Library Day
We had another week without a librarian-led storytime, but of course we enjoyed our own. I read at least a dozen books that the girls pulled off the shelf, and had the occasional random preschooler stop by to join us briefly. When I finally insisted my voice was tired, we wandered over to a project table the children's librarian had set up with paper and ocean life stamps. The girls had a great putting stamps on paper and on their hands. We came home with these books:
The Carrot Seed
I'm Big!
Moo!
Captain Abdul's Pirate School
Fireflies, Fireflies, Light My Way
Froggy's Halloween
Chocolatina
Otis and the Puppy
Ask Dr. K. Fisher about Dinosaurs
Marie in Fourth Position
Rhinos who Skateboard

Happy Birthday!

Everybody loves making birthday cookies!

Monkey and Bug turned 6! We didn't actually celebrate on their birthday, but we did quite a bit of celebrating. I gave them their choice of meals one day, so we ate at their favorite local fast food place for lunch and a yummy noodle shop for dinner (their favorite because they can each get their own plate of stir fried noodles; my favorite because each plate is only $1!). Before going out to dinner they got to open presents and cards (writing thank notes is on the lesson plan for next week). The next day they were very busy with some of those presents: Monkey experimented with her digital drum set; Bug has started knitting a purse using one of her looms; and I taught the girls how to play pick up sticks and mancala (they got a 10 in 1 game set). Miss C, the Kids' Club teacher at church, took them out for ice cream. This was their first time going somewhere with an adult who wasn't a family member;
they were a little nervous when I first told them the plan, but they were excited about the ice cream and about getting some 2 on 1 time with Miss C. They had a great time, and Miss C said they were extremely polite and well behaved (makes a mommy proud!). Monkey and Bug said they didn't want a birthday cake--they wanted to make and decorate sugar cookies instead! They turned out beautifully! (You'll note there was no mention of a party in all this celebrating. That's not because I'm depriving my kids of childhood fun; that's because they requested we not have one. They've been to a number of birthday parties, and they both said they really didn't want everyone staring at them and singing, so could we just do a family celebration, please? Absolutely!)

Three Rs
Several new things were started this week. Both girls are big fans of the math and writing workfolders: I stocked them with several weeks worth of sheets, and the girls have enjoyed being able to choose their own lessons every morning.

In math this week, Bug worked on: addition, subtraction, fractions, telling time, counting money, and creating/reading bar graphs. Monkey worked on all the same things plus we introduced counting by 5s using a dot-to-dot activity. Both girls also did addition flashcards with me this week (adding digits 0-12). I was actually impressed by how many they could do without counting on their fingers and by just how many they were willing to do in a sitting (30-50 problems).

We introduced spelling tests this week as well. Bug had her first list down in short order and asked if she could take her test early and not have to deal with it the rest of the week. I agreed, and she spelled every word correctly with no hesitation. Monkey knew what letters were in all the words with confidence, but she really struggled with remembering what order they went in. She actually only missed one; my plan is to put it on next weeks list, so she can review it again. The girls got to choose their writing pages, and they both opted to do grammar all this week, so we learned about nouns and verbs (using sheets that had them circling words or filling in blanks). Bug also started learning cursive this week. She started with her name, of course, and she loves it!

For reading, Monkey read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, Raindrop Plop, Kitty Up, and The Orange Book. Bug read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons on multiple days (because she wanted to learn all the words well enough to read it to Goose) and Raindrop Plop. This week I also created word-building cards (little cards with individual letters, digraphs, and common word endings on them). We spread out the cards and I had Monkey and Bug see what words they could build and I wrote down a list of what they came up with. Monkey loved this activity!

Notes on Other Subjects
Science: The Frizz is back in play! The girls watched a Magic School Bus episode about desert plants and animals, because they remembered that we'd been to some deserts on our trips and they wanted to learn more about it again.

Bible: In our family reading time, we finished the stories of Jacob and started a new bookmark with the stories about Gideon. Bible quizzing was introduced at church this Wednesday. Monkey and Bug are so excited about their new workbooks about Exodus! Goose's class of preschoolers and kindergartners will be learning about the creation story for the next month or so.

History: This week we learned about runes and picture stones. We read the appropriate sections from the Eyewitness book, and I found photographs of more picture stones online for them to peruse. To wrap it up, each of the big girls created their own using a paper-wrapped cereal box. Once again their personal styles came out: Monkey made hers a thing of personal significance with a drawing of our family; Bug meticulously copied the style of the Jelling Stone, one of the most famous and well-preserved examples.

Both sides of Monkey's picture stone: on one side she drew Mommy and Daddy
and on the other side she drew herself holding her stuffed inch worm with her sisters on either side

Both sides of Bug's picture stone with an inset image of the Jelling Stone

Doctor Who?
One day this week found us facing an exceptionally large mountain of clean clothes to fold, and my solution to keeping us all entertained and get the job done was to introduce the girls to Classic Doctor Who. Definitely a good choice--they loved it! Thanks to a new offering by Netflix, we got to watch a series of episodes about the 2nd Doctor and the Mind Robber from the late 1960s. While Daddy and I have deemed the current Doctor Who show too scary and complex for the girls to enjoy, the Classic Doctor is just their speed. The plotlines are fairly simple and slow moving, and the special effects are hilariously bad (for example, the bad robots in these episodes were obviously people with cardboard boxes on their heads and torsos and dryer vent tubes on their arms and legs). Just in case you were wondering it was indeed educational! The Mind Robber episodes feature characters brought to life from mythology and fairytales and the girls had fun identifying characters like Medusa and Repunzel and recalling the original storylines and how they were the same/different from the parts they played in the show. Of course, this being Doctor Who lots of discussion was had about how time works (and "what does the future mean?"). Once we explained it all the big girls at least could get in on the humor of one of the Doctor's companions being a "girl from the distant future"--the year 2000, which came and went before they were even born! In contrast the Doctor's other companion was a boy from the 1700s.

Bounce! Climb! Slide!

On Monday morning, we joined half a dozen other homeschool families at a local attraction: a spectacularly massive version of your typical fast food playspace along with several bounce house structure inside a warehouse-sized building. All three girls sustained minor injuries, but had a fantastic time and completely wore themselves out after running around with their friends for two straight hours. The moms meanwhile chatted in a side room with a comfy couches just off the main play area. It's kind of a pricey activity, but it was fun to have the whole place to ourselves now that most of the population is back in school!

Library Day

Another quiet day at the library. We came home with these books:

Zin! Zin! Zin!

Mommy's Little Monster

Leo the Late Bloomer

I'm a Baby. You're a Baby

Running Shoes

(Apparently, the girls were in the mood for the familiar: All of the above books are ones we've checked out on multiple occasions.)

Dream Dog (This was a new book for us, but the girls recognized the illustrator from one of their favorite books at home.)

Bug Patrol

There's No Such Thing as a Dragon

The Orange Book

Daddy Has a Pair of Striped Shorts

The Caged Birds of Phnom Penh

The Giving Tree (The girls picked out all the books this week, and I was curious to get their reaction to this one in particular. It's a highly acclaimed Shel Silverstein title that I've heard people gush over on several occasions, but this book always bothered me even as a kid. My daughters had the same reaction of shock and dismay that I did, summarized by Bug: "How could the boy be so mean to his favorite tree?! He destroyed it!")
 

Viking Music

We continued making our way through the Norse mythology book, and this week we made a particular study of Viking music. I found a good website that talked about the wide variety of Viking instruments, including pictures of archaeologist’s reproductions of the instruments, and even included sound samples and a few snippets of songs to listen to. The girls pulled out a few whistles and recorders from their instrument bin that resembled the Viking versions and we made our own Viking style lyre out of a piece of cardboard and rubberbands. The lyre from our Ancient Greece studies was still floating around the playroom, so we did a bit of a comparative study and noted all the differences in construction.

The Three Rs

For reading lessons, Monkey read Max & Milo Go to Sleep, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, and Rosie's Walk. I also overheard her reading I'm a Baby. You're a Baby to Goose. Bug read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Where's Spot?, and Inside, Outside, Upside Down.

For math lessons, they worked their way through whatever math worksheets I happened to have lying around (mostly addition and fractions with a little telling time thrown in). This week I was really focused on getting some things organized and work folders put together (see Planning Tea below).

For writing this week, the girls did several worksheets--fill in the blank and unscramble the sentence activities--and wrote sentences inspired by silly drawings of things like flamingos wearing ice skates. Bug also completed a work folder from church--extra activities the kids could do based on their Kids Club lessons about Exodus and Deuteronomy. She turned in the completed folder this week, and on Sunday she'll receive a prize and get to add her name to a poster recognizing her hard work.

I think Goose completed several dozen worksheets this week--counting, shapes, sequencing, pencil control, etc. She's been very cheerfully busy!

Planning Tea

The tradition continues: Every 6 months or so the girls and I regroup for homeschooling by baking a treat, making tea, and sitting down to talk about what we've been doing and what we're going to do. For Goose, I had a stack of new workbooks to present (thank you, Target bargain bins!). After exclaiming over the new books, she scarfed her brownie and headed back to the playroom, while her big sisters and I continued.
 

They're in first grade now, and we talked about how that means they have a little more and more difficult work to do, so one of the things they'll be learning this year is how to focus and get their work done more efficiently. We did a test run of a timer method one day this week: I set a timer for 15 minutes. If they work steadily, they can have a 15 minute brain break when the timer goes off regardless of whether or not they're finished. If they finish before the timer goes off, the extra time is all theirs to do with as they wish. It worked beautifully (math problems they would have agonized over for 30 minutes were miraculously done in less than 10), and they're excited about continuing it all the time starting next week. We also discussed things we might do during those brain breaks: getting extra toys temporarily out of the storage bins (we rotate toys in and out of the playroom), learning yoga with some kids YouTube videos I found, go for a short walk, etc.

Then we tackled the actual subjects. For reading, we discussed our plan to step up to intentionally more challenging books than the ones they've mastered lately. For math, I made each of them a work folder with enough worksheets for about 3 weeks. Every day we do lessons, they must complete any two of the sheets, but are welcome to do more. Bug in particular is likely to do this as driven as she is to complete projects; she was excited about being able to move completed pages into the other pocket of the folder, so she could easily see how much she had finished. Monkey's excited about this new method, because she now has much more freedom to choose what she does each day. I also purchased some flashcards, so we can start drilling their math facts. The new piece to their writing lessons is the addition of spelling tests. (Bug has been complaining for a while that she wished could write more things all by herself.) We're going to be working our way through Fry's Word List (the 1,000 most common English words). We're starting off with just 6 words at a time, but I'm sure we'll up that number eventually. As usual they're most excited about history, and I had a fun project for us to do for this part of our tea (now that we'd actually finished our snack). We relocated to the playroom and created a timeline using a set of history cards I made up for the units we've studied so far or will be studying in the coming months. Each card shows the name and years of the time period, a world map indicating where it took place, and a collection of iconic images from the era. We used red string to indicate periods that lasted for longer lengths of time (for example, Ancient Greece and Imperial China each represent several thousand years). The time periods they got to preview: Ancient Egypt (to coincide with their Bible quizzing studies of Exodus) and Colonial America (because I decided they're old enough to be familiar with the events of early American history). I was pleased that they actually do have a pretty good grasp of when eras fall in relation to each other.

 I Think He Feels Enlightened Now

We know so many homeschoolers here in California that sometimes I forget some people still have misconceptions about what homeschooling is really like. Apparently inspired by something from the sermon on Sunday, an older gentleman approached me after church and the following conversation happened:
Gentleman: You homeschool, right?
Me: Yes--two first graders and a preschooler.
Gentleman: So, don't you think homeschooling keeps your kids in a box?
Me [slightly puzzled look on my face]: No, actually I think sending them to school is more of a box. I mean, schooled kids basically sit in the same room all day.
Gentleman: But do your girls have opportunity to be with other 5 year olds?
Me [glances across courtyard where my 3 are galavanting around with half a dozen other 4-6 year olds--all homeschooled]: All the time! Almost all the kids here are homeschooled, and we get together a lot at playgrounds, the beach, church activities, the aquarium. We do storytime at the library, and my girls take swimming lessons and jujitsu lessons . . . Plus, as homeschoolers they get to interact with kids of all ages--not just 5 year olds--I think it's actually better for them to get to play with kids older and younger than they are too.
Gentleman: Hmmm....but don't you think it'd be good for them to get to see what the real world is like?
Me [I think I may actually have laughed]: Well, they're not sitting in a classroom all day; they're actually in the real world. Academic lessons at home don't take very long with just three, and they come with me on whatever errands I have to run--to the grocery store, the bank, getting the oil changed, Target, whatever. They help with chores at home and see all the jobs I do. They get to see and participate in what people really do all day long.
Gentleman: Oh . . . huh . . . I guess I never thought about that.
[Mildly injured daughter screams in the background. Conversation ends.]
 

This week we actually returned to our normal routine! As much fun as we've had over the past month or so with travelling and visitors, I think this family of mostly introverts is glad to be just us at home again for a while. All the freedom to just be apparently unleased their creative juices, and the girls had a huge painting session that resulting in our study floor being carpeted with some lovely works of art!

This week also happened to be the start of a new school year for the local public-schooled kids--a day we acknowledged by reveling in the freedom of homeschooling and buying doughnuts to bring with us to a morning at the park.

Bibles!
I forgot to mention this last week, but on the day we picked up E from the airport, we stopped in at the Christian bookstore, so Monkey and Bug could pick out their very own first real Bibles. This was a big deal for them. They're "officially" first graders now, which means they're big enough to participate in Bible quizzing at our church. Bug in particular is really excited about this. Plus, they're getting to be good enough readers that they could actually sit down with their Bible and work their way through verses. For our family Bible reading times, we're working through the stories about Jacob, and Monkey and Bug have been practicing finding each days scripture reference (a skill they'll need in the fall).

Library Day
The library storytime is on haitus again, but of course that doesn't stop us from showing up and having fun! The girls noticed that a lot fewer people come on days without storytime: Monkey enjoyed that it was quieter, and she had more room to actually spread out and complete a floor puzzle, while Bug commented that she felt sorry for the kids who's mommies didn't bring them anyway ("They don't get to pick out more books!"). Goose was just thrilled that I finally agreed to read books to them while we were still at the library (usually it's too loud for that to be an enjoyable activity). This week we brought home these books:
999 Frogs Wake Up
A Summery Saturday Morning
The Biggest House in the World
Julia Wants a Pet
Bridget and the Gray Wolves
Water Boy
Bringing in the New Year
Tanglebird
"Eat!" Cried Little Pig
My Duck
Leo the Late Bloomer

The Three Rs
Goose is back into a worksheet frenzy this week! Letters, numbers, shapes, comparisons, animals--she covered it all. Her sisters have also been working with on numbers and letters during their play, too.

This week Monkey read Where's Spot?, Rosie's Walk, Max & Milo Go to Sleep, and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Bug read Rosie's Walk, Inside Outside Upside Down, You Are My Sunshine, and Where's Spot? Unrelated to official reading lessons, Bug also read several verses of Genesis 1 in her Bible to Goose. a I've also succeeded in getting the girls to do a little more incidental reading--reading the directions on their math worksheet, for example.

For math, I kept it simple and easy. Both big girls did lots of review: addition, fractions, telling time, place value (for Monkey), subtraction and skip counting (for Bug).

Voyages of the Vikings
The girls were happy to be back into history studies again! We're still learning about the Vikings, and this week we learned about Viking ships. We learned about the different types and sizes of ships, what the Viking used them for (warships, fishing boats, cargo boats for merchants or settlers, etc.), and how they were built. The culminated fun project: building our own out of a shoebox, carboard from cereal boxes, wooden skewers, a paper back, masking tape, and a bit of string. All three girls got involved in decorating the dragon head, shields, and sail. Finally, they crewed the ship with Playmobil knights fitted out with swords and blond and/or long hair to more closely resemble the Vikings. As a homeschool mom, I was thrilled with what happened next. With no promptings or involvement on my part, they proceeded to re-enact Erik the Red's journey: They departed from Norway (the kitchen table) through the treacherous sea (the kitchen) to reach Iceland (the playtable). There, they got in trouble for fighting the other inhabitants (mostly the now-bald Playmobil girls) and had to make another arduous journey (through the living room) to reach Greenland (the hearth). Yes, I think they've been paying attention!

Aunt E is Home!Aunt E is back in the States after two years in the mission field, and we got to see her first! We had a great time hanging out, catching up on stories, and satisfying some of her American food cravings. One day the girls got to have a playdate with some church friends, so E and I could get some sister-bonding time and go shopping without little helpers (so much fun!). For the last half of her visit we were joined by T, one of her students who'll be traveling with her for the next couple of weeks for an English immersion experience. Both E and T brought the girls presents including lots of origami/kirigami paper. The entourage was thrilled! (and my house in now covered in tiny scraps of really pretty paper) E taught them how to make lots of different things, and T and the girls particularly bonded over folding paper airplanes.

Library DayE was around for library day, so she joined us for a wild animal themed storytime. As usual they picked out lots of books to bring home:
Max & Milo Go to SleepA Regular Rolling NoahListen to My Trumpet!Doctor Meow's Big EmergencyNini Here and ThereExcuse Me!WhistlingWho BopMuch Bigger Than Martin
Classic Cali Experiences
On the days T and E were both here, we decided to treat them to some of our favorite local activities. First we hit the beach. It was our typical July weather (65 degrees and cloudy), but we still had lots of fun playing in the sand. I even arranged for it to be a beach playdate and invited a couple of other families we're friends with who also have kids T's age. The highlight of this visit: spotting a seal and a couple of dolphins not too far from shore.

The girls and their friends found LOTS of mole crabs this visit.
They have several dozen held captive in those buckets.

Monkey and her friend L made sand cakes.

Goose had so much fun!

 Coincidentally our church was hosting another of our favorite activities that evening: a fire pit and s'mores. The latter were a much missed dessert for E and a new experience for T (he approves). There was also a movie going for the kids, but ours chose to play on the playground and focus on the s'mores instead.

The evening before we had to say goodbye, we visited the wharf--our favorite local tourist attraction. The tide was in, so the girls didn't get to look for seashells, but they had fun climbing on the rocks and peering into tidal pools where they got to see the critters that actually live in those shells. Next, we helped T do some souvenir shopping, watched taffy being made (and bought some, yum!), got to see otters and sea lions from the observation decks, and enjoyed some really tasty seafood dishes in one of the wharf restaurants.

We found creatures in shells!

 Scottish Festival & Celtic GamesThe Saturday E and T were here happened to be the local Scottish Festival and Celtic Games, so they came along with us to experience our family's heritage. We had a great time, and it turned out to be a pretty big event! Our day involved watching bits of a highland dancing competition, marveling and laughing at the juggler/stilt walker/comedian, watching the parade of clans (complete with a pipe and drum corps, of course) while eating meat pies (yum!), admiring "The Queen" and her retinue of Elizabethan re-enactors, witnessing the feats at the Celtic games and participating in the kids' versions, and perusing the vendors booths full of Celtic everything. Perhaps the girls favorite activity though was collecting stamps for their Clan Passports: About twenty clans had representatives manning booths with maps, tartans, snacks, clan histories, etc. Each clan also had a stamp of their crest, which the girls could request for the booklets they were given when we arrived. (Sadly our clan didn't have it's own booth at this event.)