply wanted to know how to spell--like monkey and binoculars. We also added these to her word book.

Goose has been very interested in the reading lessons and usually insists on getting a letter sound coloring sheet too and practices the sound right along with Monkey. She's also put together that words on a page mean words you can say, and she's been occasionally pointing to a particular word in a book she's looking at, "What's this say?"

Math
Math activities continue to mostly focus on numbers 1-20 and simple addition problems. This week I pulled out the bin of colored noodles (Super easy to make: Throw a handful of dry noodles into a jar with a few squirts of food coloring. Shake until coated. Lay out the noodles on paper towels until dry.) First activity: I would call out numbers and have them count out the appropriate number of noodles. Interesting: Bug did this by making separate piles for each number. Monkey did this by adding or subtracting noodles from a single pile. Earlier in the week we ran into the concept of skip counting while watching a LeapFrog math video. Bug in particular was fascinated, so we practiced counting by 2s and 5s using the noodles. The last math activity with the noodles involved each of us taking turns creating patterns with the different colors and seeing if the others could continue the pattern. After that Bug started creating letter shapes with the noodles, and we practiced spelling for a bit instead.

We also read through the Counting Bears book several times this week. The first time Goose joined us and jumped in to practice identifying colors, shapes, and numbers 1-10. The second time we read the book, Monkey and Bug requested we "really do the book" and pull out some edible manipulatives. We decided on marshmallows, and they were more than happy to practice their subtraction by strategically moving the marshmallows from the table to their tummies.

Sometime this week Bug also got in a spur-of-the-moment math session with Daddy in which he explained the concept of hundreds, and they practiced skip counting all the way up to 1,000! This was a new and thrilling big number for Bug.

Geography
Monkey and Bug rediscovered our puzzle map of America this week, and they've gotten really good at putting it together without adult assistance. They did get me to tell them the name of each state as they put it in place, though. I took the opportunity to introduce them to one of our new books, Don't Know Much about the 50 States. Each state has a page with a small map, information like the state capital, bird, and flower, and tidbits about history or resources. I had the girls pick a page and locate the state on the puzzle map, then I'd read the page itself. Our library book Monday on the Mississippi coincided nicely with this interest as it traced the path of the Mississippi River from it's spring to the Gulf of Mexico, noting special sites and history along the way. The girls excitedly found the Mississippi River on the puzzle map and noted that it touches the state where a set of grandparents live.

Firearm Safety
Daddy and I went to the shooting range one evening this week, and Monkey and Bug were around when he was cleaning the guns in the afternoon. They were interested, so he explained the mechanics of how they worked and showed them photos of what the bullets would do to a lead pipe. We talked about what they could do to people and stressed that these were tools only for grown ups. This interchange was repeated and repeated: What do you do if you see a gun? Find a grown up!

New Bible Story Time
Our routine has been that I read them one Bible story from The Beginner's Bible right before naptime after we read a few other not-Bible stories. Monkey and Bug were obviously ready for a more challenging text with additional stories, so I switched to The Little Kids' Adventure Bible. However, I still wanted to read the Beginner's Bible to Goose, while Bug and Monkey wanted to read more stories from their Bible in one sitting and ask lots of perfectly reasonable questions about them. I found myself cutting them off and skipping Goose's story, because I was so ready to get them down for naptime. It certainly wasn't reflecting the importance I want them to place on studying the Bible.

While contemplating how to fix this problem without sacrificing my sanity, I realized that our morning 30 minutes of TV viewing was just a leftover from when I was breastfeeding Goose and wanted a peaceful first feeding--Goose has been weaned for a year and a half. So we made a simple switch: Instead of watching TV we have 30 minutes first thing in the morning to read Bible stories and talk about them. Bug in particular loves the new routine; I still get some mild protests from Goose and Monkey that they want TV time, but no meltdowns, so I'm counting it a big win. It was definitely a good move. We read the Beginner's Bible first, and sometimes Goose wanders away after that. The new Bible book (it's not a complete Bible) includes stories like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac, both of which required multiple readings and lots of questions. Bottom line: Starting off the day snuggling in on the couch with the girls and a Bible is so much more rewarding than snuggling in with a potentially annoying kid's show.