Library Day
It was another lovely, quiet day at the library this week. The day for storytime is changing to Mondays in the summer, so I've gone ahead and switched our library day to Monday too. It's been a good way to start off the week. We came home with these books:
Moonlight Kite
Jaguars
Grizzly Bears
Zebras
Star Wars Easy Reader: Sith Apprentice (Monkey's a fan of Darth Maul because "he's pretty colors.")
Robin Hood
Monkey See, Monkey Do
Brown Rabbit's Shapes
A Knight's Handbook

Reading
This week Bug added the sounds p and ch, and the book added commas to her assigned sentences. Her lessons have also started taking out the dots under the letter sounds in some words. If you haven't seen the book she's using that probably doesn't make sense, but this is a big deal. It threw her for a loop when she noticed it, but then I pointed out she'd gotten through half the list without the dots, and she did a great job! She also discovered with much excitement that she could read the first several pages of a couple of Dr. Seuss books. The fact that she could really read real books had her jumping up and down clutching the book to her chest. It was a priceless moment!

Monkey started off the week by picking out a library book to read. We went through Brown Rabbit's Colors with Monkey sounding out as many words as she could and repeating after me when we ran into ones she couldn't sort out yet. She also completed some sentence coloring sheets. This week she and I sat down with an alphabet list and checked off all the ones she could tell me the sound for. I was impressed with how few we actually have left to cover. I was inspired to try this exercise because when I handed her the coloring sheets for her new sound this week, k, she could immediately tell me what the sound was and point out that cat also started with that sound but that it was spelled with a c. She may not be following a formal curriculum, but I have no doubts about her becoming a stellar reader!

Math
Bug is loving her new math workbook, and she does a page or two almost every day. Right now they're focused on learning how to write numerals and matching numerals to number of objects. Search and find pages that require her to fill a chart for how many of each item she can find are her current favorite.

Monkey began the week wanting to do worksheets like Bug (only her own sheets), whiel she did the counting part fine, she quickly became frustrated with trying to trace the numerals. I gave her the option of switching to a worksheet about tracing--a variety of straight, zigzag, and loopy lines. She thought that was a great idea and had noticeably improved by the time she got to the end of a sheet or two. After that experience though Monkey decided that, like reading, she wants her own distinctive math lesson more suited her level and style of learning. She's suddenly discovered that she actually likes math when we do it first thing in the morning (at her request) and use whatever objects she has at hand for manipulatives. The highlights this week were measuring sessions that involved using a ruler to measure various body parts of her stuffed animals (so also counting and identifying numerals) and using a long line of toys, books, and shoes to count all the way up to 100! This was a new milestone for Monkey--very exciting.

While I never initiate formal lessons for Goose, if she sees her big sisters getting a math lesson she insists on practicing her counting (she can get up 12) and coloring worksheets too (directions given on the page are irrelevant of course; she's focused on practicing her coloring in the lines skills).

History

I'm not sure what's up the pouty

thumb-sucking, but Bug was really

excited about her Medieval outfit--

using my old zippered bathrobe as

the dress and putting ribbons on 

the added fancy sleeves were 

her idea..

The Medieval Period has always been fascinating to me, and we really delved into the details of everyday life this week. We read through several spreads in the DK book and discussed the very basics of the feudal system (identifying peasants, lords & barons, bishops, and kings/queens; we also started reading a chapter book about Robin Hood and had to deal with the hard fact that not all kings were good ones like King Arthur); life on a farm (and comparing Medieval methods to contemporary ones); details like what beds, bathrooms, windows, etc. were like; and life in a monastery (Our library book Moonlight Kite was about a trio of monks living in an ancient monastery. It was absolutely our favorite book this week, so they girls were particularly interested in finding out what life was really like in a Medieval monastery. DK even had pictures of habits and a detailed layout of a typical monastery).

We also studied the pages about stain glass windows--how they're made and how people studied them to learn about the Bible since few people could read (that tidbit was a shocker for my little bibliophiles!). Then I pulled out leftover craft kits from Christmas and the girls made their own "stained glass" about the Nativity story. Sunday we're planning to take a few moments after the worship service to study the windows in our own church, which conveniently enough also illustrate Bible stories just like the Medieval ones did.

Music in the Car
This week someone asked me if the girls attended a mother's day out program. I responded, "No, they're just home with me." Then I laughed, "Well, I say 'just home' but we have something to do almost everyday!" In addition to all those outings, the time spent in the car is never wasted. Outside of the discussions about every topic under the sun (and some in outer space), I keep a sleeve of CDs where the girls can see them, and I usually let them pick the music for the ride. The contents of our current rotation:

• Give Yourself a High Five (fairly typical, easy to sing along kid's songs)
• Brain Beats (sounds like contemporary pop, but songs are about things like state capitals, the periodic table, and famous paintings)
• Putamayo Playground CDs for World Party, New Orleans, Europe, and Africa
• Go Fish Guys (children's Christian pop/rock)
• Handel's Water Music

Library Day
Storytime is on a hiatus for the next month and a half, but Monday was a small library event to acknowledge National Library Week. The librarians had snacks available--highly popular--and they joked that we could probably tell them all about the library's programs. (Obviously, we're there every week, and they know the girls by name, which I think is awesome.) They--the librarians and the kids--are very excited about the special events planned for the summer, and we're all looking forward to the kick off at the end of May.

Since we were returning to the library earlier in the week than usual we didn't actually return any books, but of course we walked out with a few additional ones: Little Red Riding Hood (which we accidently left behind last week) and Arthur and the Sword (more on this one below). We also checked out a Scholastic DVD that included video presentations of some of their favorite books: Rapunzel, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and The Billy Goats Gruff.

Botanical Garden and Zoo
With no storytime to attend on Wednesday we decided to make it a zoo day--except that we actually went to the botanical garden side of the park first since we'd never been there before. It was gorgeous, and the girls loved it! So many pretty flowers, fountains, and easily runnable pathways! They even had a special kids garden with a playhouse, a huge lawn chair, and a playground sort of area. My budding photographers took lots of pictures. Here's a small sampling:

When lunchtime approached, we caught the tram to the zoo (terribly exciting, especially with 3 preschoolers who raise their arms and scream like their on a roller coaster), so we could eat our picnic lunch while watching the monkeys. "No, apes!" exclaimed my Monkey, finger in the air. "They're apes because they don't have tails!" I stood corrected. It was a good choice; the apes were very active that day. The girls asked if we could visit the penguins (in the air conditioning) before we headed back to the garden and our car. During our walk to the penguins and back again, we determined whether or not each animal we passed was a mammal or not. The definition of mammals had come up earlier in the week (I've no idea how; it was just one of those random questions they ask.), so this gave them plenty of opportunity to practice their new-found knowledge.

Reading
Monkey decided this week that she wanted to finish learning to read the Star Wars easy reader book, which she did with a combination of sounding out, sight words, and memory/context clues. There were still a few words I had to read for her, but I was impressed with how much she could do on her own. Next she's decided she wants to read a recently acquired book called Larabee (Thank you, Dolly Parton). So far I've read it aloud to her by myself, then I read a phrase and she would repeat it, but sight reading the name "Larabee."

Bug is now about halfway through her reading book! This week in addition to the stories and word lists she reads, she added a new sound, p, and a new sight word, to. I also overheard her reading several of the Bob books to Goose, who was thrilled.

Math
We started off the week with a fun activity inspired by one of our library books, Measuring Penny, about a girl who finds all the different ways she can measure her dog. The girls each picked out a stuffed animal (we decided our pet cat was unlikely to cooperate). We measured just about every part of them using standard units (inches and centimeters), non-standard units (small blocks), and comparisons (heavier/lighter, softer/harder). The girls did all the measuring, and I wrote down the findings.

Bug continued to be very into worksheets, and in fact this week I finally got her a kindergarten/first grade math book to start working her way through. She loves her new workbook and completed three pages the first day we pulled it out. So far it's just been matching numerals to number of objects and practicing writing numerals. She also continues to spontaneously burst into counting up to 100.

Monkey is still doing the pre-k worksheets, and I was a little concerned about how Bug getting a new book would go over. It turned out to be a great thing! Now that Monkey can't compare her work to Bug's, she's tackled her "very own" sheets with confidence and was particularly proud of being able to complete an entire sheet (matching numerals to numbers of objects) all by herself! She still much prefers hands-on math, so we did several lessons with whatever she happens to playing with and we covered counting up to 20, addition, subtraction, and shapes/spatial relations that way.

History: Exploring Medieval Europe!
Quite serendipitously, just as I ran out of topics and projects related to Ancient Rome, the girls became intensely interested in Arthurian legend. This wasn't completely by chance I'll admit. The stories of Arthur and his knights are among my personal favorites. We had recently finished listening to the recording Daddy made of himself reading an abridged version of Howard Pyle's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and to follow up I had Netflix send us Disney's The Sword and the Stone, then we happened upon a beautifully illustrated storybook about Arthur and Excalibur (all the pictures were made to look like stained glass windows which we later compared to the samples of Medieval stained glass in our DK book). Their pretend play in the last week has frequently included Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, gathering his knights, and fighting off Mordred. At some point I think I overheard that Arthur had acquired a dragon too.

I decided this was the perfect segue into a different historical period and asked the girls if they'd be interested in studying Medieval Europe, when knights and kings like Arthur really lived. The suggestion was met with cheers and we dived right in! I introduced our formal studies with a great poster that came with the DK book that included tidbits of info on a wide variety of Medieval subjects. The girls immediately started planning their Medieval costumes (the sewing machine and I are not friends, so this involves scavenging for odds and ends, not starting from scratch). Happily we got a surprise package from Nana that very day that included several sets of footless tights: "Just like the medieval boys wore!" exclaimed Monkey. We haven't actually put costumes together yet, so maybe we'll have photos available next week.

Monkey and Bug asked if we could learn about Medieval music this week too. We read the section in the DK book about music and examined the photos of instruments; the organistrum and hurdy gurdy were particularly fascinating. Rather than make our own instruments this time, we did a quick Internet search and discovered Ancient FM, a commercial-free, streaming radio station of Medieval music. Perfect! We spent a rainy afternoon in the study listening to the music, which the girls loved, and working on various quiet, if unrelated, projects. They had fun trying to pick out the sounds of different instruments or guessing what events the music would be played for (a party? a parade? a show for the king?)

My Little History Buff
Monkey seems to have decided that history is awesome. My original thought was that we'd do maybe two Ancient Rome topics/projects per week and just draw it out for a while. Monkey however has insisted we cover something every single day this week. It's a good thing I have a ready list of topics!

• Monday & Tuesday: Listen to me read about Hannibal and the Punic Wars (he fought with elephants and snakes--so fascinating!) as well as the Romans interactions with the barbarians, while coloring Roman paper dolls (a boy and girl each with multiple outfits). While I was cutting out their dolls, they came up with a historically accurate storyline to play out when I was done: Bug's girl (in a fancy dress) was a Roman citizen. Monkey's boy (in armor and carrying a spear) was a gladiator, the kind who fights animals, she specified (he took on a couple of teddy bears at one time). She noted that as a gladiator, he was a slave, but he would win so many fights that they would give him his freedom. Then he and the girl, who came to watch the games, could actually be friends because they'd both be free and get to do what they wanted.
• Wednesday: We read about what great builders and engineers the Romans were, browsed our books for photographs of Roman buildings, roads, and other works, and finally we built! Using their small wooden blocks we constructed the Colosseum (complete with Playmobil gladiator and a beast for him to fight), an aqueduct, a fort (note the architectural details of an arched gate with a triangle on top and watchtowers along the walls), and a long straight road leading from the fort (with a member of the cavalry approaching the fort). 

  

  (Photos courtesy of Bug)

• Thursday: We read about Roman music, searched our instrument bin for instruments similar to theirs (flutes), and created a lyre from a shoebox lid and a couple of big rubber bands. A concert followed, of course.

• Friday: We read about how Roman children were educated (mostly homeschool!) and what tools they used, then the girls completed their own math and reading lessons using styluses and "wax tablets" (playdough rolled out on the table).

Farmer's Market
We went back to the local farmer's market this week, and this time we got there early enough to buy some produce. The girls thought it was pretty neat that they got to actually see the farmer's who grew the food, and they insisted on steaming the broccoli for immediate consumption as soon as we got home. We also got to study some gorgeous terrariums, meet the greyhounds again, stop by an exhibit about bats courtesy of the local 4H club (it included a taxidermied bat--very cool), and watch a lady weaving a scarf on a portable loom. Before heading for home, they also got to play on the playground next to the market. Highlights: Monkey and Bug were thrilled to discover a set of monkey bars they could conquer all by themselves, and Goose wore herself out climbing ladders, sliding down slides, and repeating endlessly.

Math
We started out the week with a little marshmallow math--always popular. I passed out simple addition flashcards and number lines with a handful of mini marshmallows to help Monkey and Bug solve them. Goose practiced counting out 10 marshmallows. We celebrated their success by practicing subtraction and eating them all! The girls also did a lot of number worksheets this week--pages focusing on specific numbers, matching up a number of objects to numerals, and practicing writing out numerals. The pages I'm using are from a preschool workbook I rediscovered when I finally got around to organizing my filing cabinet, but I think we're going to have to track down a kindergarten workbook soon. Bug in particular seems to thrive on solving these number problems.

Sartorial Skills
We've been letting the girls pick out their own clothes since they were probably 18 months old (well, they insisted, and I decided I wasn't willing to fight that battle every morning). They've come up with very interesting ensembles over the past few years (and still do), but now Monkey and Bug are figuring out how to really put a proper outfit together. They were particularly proud of these outfits this week and asked me to take a picture.

Reading
Monkey decided to start off her week of reading lessons by writing her own story about a rat who drew a picture of a shark in her composition book (she dictated, then traced). This week we did a special review session of all the letter sounds she's learned so far and spent some extra time on the ones she wasn't so sure of before adding a new sound: h. She also read several sentences. The stories in Bug's lessons keep getting longer with smaller type! She's rising to the challenges very well though, and she added the sight word of this week.

Library Day

This photo refuses to go properly
horizontal. Weird.

We were surprised by a storytime this week (I had thought the season was over, but they did one more since it's spring break here). They went all out with this one with songs, dancing, games, and movement-required books. Unfortunately, that backfired with the entourage who simply wanted to sit and listen to a few good books (they were frustrated when everyone else kept popping up to follow the directions and they couldn't see the pictures). They did enjoy the crafts though: creating flower pictures with pipe cleaners, Q-tips, and white paint on construction paper.

We came home with this stack of books:
Desert Mammals
Wild Boars
Holidays around the World
Measuring Penny
Becky the Borrower
The Three Pigs
The Nutcracker
Leon the Chameleon
I Saw You in the Bathtub and Other Folk Rhymes
Overboard!
Chicken Soup

Busy, Busy Girls!
A glimpse into our life: This is what happens when I ask the entourage to tell me about what they're doing outside.

Travelling to Grandma and Granddad's
Mommy bragging moment: My kids are great travellers! We made the 6 hour trip to Grandma and Granddad's house this week, and the girls spent the drives there and back playing with the toys they packed in their backpacks, singing along to a selection of kid's CDs (chosen for their ability not to drive me nuts on repeat listening), looking at puzzle magazines, and reading books (Bug was ecstatic! She succeeded in reading her the first few pages of One Fish, Two Fish all by herself. This was the first time she had tackled sounding out a book that wasn't a designated basal reader.) They also watched Tarzan on the way there, and  Finding Nemo on the way home.

In addition to the specific activities described below, the girls just had fun bonding times doing things like reading books with Grandma, watching classic Leave It to Beaver with Granddad, and dressing up in costumes and dancing with Uncle N.

Into the Woods

Intrepid explorers crossing the creek!

Grandma and Granddad live on 45 acres of woods and fields, and no visit is complete without heading "into the wild." We got to see some of the first flowers that have come up, watch a dozen crows chase off a hawk (pretty impressive battle), climb down to the sandy beaches on the river, examine tiny clams a heron had opened up and eaten, and watch Granddad skip rocks (the girls tried to see how far they could just throw them). We headed back to the house to watch the fish in Grandma's pond, and they also got to help Grandma and Granddad refill all the feeders and learned about how different birds like different seeds and different kinds of feeders and how birds help plant seeds. The girls had plenty of time to play on the play set and draw with chalk on the driveway too.

Children's Museum!

On this visit Grandma remembered a children's museum in the next town over, and it was awesome!
Organized along a "Main Street," it included a child-sized theater, bookstore, doctor's and dentist's office, construction site (with massive Legos), early 1900s house, art studio (with projects laid out to work on), post office, grocery store, pizzeria, indoor toddler playground, campsite, train station, and an indoor parking lot that contained an actual Volvo big rig, fire truck, police car, race car, mail truck, and the cockpit of a commercial airplane. Not to mention all the stuff outside: climbing trees, fairy garden, chicken coop, rabbit hutch, teepee, a mud pie "restaurant," and lots of vegetable and flower garden space where not much was actually growing this early in the season. We spent the whole morning there, and I cannot even begin to detail all the learning that happened!

The girls cooked breakfast in the kitchen and lunch in the campsite

Bug drove the train (the engine actually has a video screen showing them
going down the tracks; the lever controls the speed of the video)

Goose and Bug found fancy dresses to wear for a theater performance!

The garden had amazing climbing trees (that's Monkey in the background).

Back to the Routine

Bug's first real sewing project!
She picked the project (felt quilt),
cut the pieces, and sewed it together
with embroidery floss. I just threaded
the needle and tied knots.

We got home Thursday afternoon, so Friday I grounded us firmly back into the normal routine with a trip to the Y and grocery store. We did all the usual lessons: Monkey and Bug each did a brief reading lesson (no new material since we hadn't done them in so long), they did a numeral/number of objects matching worksheet for a math lesson, and we had a quick, fun history lesson (we read the section about Roman theater in the DK book and made our own theater masks).

Bug's pink lady (hard to see, I know), Goose wearing hers,
and Monkey's man with a blue beard