Library Day
This week's storytime was a farm theme--lots of fun books and a cow! As in, a real one in the field beside the library that the kids got to take turns petting. Daisy (the cow) belongs to two storytime regulars--5 and 7 year old sisters, who were very excited to introduce us to their cow and answer any questions.
We also turned in the girls reading programs this week (they each have a list of 35 books we read). Bug was particularly excited because she had six books on her list with stars by them that meant she read them all by herself! They each got a prize bag with a lollipop and a bunch of coupons (We used the one for free pizza buffet on Tuesday), and they each got to pick out a new book from a special shelf that they get to keep. We came home with these books:
Ladybug Girl at the Beach
Animals/Animales (a bilingual Eric Carle book)
Adios Oscar! (the previous three books were the ones the girls picked as their prizes)
Best Bear
Hip & Hop Don't Stop
One Ted Fell out of Bed
Fire Fighter Ted
Berlioz the Bear
The Little Rabbit
Shoe Baby

Doctors
I had two doctor appointments on Wednesday, and the girls were supposed to go to a neighbor's for a playdate. Unfortunately, their friend got strep throat at the last minute, and the girls ended up coming to the doctors with me. Not ideal of course, but they were beautifully behaved and quite brave about asking questions that the doctors were happy to answer.

Lessons
We picked lessons back up this week, and the girls jumped into them with no problems. Monkey reviewed a few letters and we formally introduced u (as in use), st, and qu. We also spent some time reading books through repetition. Monkey's lessons kept getting interrupted by potty training incidents, but we did manage to get in some simple addition problems. She also listened in on Bug's math lessons.

Bug was really excited about starting up math again this week. We practiced counting by 10s to 100 and by 1s up to 60, did simple addition problems (sums up to 10, frequently using a number line), and introduced the concept of subtraction (a combination of equations and manipulatives). For reading, she read through a couple lists of words and made it through one story in her textbook. She also read through 4 or 5 Bob books all by herself.

Bits of Monkey and Bug's math lessons this week

Goose has been very interested in the alphabet, and she's been getting me to write letters and draw appropriate pictures for them on the white board. Bug has been handling math lessons for Goose this week. She's been writing numbers with the right number of dots beside them and talking Goose through them.

Potty Training
Taking a longer but more laid back approach seems to be what will work for Goose. If we're home she wears underwear, and I give her occasional reminders to run to the potty if her bladder's full. She's still sorting out what that feels like, but at the end of the week she did actually tell me she had peepee in her bladder and get to the potty before she had an accident! (She's also had several Mommy-initiated accident-free successes.) Since I was solo parenting for most of this week (Daddy's chaperoning a youth retreat) I enlisted Monkey and Bug to help. I stole a page out of Grandma's book, and told them they would each get an M&M if they were the ones to rush Goose to the potty when she actually made it. So far that's happened twice, and they were really excited about it!

Karate Class
With Daddy out of town, I took Monkey and Bug to karate class this week. They were thrilled to show off their skills, and Goose loved getting to watch them too. I had fun seeing my little introverts be so appropriately loud and enthusiastic outside of our family. This week they learned to do side kicks and crescent kicks. Perhaps the highlight of lessons this week was earning a green stripe on their belts! The school's Life Lesson theme this month was teamwork, and the girls had to fill out (well, dictate answers to) a worksheet about what achievements might require teamwork, what they could contribute, and how the idea of teamwork applies in their family.

Water Play!
After a failed attempt to swim in the neighborhood pool (the access card reader isn't working!), we decided to go home and pull out our own pool. The girls played for a couple of hours and practiced skills like starfish floats and putting their faces in the water.

Library Day
This week's storytime theme was bugs, and the girls got to make caterpillars out of clothes pins and pompoms. Several of our friends were there too. We came home with these books:
Listen to the Rain
George and Martha: Encore
Fish Splish. Splash Dash
I Had a Hippopotamus

Potty Training Take #2
Goose didn't so much learn how to pee in the potty as Mommy relearned that every kid is different. For Monkey and Bug potty training meant a few days of intense potty training (diapers thrown away and Mommy and Aunt A issuing reminders every minute to "Tell me if you need to potty"), and they were golden--just the occasional accident after that week. For Goose it appears this is going to be a considerably longer process. Even with all formal lessons cancelled,  Uncle N on hand for constant back up, and even Daddy home from work for a few days, Goose completed six intense days without ever succeeding in reaching the potty in time. The intensity is stressing us all out and simply isn't possible to keep up. So, we're going into the next week planning to resume all normal activities and put her in pull ups when we're out and about.  Prayers appreciated.

our current favorite look

Despite all of that the entourage still managed to have lots of fun! Of course, just having Uncle N (aka, the teenage human jungle gym) around provided hours of entertainment. These cute little girls even managed to talk him into being a mommy horse and pretend to give birth to a baby horse (Bug) out from under a blanket (sorry folks, no video available for that one). They even had Granddad around for about 24 hrs of fun when he came to take Uncle N home. They read LOTS of book, watched episodes of Pingu (because everybody's 2-year-old loves Swedish claymation, right?), made fudge, and experimented with hairstyles.

Fortunately, with Uncle N and Daddy both around Monkey and Bug actually got to leave the house during this potty training attempt. They got to ride their bikes around the neighborhood, and of course attended their karate classes. Apparently, the class played a game to see who could stand in attention the longest (basically, the karate version of the quiet game). Monkey and Bug were very proud to report that they won both rounds! They also learned a front block this week. (Oh, and Monkey and Daddy also discussed that one is only allowed to punch or kick one's sisters during a parent-supervised sparring match--not whenever they make one angry. At least her form is looking good.)

Little Swimmers
Monkey and Bug finished up swimming lessons this week and continued to do a great job. The swimming milestone they accomplished this week was willingly going completely underwater and coming back up smiling! They're still working on doggy paddling while wearing a floaty belt and floating on their backs without assistance--Bug actually pulled this off the last day of lessons! My plan is to get us all in the pool pretty frequently this summer, so they can continue making progress, then do another formal session of swimming lessons toward the end of the season. The personal milestone they accomplished was handling the final day's "talent show" with grace.

Shots from the talent show (Monkey's on the left; Bug's on the right)

Goose has definitely been paying attention during the big girls classes. She's been lying on the floor of the living room practicing kicking and pulling her arms through the freestyle stroke.

Karate Kids
At least that's what Monkey and Bug have been calling themselves lately. They now LOVE karate lessons, and they've been so excited when "the plan for the day" includes going to karate school! The teachers have introduced new things each lesson, and Daddy's been practicing with them in between. They've been practicing punching and kicking sequences, a few jujitsu moves (the martial arts style of the week, which the girls really love), jumping jacks and push ups (Daddy is very proud to have the only preschoolers who can actually do correct push ups), the formalities of bowing in and out, and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Besides the class and karate skills, the girls are improving their personal skills too! All the kids had to rush back to their parents for their gloves at one point, and Bug didn't hesitate to let a "friendly stranger" (a classmate's dad) help her get her gloves on while Daddy helped Monkey. They've also brought two of their class rules back home with them: The One Rule (when a teacher/parent gives an instruction, you follow it the first time they say it) and The Zero Rule (when you know you're supposed to do something, you do it without being told). This Mommy and Daddy are big fans of these "new" rules and the girls excitement about the times they've remembered the Zero Rule about things like picking up their toys or clearing their dishes after meals.

Goose has been participating in the practice times at home and is already looking forward to "going to karate school when I get big."

The Weaver's Guild
With swimming lessons taking up so much time and energy this week, we just did one history lesson, but the project that we did with it is still keeping them busy. We read the section of the Eyewitness book about the medieval trade guilds and the different occupations that formed guilds. One of the relatively common occupations for women was weaving (although they technically couldn't join a guild), and this was an easy one for the girls to learn. We made a loom out of a shoebox lid and cut a shuttle out of cardboard. They picked out a rainbow yarn and decided to make a rug or a blanket for their dolls. It isn't finished yet, but it's coming along nicely.

Lessons
For her reading lessons, Monkey mostly wanted to do review sessions for particularly letter sounds (which is fine since she's actually learned the whole alphabet by now). We also covered the er as in mother and oo as too sounds this week. This also introduced the concept that the same sound can be made with multiple letter combinations (er/ir, oo/ue/ew). Monkey actually did several math worksheets this week that focused on matching numerals to the appropriate number of objects. We did a brief lesson about money (matching names and values to coins). She also requested that we all play Candy Land for one of her lessons. While this doesn't involve any numbers, it was good practice in following a sequence and rules of the game and introduced the concept of good sportsmanship (only one person can win, but everyone still has fun, and you need to at least pretend to be happy for the winner).

Bug added the ing letter combination to her lessons this week and continued to practice some sight words (said, girl, to, do). She read through several lists of words, a story, and even read random words found on things around the house. She's been excited to discover she can really read more than what's in her textbook.  She's also been trying to understand the concept of reading silently since she apparently realized recently that that's what I must be doing with my own magazines and books. She's still cheerfully working away at her math book! She did pages about shapes and patterns, matching numerals to objects, the concept of price tags, and introduced how to tell time.

Goose still loves having her own lessons that involve reviewing letters, shapes, and counting. She also participated in the round of Candy Land, which was a good opportunity to practice colors and following directions.

Photography
Monkey and Bug commandeered my camera at some point this week. Here's a sampling of their work:

Just Keep Swimming!

Swimming lessons started this week, and Monkey and Bug are loving them! After our family visit to the pool over the weekend and refreshers with Daddy about appropriate class behavior and participating, the girls followed their teacher and hopped into the water with no hesitation. (Let me take a moment to say how absolutely thrilled I am that it's not my kids freaking out poolside this year!) They've been tooling around with kickboards, learning to doggy paddle wearing a floaty belt (more confidence booster, than real flotation device), and practicing floating on their backs and learning the backstroke motions. One of their favorite games appears to be throwing a little rubber duck, then swimming out to retrieve it.

Goose has been dealing with the disappointment that she's not big enough for swimming lessons yet, but she's been enjoying a little one-on-one time with Daddy or me instead.

Goose and I decided to play with my new phone.

Outside of the swimming skills, the best thing to come out of these classes has been Monkey and Bug's ability to appropriately function in a class setting. Bug even connected the dots on the way home from their first class, after Daddy complimented their awesome behavior: "So, we need to be just like this for karate class--only karate I instead of swimming!"

Saturday we got in our neighborhood pool again, much to Goose's delight. She was also thrilled to have free use of one of her sisters' inner tubes and spent most of the pool time kicking around "swimming all by myself!" By the end, she realized she could also just lean back and chill. She didn't fall asleep in the pool, but she came awfully close! Monkey and Bug had been inspired to free themselves of the inner tubes by our purchase of floaty noodles and kickboards, which they loved. They are definitely gaining confidence in the water. Bug even swam a couple of feet underwater with no floaties or adult assistance. Granted, she didn't do it entirely on purpose, but she came of proud, not panicked!

Excellent Work, Young Grasshoppers

Monkey and Bug in guard position right after
their teacher tied on their new belts.

 If she hadn't recognized their faces, Monkey and Bug's teacher might have thought Daddy brought two completely different kids with him this time! The silent, cowering girls had been replaced with smiling, confident girls who followed every instruction, responded with "Yes, ma'am/No, ma'am," and even carried on conversations with her! Their first class this week involved learning the basic bowing in, punch, front kick, and how to "ki-ap." They got to use target pads and even had to time to sit and do a coloring sheet while chatting with their teacher. Their second and final introductory class was also this week. They and two other introductory students demonstrated their newly acquired skills to a small audience of parents and siblings, broke boards (Monkey was super excited about getting hers on the first try), and received their white belts and real uniforms. Goose continues to participate in the practice times at home.

Daddy shot several videos, but unfortunately, they're not transferring well from his phone to our computer. For grandparents and other readers who know us in person, you'll just have to wait til you can see the girls in action for yourselves.

Archery
We succeeded in finding a decent inexpensive kids bow and arrows, which the girls got to try out on Friday. Bug enthusiastically tried it first, but after one draw decided it hurt her fingers and handed it over to Monkey, who loved it! She kept at it for quite awhile, managed to hit the target a few times, and even tried drawing with either arm to see which she liked better. Goose is too little to draw it, of course, but she worked on the important lesson of staying behind the archer.

Lessons
Along with all the physical education the girls have had this week, we managed to keep up with their reading and math lessons too. For the record, we're currently year-round homeschooling. I think I'd have a rebellion on my hands if I suddenly declared they had to stop learning to read and do math for three months.

Monkey continues to be really into learning new sounds. This week she added the individual letter sounds: e as in egg, b, and i as in ice cream. She also added some letter combinations to her repertoire: ar as in jar, and ing. Particularly with the addition of the letter combinations, she's been willing to do more sounding out of actual words. In fact, by the end of the week we changed up how we came up with the lists. Most of the time we've brainstormed words and I write down what we come up with. By the end of the week, I would write down a word, and she would sound it out.

Early this week Monkey wanted to practice counting, so headed upstairs, and I had her assemble her buddies in rows of 5 counting all the way up to 25 all by herself. For the other three days we had lessons this week, I used math sign cards and toys to get her to solve simple addition problems with manipulatives.

Bug is inching along through her reading lessons. She didn't add any new sounds this week, but she's worked her way through a story and learning the sight words (or "funny words") girl, to, and do. Her math book gets much more enthusiasm. This week she did some simple addition problems, worked on the concept of estimating, and did a few pages of shape recognition.

Goose has been making lots of requests for the ABC song, and I've been steering her toward books about shapes and colors during those random "read me a book!" moments.