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.

Library Day
Before we actually headed off to the library on Monday, I decided to introduce the concept of oral book reports. I asked the girls to tell me about their favorite books from last week and why they liked them. Here's what they responded:

• Monkey: The Seven Chinese Brothers. I like that they were apart, then got back together. I like that they ate fish together. I like that one had legs that grew.
• Goose: [about I Am Invited to a Party!] There was Piggie going to a party, and they were getting all ready. And Piggie was getting all ready. I like it cause it has orange on it.
• Bug asked if, instead of telling me about the book, she could read it to me (I took a video of this, but now the camera's missing. Grrr....). She said she liked "that it was Piggie and Elephant going to a party. And I like that there were party noises at the party."

There's still no storytime, but we met several friends at the library this week. We came home with these books:
The Night Eater
Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo
Inch by Inch (Monkey was interested in inchworms this week; we spent a really long time looking at Google images of them)
Did I Tell You I Love You Today
All about Me (anatomy for toddlers)
How I Became a Pirate
Way out West Lives a Coyote Named Frank
The Secret House of Papa Mouse
The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China

We were actually back at the library on Thursday for the end of summer programs pizza party! The girls earned their tickets to the party by reading/having read to them 30 picture books. The girls thoroughly enjoyed their pizza and the opportunity to find themselves in the slideshow of photos from this summer's events.

Imperial China
The girls loved the book about the terracotta army that we got from the library this week. We read all about their discovery, the emperor's tomb, and how they would have looked when they were first made. Then of course we had to make own versions out of playdough.

(a horse and two soldiers)

We had a gray, rainy morning this week, and the girls did a fantastic job with their formal lessons, so I decided we'd "be lazy" by snuggling up on the couch and watching the History Channel clips about ancient China available online. The girls were intrigued. We learned about the Great Wall of China, the first emperor's unifying China and searching for immortality, traditions of the Chinese New Year, early legends of dragons, and ancient Chinese weapons technology. The girls spent lots of time during the rest of the week using Legos, Playmobil, and wooden blocks to build build palaces and stage battles for "the first emperor of China."

Bug and Monkey with one of the many palaces they constructed for the emperor.

Lessons
We added a new subject this week: handwriting. I hadn't actually planned on starting it yet, but we bought some workbooks, and Monkey and Bug just couldn't wait to get started. In addition to the standard lines for tracing and practicing all the letters, our books have activities for matching up letters and sounds, matching upper and lower case letters, and doing mazes and dot-to-dot activities practicing alphabetical order. We even found a couple of dry-erase books, which are particularly popular. The girls have made this one of their daily lessons, and Bug even worked handwriting into her reading lesson one day: she asked me to help her spell some of her sight words (i.e., said, you) because she thought writing them down would help her remember them better. She really seems to enjoy writing more legible letters. Monkey has been practicing the letters in her name, but mostly she works on the other activities in the book at this point.

Reading lessons continue, and Monkey and Bug have been more willing to attempt reading actual books! Bug still reads some out of her textbook, and Monkey definitely prefers to read sentences I write on the board (a preference we realized this week may be due to poor vision after she attempted--and failed--to read a book with small print; she has an eye appointment scheduled for the end of the month). They both tend to pick books they mostly have memorized and don't need to sound out every word, so that's been confidence boosting for them.

Math lessons still happen, of course. Bug usually works in one of the workbooks--comparisons, writing numbers, addition--and Monkey mostly uses manipulatives--measuring, counting, number recognition (on rulers and flash cards), and addition (flash cards and wooden blocks).

Let's Be Social!
The girls are finally getting this whole making friends thing. We started off the week on Sunday afternoon with a cookout at the house of one of Daddy's co-workers. The host's 6-year-old son, recently moved into a neighborhood with no kids, was ecstatic to have a trio of playmates arrive. They found him a little overwhelming at first, but I was impressed with how quickly they warmed up. By the time we were ready to go home they were busy helping him construct a series of roads for his trucks in the backyard and asking when they'd get to play with their new friend again.

The girls and I also made it to the neighborhood pool this week. In addition to swimming, they specifically said they were looking forward to possibly making a new friend at the pool, which they did--a little girl about Goose's age, whose daddy is also in the military. They had a blast in the pool. They can all kick around the pool with noodles tied on them, and Bug spent a lot of time practicing doggy paddling without a floaty. She can go a couple of yards all by herself!

Then on Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of our neighbors--a pretty low key event that involved pizza, cupcakes, and just letting the kids play while the grown ups chatted. The girls had fun playing with a bunch of familiar friends; although Monkey and an 11-year-old girl, C, nearly came to blows after C playfully "stole" Goose. Goose was having a great time, but Monkey was not ok with the situation. Fortunately, C handed Goose over before it devolved into violence.

Projects!
The girls really wanted to do a project one day this week, so we pulled out all the collage supplies, stickers, markers, and pencils and I just let them go for it. So much fun!