Garapata State Park
"Hiking distance: 6-mile loop; Elevation gain: 1,600 feet. . . . This hike is strenuous and only recommended for serious hikers." (You know, serious hikers--like our 4 and 7 year olds!) This was the trail we decided to conquer the day after Thanksgiving, and the girls loved it! The trail took us along a creek through a bit of redwood forest, then up to a peak overlooking Monterey Bay. We enjoyed beautiful scenery all along the way, and the girls were champs despite some seriously challenging climbs and descents.

Happy Advent!
Advent is in full swing out here! We actually kicked off the Christmas season a bit early this year (before Thanksgiving) by attending the lighting of the Christmas tree at the local mall. This event also included cookies, hot chocolate, and window shopping at our favorite toy store. Very popular!

The actual Advent season started with a Hanging of the
Greens service at church. We decorated the sanctuary with members reading about the meaning of the decorations and the congregation singing Christmas carols in between. Our family presented the colors of Advent, and the girls got to drape the new linens on the altar and cross. They also joined the rest of the kids in the congregation in decorating the Christmas tree.




Once we got home that Sunday, we did more decorating! Accompanied by Christmas cookies, of course. (The girls and I had a great time making shortbread shaped like Christmas trees the day before.) This is the first time in three years that we've actually been in a position to use our Christmas decorations, and we are pretty excited about it! The centerpiece of our Christmas decor is the Crismon tree (unfamiliar with this tradition? Check out this link), but the girls also have a tree in the upstairs hallway to decorate however they want. Goose and I also did the count: I think we have 19 nativity scenes displayed around the house. The girls and I also decided to string some lights outside this year--nothing elaborate, but it was a first this year, and they love having them out there! Of course, no Advent season is complete with an actual Advent wreath to light every evening.

Our daily Advent celebrations this year have also included an Advent paper chain: each link is printed with a Bible verse from the Christmas story.  The girls have had fun watching that chain get shorter and discussing the details of the nativity story along the way. We've also been reading through Dicken's A Christmas Carol, which has been quite popular. (I think Marley is the girls favorite character, since I keep hearing ghostly wails of "Scrooooooge!" at random throughout the day followed by laughter.)

This year we also got to participate in a friend's Christmas tradition: making gingerbread houses. Miss M made the gingerbread from scratch and built the houses, then invited the girls over to join her kiddos in decorating them with an assortment of icing and candy. So much fun! And delicious!

Last week our OCF group decided to skip our regular meeting and attend Streets of Bethlehem in a nearby town instead. This is a major event sponsored by a local church that includes a "marketplace" where the kids got to pet animals, string beads for bracelets, make clay pots, grind grain, smell spices and perfumes, and watch a magician along with the rest the crowd "in town to pay their taxes." We were ushered by Roman guards to move along through the inns (where we witnessed Mary and Joseph being turned away) out to the "shepherd's fields" (where we saw the choirs of angels) and finally to the stable itself with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.

We are looking forward to celebrating the rest of the season!

Happy Thanksgiving!
Obviously our most recent civics studies have focused on Thanksgiving! (We've also discussed the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty since I wrote last.) After studying Plymouth colony in depth for our colonial studies last year, I was pleased that the girls could tell me the story this year instead of vice versa. We did also read a book about the traditional first Thanksgiving, illustrated with photos from Plimouth Plantation (the living history museum) and full of "first person" accounts of the events. All three girls made "thankful turkeys" (they wrote things they're thankful for on each feather), and the big girls also completed a couple of writing assignments: one about the importance of Thanksgiving and one imagining they were a child in the colony.

Of course, you can't learn about Thanksgiving without joining friends for an actual feast! On Thursday afternoon, we headed to the house of some neighborhood friends with our contributions to the feast. Additional friends and family members arrived to eat, play games, eat some more, and just have a great time! (In all the excitement, no pictures were taken. Sorry, folks.)

Go! Go! Go!
Goose got to start gymnastics last week and loved it! (The big girls did very well in their second class.) Most of the class is spent doing laps through an obstacle course of gymnastics activities (practicing somersaults, balance beams, jumping, etc.). Immediately following her class we spent about an hour in a nearby playground that included a pretty extensive bouldering wall. After doing a run through of all the other playground equipment, all three girls settled into conquering the wall. As if that wasn't enough to wear out Goose's little legs, she went running with Daddy the very next morning. They did a 2.5 mile loop that involved road, woods, boardwalk, and beach.

Geek Culture
Daddy and I recently introduced the girls to some classic fantasy movies: The Hobbit (the animated one from the 70s), The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. These little nuts didn't fall far from the tree, and they are huge fans! We have had many discussions about character traits, plot points, motivation, back story, etc. for all three movies, as well as the usual book/movie comparisons for Labyrinth (it's loosely based on Maurice Sendak's Outside, Over There). They're excited about someday reading The Hobbit too. Monkey and Bug in particular were fascinated by the puppetry in The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and we successfully searched the web for behind-the-scenes videos and pictures.

Bug's Extras
Bug has definitely found her stride in getting her formal lessons done efficiently. With her additional free time she's been pursuing a couple of personal interests. Daddy introduced her to computer programming awhile back by walking her through the creation of a math problem generator. In the past couple of weeks he also found an online resource (Code.org) she can use mostly on her own to create a Star Wars-themed game. She was thrilled! Given her interest in coding and her mastery of handwriting (in print; we'll tackle cursive next year), we decided it was time to find a typing course for her. I discovered Typing.com, a free online typing course that's a similar set up to Khan Academy (she can log in as a student and walk herself through the lessons and activities to earn points and badges for mastering keys). Ten minutes in she exclaimed, "Mommy, I like this!"

She's also been following through on a different interest: sewing.
She recently designed and created a small stuffed doll named Scrappy. I gave pointers and helped thread a few needles, but she did everything else.

Lego Challenges

These Lego challenge cards have been hugely popular in our house recently. I printed and cut out a few pages of them for the girls to keep in a box in the playroom. They have been
successfully kept busy for hours following the building suggestions on these little cards! (Parenting tip for encouraging Lego play: Spread out a sheet in the play area on which they can dump the bin of Legos. Clean up is as easy as gathering the four corners of the sheet and pouring them all back.)



Bible
All three girls continue to memorize lots of good Bible verses through our church's Awana Clubs (actually the big girls are currently memorizing the books of the Bible). Between those verses and our at home daily Bible readings, we've had lots of interesting discussions lately on everything from marriage in ancient Persia (thanks to Queens Vashti & Esther) to attempting to explain the Trinity (the girls remembered St. Patrick's analogy of the shamrock and that seemed to help) to looking up the origin story of Lucifer/Satan. Raising children in the faith is not for the faint of heart!

The Three Rs
The big girls continue to practice math facts for addition, subtraction, and multiplication while slowly working their way through 3rd grade math in Khan Academy (Monkey's at 19% and Bug's at 33%). Goose continues to play with lots of manipulatives and do a variety of kindergarten level worksheets.

For writing for the big girls, we're still doing weekly

Tea time + reading aloud by turn =
happy little homeschoolers

spelling units based on sight words and sound families, and they usually complete 3 or 4 small composition assignments each week (with grammar lessons thrown in periodically). Monkey generally runs with whatever suggestion I hand her, but Bug's been using some of that extra time to watch silent films on YouTube (Charlie Chaplin is a new favorite) and write reports about them (identifying details, plot summary, and her opinion). Monkey still does handwriting assignments (usually copywork of whatever she's memorizing for Awana), and I keep Goose's binder stocked with worksheets that require practicing her letters; she flies through them.

For reading lessons lately, Monkey has been loving books by Arnold Lobel or Edward Marshall. She has mastered a lot more sight words, which makes listening so much more pleasant! Goose has pretty well rejected the AlphaPhonics textbook in favor of actually practicing reading books (I can't blame her, and so far it's working well). To that end, I recently bought three more sets of Bob books, and I discovered this blog where The Measured Mom has over 100 free printable sight word books! (She also has letter books, but Goose is past that.) Bug continues to establish her identity as a serious bookworm. Fortunately, I have her keeping up her own reading log, so I don't actually have to remember what she's pulled off the home library shelves. She usually has multiple books going at once--a mix of novels and non-fiction. I recently introduced her to the American Girl novels (the historical ones), and she loves them! In fact, so far they've inspired her to look for non-fiction library books about European immigrants in the 1800s and frontier life as well as the Nez Perce tribe of the American Southwest.

I babysat for a friend recently, and most of the morning looked
like this--reading aloud and playing with Legos.

It's Raining! It's Pouring!
Normal people: It's raining. We should snuggle up under a blanket and stay inside all day.

My children: It's raining! Mommy, can we go for a walk?

Of course, I said yes, and we spent almost an hour walking around the block, jumping in "legit puddles!" (as Bug called them), peering down storm drains and discussing their purpose, watching leaves float swiftly down the hill, singing "Sing in the Rain" at the top of our lungs, etc. We followed this up with nice, hot cups of tea and a couple of books about weather. We discovered a chart of the different kinds of clouds and periodically checked the sky throughout the day to see what kind we had.

Run! Run! Run!
Goose ran another 5K, the local Turkey Trot. She kept the same time as the last one--about 35 minutes (and she keeps this pace while also keeping up a steady stream of conversation). This time she wanted me to run with her, and I decided I ought to accept the invitation since she's going to outpace me before too long! She gives me about a year. Out of curiosity Daddy decided to look up the results for a different, much bigger race that happened the same weekend. Had Goose been old enough to enter, she would have tied an 8 year old for second place in the kids' 5K.

This Saturday she and Daddy did a fun run hosted by a local running store. While she was not pleased to roll out of bed at 7:30 and straight into her running shorts, she later declared that it was totally worth it! She loved the 4-mile run on a dirt trail with a few little hills. Daddy's running club usually does Saturday runs in various locations, and Goose has asked if they can make that their usual running day instead of Tuesdays on the paved rec trail.

Beach Bonfire
The girls had a fantastic time at a beach bonfire our church hosted. Our girls brought their headlamps, and another mom supplied glow sticks, so the kids could run around in the dark and still be located. The grown ups huddled around the bonfire and chitchatted, but everybody joined in for s'mores!

Gymnastics
I let the girls talk me into signing them up for gymnastics lessons. Fortunately, Parks & Rec had some very reasonably priced, once-a-week classes that worked for our schedule. Monkey and Bug started this week. Their first class involved a few rough moments, but they each recovered and came away happy and ready to go back next week! I think it helped that one of their friends from church also happened to be in the class. Mommy confession: Goose was supposed to start this week too, and I completely forgot about her class until it was too late. Oops.

New Stage of Life
The past couple of weeks have been confirmation that we have entered wonderful new homeschooling territory. I've had most of the girls' formal lessons organized in binders for awhile now (the big girls have a calendar to fill out, handwriting exercises, spelling worksheets, and math facts pages; Goose's is mostly coloring sheets, dot-to-dots, and little mazes and things), and we've been inching toward independence in their "binder work." Also, I started doing two things just for me lately: running on a treadmill in the neighborhood community center for my second run each week (because Daddy's too busy and it's too dark too early for me to get outside to run more than once a week) and attending a weekly women's Bible study. These additions have been possible and relatively stress-free because the girls can get their work done while I'm otherwise busy! They sit (mostly quietly) in the lobby of the community center and at a table in the back of the Bible study and actually (usually) accomplish things. Amazing!

Social Studies: Civics
The most recent addition to those binders has been a unit that I'm calling civics. It's mostly coloring sheets and some worksheets that will walk us through various national symbols, holidays, and patriotic values. For example, so far we've discussed the symbolism in the American flag, why we have Veteran's Day, and what all the phrases in the Pledge of Allegiance mean.

I've also decided to pair this study with our new literature focus: American tall tales. Since we recently studied international fairy tales with the colored fairy books by Andrew Lang, this seemed like an appropriate next step. They loved the tales of Paul Bunyan that we read this week, but I did have to explain the literary concept of hyperbole after being stopped multiple times by Bug going, "Wait. That doesn't make sense. That's impossible."

Afternoon at the Aquarium

Checking out the fish in the Open Seas tank

We spent a couple of hours at the aquarium lately, and I still amazed that we always find new things to do! This time the girls head straight to the Open Sea exhibit, featuring a HUGE tank that's home to cool things like sea turtles, tuna, manta rays, and even a great white shark. 

Leaving that exhibit we walked through a couple of mini art galleries showing beautiful sculptures made from trash that highlighted conservation efforts and urged viewers to contribute their own efforts. 

Next we decided to watch a couple of documentaries in the auditorium. The first taught about deep sea creatures and the robots scientists use to learn about them. Between videos we went to check out the tiny new exhibit to see one of the robots in person and get to use a virtual one to "explore" a deep sea canyon. Then we headed back to the auditorium to learn about maintenance of the aquarium and its occupants. (For example, the divers who clean the open sea tank wear chain mail over their wetsuits to protect them from the shark.)

Happy Halloween!
In a neighborhood as packed full of little kids as ours is,

Halloween is kind of a big deal, and the girls had a blast! We joined forces with another family for the evening. We contributed to dinner and their treat bowl, then the dads took the kids trick-or-treating while the moms stayed home to pass out treats and take turns holding T (their infant).

The girls were so excited about their costumes. Inspired by the fact that she is missing two teeth and has three more loose, Monkey decided to go as a jack o' lantern (cheap jack o'lantern shirt + no-sew orange tutu). Bug's recent interest in silent films led her to dress as a silent film star this year (black & white ensemble + homemade dialogue card that says "Trick or Treat!" on one side and "Thank you!" on the other). Goose had some trouble deciding on a costume, but inspiration struck while wandering the costume section at Target: "I want to be a witch!" Cue inward cringe from this Mommy as I glance around at  the witch costumes that range from sexy/cutesy to seriously creepy. "You know, like Hermione Granger!" she continued. Oh! An intelligent, brave girl who's loyal to her friends and stands up for what's right? That I can go for! (white polo shirt + Daddy's tie + stick from the backyard + store-bought Hogwarts robe + 10 tiny braids that poofed on release). I may be biased, but they are so cute!

Dentists & Doctors

Bug and Goose both had to get cavities filled in the past couple of weeks. Goose did beautifully: she hopped up in the chair, put on the "space mask" (laughing gas), and picked out an episode or two of Curious George while the dentist did her thing. Easy day. Meanwhile, I was in the waiting comforting a distraught Bug. For the record, ignorance is not bliss; it's terrifying. We'd talked a lot about what was going to happen, but she was really banking on getting to watch the process herself. The dentist seemed amenable to this, but then changed her mind. This resulted in Bug being even more anxious about her own procedure (it's so terrible they won't even let her watch?!) and feeling like the dentist had lied to her just to get her out of the room nicely (can't blame her; that's what it felt like to me too). Fortunately, when Bug's turn actually came around it all went smoothly once we got her to actually swallow the nasty-tasting sedative (a necessity to soothe her extremely sensitive gag reflex and allow the dentist to actually get tools into the back of her mouth). Whew. Let's hope this is not a process that will need to be repeated!

Goose also had a well-check this week, which resulted in lots of conversations with her and her sisters about vaccines--how they work, what diseases they're protecting against, what it feels like to get a shot, etc. She was anxious about that last one, so I took her with me to the pharmacy when I got my own flu shot. The pharmacist (a fellow mom) was awesome. When I noted Goose's anxiety about the next day, she walked me through the process just like the nurses always do with kids ("It'll just be a quick pinch." "See! All done!" "Look, we even have a fun band-aid for you!") Goose was in giggles about my Olaf band-aid. She was great for her own appointment! She cooperated beautiful with the whole exam (great nurses and a doctor who explained it all to her as they went) and only a shed a few tears about the shots. 

Three R's Highlights!

Lessons continue as usual--mostly. Monkey finished Early Math at the beginning of the week! So, next week we jump into third grade math for her too! To celebrate their completion of such a milestone, Monkey and Bug requested our favorite local seafood place for dinner. Yum! Bug was pretty excited this week when Khan Academy pointed out that the skills she's completed for third grade also means she's 10% of the way through pre-algebra as well.

Goose can read the whole first set of Bob Books now! She's been thrilled that her reading lessons can now include actual books. She's not reading them fluently, of course, but this is a big step.

All three girls have been working on their handwriting. I printed up some handwriting specific worksheets for the big girls. They weren't thrilled, but I've already seen an improvement!

So, not technically one of the three R's, but we finished our study of the 50 states! The girls really enjoyed this study, and were always so excited when we covered either a state they had been or one where someone they knew lived (that covers an awful lot of territory!). 

Cosplay at the Library!
We skipped the usual story time at the library this week, and showed up on Saturday afternoon instead to participate in the library's Star Wars Day! The girls were very excited about dressing up, and the librarian had a great story time. They also got to do some coloring sheets, make pool noodle lightsabers, and participate in "Jedi Academy" (you gotta love a melodramatic librarian willing to wield a lightsaber and teach a crowd of kids a few moves).

A padawan, Darth Vader (minus the mask), and Princess Leia
(thrilled her hair was long enough to do the double bun look)

Music Milestones
The girls have been doing wonderfully and really enjoying their weekly music lessons. Goose is moving through songs faster and smoother, and her teacher recently incorporated the black keys into her songs! Bug's love/hate relationship with violin has actually been leaning more toward love lately! She even added a new song to her repertoire this week. Monkey is still loving the drums. Her assignments have gotten a lot more complex lately, so she and I scoured the house and managed to dig up enough drum pads/pot lids to create a whole drum kit propped up with pillows on the couch. She also been asking me to turn on music, so she can practice keeping the rhythm to actual songs.

Little Runner

Daddy found another 5k for Goose to run. She was thrilled to have another race to run so soon, and she was amazing! In addition to being the littlest runner, she took 6 minutes off her time for a new personal record of 35:08! She has informed us of several things: Daddy will not be able to keep up with her when she's 7, she's going to run marathons when she gets bigger, and she's going to be a famous runner someday.

The Three Rs
The three Rs continue as usual, and everyone is making progress. Goose begged me for more worksheets this week, and I happily obliged (I found some fun dot-to-dot, maze, and hidden pictures sheets in addition to the usual math and letter recognition topics.) Bug was thrilled to reach about 20% of the way through third grade math. That number's a false high, though; Khan asked her 7x1, then declared that she'd "mastered" the 7 times table. Um...no. In reality she does know the multiples of 1, 2, 10, and 11, and she working on memorizing the 5s. Monkey's at 97% in Early Math (kindergarten through second grade). Just a few more skills left to master! Of course, both big girls are still doing math facts work for addition and subtraction outside of Khan Academy.

For reading, Bug is basically on her own: I help her find books to choose from as requested, make her keep a list of the books she reads, and have her write a book report on one of them every couple of weeks. Monkey seemed to reach kind of a plateau in her reading skills, so we've added some sight words flash cards to our routine. Having a larger repertoire of words she doesn't need to sound out every time would really help her out. Of course, once Monkey had brightly colored sight word flashcards, Goose wanted some too! I found a set of kindergarten ones, and picked out a few of the "funny words" (e.g., was, said) and the words with short vowel sounds, which she recently added during her reading lessons (she only had a before). That has really opened up her possibilities for words she can sound out, and she is thrilled.

For writing, the big girls have a selection of assignments to do each week (a combination of grammar and composition activities). Now that the visitors are gone and we're done traveling for a bit, we've also started doing a spelling unit every week again. Goose has a lot of worksheets for tracing and writing letters, and she enjoys copying her weekly verse from Awana.

It's been a wonderfully crazy busy month since I last posted, but I'll try to get you up to speed!

Nana!
The weekend after Grandma and Granddad were here, Nana came to visit for a weekend and stayed for a week! We enjoyed our first day of adventures (Fisherman's Wharf and the neighborhood swimming pool), but the next day Nana woke up with debilitating back pain. We missed out on the other planned adventures, but we got lots of good quality time with Nana--reading books, playing games, watching movies, and just hanging out while Nana healed enough to get on an airplane home.

San Diego

The day after Nana left, we took advantage of one of Daddy's breaks and headed to San Diego again! We took the scenic route along the coast this time, and the highlight of the drive was definitely stopping to see the elephant seals. Those beasts are massive and absolutely hilarious! (Ok, a big highlight for me and Daddy was also stopping to see a friend from our college days, but the girls didn't care much about that.) Our first morning in San Diego was spent wandering around Balboa Park (eavesdropping on a taiko drum class, peering into the fish pond, touring the botanical building, admiring the early 1900s architecture, running around a sculpture garden, viewing an exhibition of Japanese ink drawings, and searching the butterfly garden for the butterflies). We spent the afternoon in Old Town poking around historic buildings/museums (Wells Fargo museum with working telegraph

machines; a horse-drawn transportation museum; a one-room schoolhouse; a letterpress print shop; a textile store that showed the process from cleaning and carding the wool, to spinning and dying yarn, to weaving the fabric; and the mayor's and sheriff's offices and jail), winding our way through contemporary shops and marketplaces, and of course, enjoying the food (root beer and jerky for snack--the entourage says kangaroo is indeed delicious--and Mexican food for dinner). On day two we spent the entire day at Aquatica! They had a blast--especially once the big girls conquered a few I've-never-done-this-before fears. In addition to all the slides and a couple of trips on the lazy river, they really loved the wave pool! (I know we live right on the ocean, but that water's too cold to get in without a wetsuit.) We took a slightly shorter less scenic route on the way home and entertained ourselves with a newly-purchased set of Brain Quest trivia cards--very popular!

Aunt E!
A couple of days after we returned from San Diego, Aunt E came to visit! She joined us for some of our usual activities like story time at the library, meeting up with some friends at the neighborhood pool, and spending an afternoon at the beach.

On this particular weekend she was also able to join us for Goose's first race (more on that below!) and for a gem show at the local fairgrounds (lots of uncut and polished stones with labels, stone sculptures, jewelry, and fossils display as well as demonstrations of polishing, wiring, and silversmithing; a kids section featured sifting for fossils they could keep, inexpensive grab bags of polished stones, a "sandbox" full of iron filings and magnets to play with, and displays about dinosaurs and types of rock). Aunt E also did a missionary talk at church on Sunday, and the girls were very proud to have their aunt up on stage to tell stories about the mission field.

Scottish Games & Festival
The weekend after Aunt E's visit, we made a day trip to another Scottish festival, so Daddy could compete in the Highland games again. So much fun! It was a tough field (all his throws were uphill), but he placed third overall in his category! This was a much smaller festival than the others we've been to, but the girls still had a great time perusing the vendor's booths and making our requisite visit with the queen.

Tidbits
In the midst of all this excitement other fun things are still happening! Here are the highlights:

• Goose ran her first 5k! She now has a personal record of 41:47, and was particularly excited when she realized she even beat some of the grown ups across the finish line! 

• Bug finished second grade math! She is absolutely thrilled with this accomplishment and was very excited to jump into third grade math and start learning things like multiplication.

• Monkey painted her first canvas! We bought her a "coloring page" canvas and a set of acrylic paints for her birthday, and finally got around to pulling them out. She had great fun and even has paint leftover for additional projects.

• Some great friends of ours from a previous duty station moved here a few weeks ago. We've had so much fun reestablishing the in-person friendships and introducing them to their new home.
• All three girls started Awana last month at church. It's a new program this year, and we're all still trying to get the hang of it (I'm helping with the T&T group--upper elementary) but so far so good!
• Inspired by Bug's recently reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, we now have a new special interest: silent films. The girls love them, and we've watched at least half a dozen so far (mostly shorts). Bug even started a notebook in which she writes the title of each film and draws a representative sketch.
• It rained! Those of you not experiencing a serious drought may not understand, but this was cause for dropping our lessons, grabbing our umbrellas, and running outside in search of newly formed puddles to jump in.

Some Friends Are Meant to Be!
On Monday of last week, the girls and I tried a highly successful experiment that will definitely be repeated: lessons  at the playground. I had the big girls complete their Khan Academy assignment at home, then we packed a picnic lunch and spent the rest of the day at a large playground across town. Fortunately, having the climb & slide within in easy distance proved motivational rather than distracting. While there, we met a new-to-the-area, new-to-homeschooling, military family! Moms and kids alike hit it off immediately. What was for them supposed to be a quick obstacle course through the playground before biking/jogging home turned into an hour and a half at the playground while Miss R and I talked homeschooling methods, local resources, and local churches. When it came time to part ways, kids in both families were begging us to set up future playdates, and we had already exchanged contact info to do exactly that! Then on Wednesday, we happened to run into them at the library! And on Sunday, they took us up on my invitation to visit our church. I have no doubt we'll be seeing a lot of them in the future!

Adventures with Grandma & Granddad
Grandma and Granddad finally got to visit us out here for a long weekend! The girls were so excited to see them again (it's been a long time!), and we had plenty of adventures planned. We spent all day Friday at the Monterey Bay Aquarium (with a break for lunch on Cannery Row and Nestle Toll House ice cream sandwiches, of course). Since we stayed for the whole day this time, we not only got to show off our favorite exhibits, but we hit all our favorite events too: the sea otters feeding & training, the history of the bay multi-media show in the Tide Pool Amphitheater, the albatross encounter, and the penguin feeding.

The next day was a busy one too, as we attended the Scottish Highland Gathering & Games. Daddy wasn't competing this time, but the girls were pretty excited about getting to watch the women toss cabers! This time we actually spent much more time wandering around the gathering than watching the games. There was so much to see: Irish step dancing demonstration, the clan village (the girls collected clan stamps again), piping and drumming concerts, steak pasties and bangors for lunch (yum!), so many vendors (pottery, textiles, foundries, stone carving, tartans, jewelry, etc.), a sheep dog demonstration, etc. We also enjoyed the living history section of the gathering. We got to watch the Queen presiding over a knighting ceremony, watch a round of a historic medieval battle (armored "knights" going full contact until most of the competitors have been knocked down), listened to a reenactor explain the uses of various medieval weapons, and watch an archery demonstration. This gathering even featured a contingent of Viking reenactors! We got an up close look (and feel, smell, etc.) at herbs, animal furs, runes, and furniture and listened to a gifted storyteller explain the history and practices of the Vikings. (FYI, many Scots, including the particular ones Daddy is descended from, are actually descended from Viking raiders/colonists, so their presence at the gathering does make sense).

Our clan was represented at this gathering!

After church and our usual lunch with friends on Sunday, we took the grandparents to explore the area around Fisherman's Wharf. We took a turn through the Greek festival that happened to be this weekend, then started down the rec trail to admire the coastline and look for wildlife. That evening we spotted harbor seals, sea otters, brown pelicans, cormorants, caspian terns, pigeons, sea gulls, and a handful of additional birds we couldn't find in our field guide. Of course, we couldn't the wharf without picnicking on bread bowls of clam chowder!

For Grandma and Granddad's final morning out here, we headed to Lovers' Point Park, which the girls declared was "the best playground ever!" It doesn't actually have a playground, but it does have fantastic rocks to scramble on and a big grassy area to run around in as well as an unpaved trail along the coast. We spotted all the same animals we did the previous evening as well as a western scrub jay along the trail.

In the course of getting to and from some of these adventures, we also discovered a fun new road trip pastime: reading road signs with great emotion or while doing a voice impression (for example, hearing tiny Dalek voices reading exit signs from the back seat is pretty hilarious).

Dentist
So, not exactly a fun time, but always educational! We did plenty of talking ahead of time, so the girls were well informed about what to expect, and I think this may be the first dentist visit that didn't involve the dentist and I having to cajole at least one panicked little girl into cooperating! Sadly, we didn't come away with a clean bill of health, and two of them are heading back to get cavities filled.

They were actually able to fit Goose in to get one of hers filled this week, and Bug (the more anxious of the two) was looking forward to finding out how this process works exactly. Unfortunately, the dentist is of the "ignorance is bliss" philosophy and made the big girls return to the waiting room and not come back in until the tools had all been cleared away. Little did the dentist know that telling Bug  she couldn't watch would be much more upsetting for my little information sponge than watching her little sister take a snooze during the procedure. I made it up to her by digging up some very thorough YouTube videos about fillings. The Surgery Squad has a great one called Composite Dental Filling. Note, if you choose to show this to your child: This isn't a kids video. There are no "sugar bugs" or "Mr. Thirsty." It uses all the real medical terminology. She feels much better now.

Beach!
Everybody loves a trip to the beach! The waves seemed smaller

the garden in Sector 3

than usual this visit, and the girls were feeling fearless. Goose, for example, was facing off with breakers that hit her in the chest. I stayed close by, so I could help haul her back to her feet if necessary. She'd spit saltwater and run back in again! Eventually, they got all the shrieking, running, and jumping out of their systems, and settled in to build things in the sand. At some point, Bug declared that they were "aliens planting a garden in Sector 3" and her sisters joined her in "planting" bits of kelp. Monkey and Goose also seemed to be trying to build a pond, but gave up when they couldn't get the water to stay on the surface of their hole instead of soaking in. Good times.

We need more water!

A Bit of Living History

After the beach, we returned to our house to discover there had been an emergency water shutoff for our street. 15 hours later we still don't have running water. We have, however, had lots of good discussions about what life was like before anybody had running water. (Now we're heading to the rec center to swim, shower, and pray our water works when we get back.)

The Three Rs

We took a walk to a nearby play-
ground, and Bug brought a book
to read instead. (I think I may have
cloned myself.)

The formal lessons continue nicely (for the most part--we all have our days). Goose is moving slowly through the Alpha-Phonics book (we just completed lesson 9). We've had a number of days when we just use flashcards to review letter sounds, and some days she pulls out a Bob book to actually read (both activities at her request). We've done lots of manipulative work for math focusing on simple addition and subtraction, counting, tens & ones, and shapes (e.g., what other shape can you make with these triangles?).

The big girls are making great progress in Khan Academy (Monkey's at 80% and Bug's at 89%), and of course, we're still doing addition and subtraction drills.They're adjusting well to their upgraded writing assignments, and this week we've been working on thank you notes. Both girls are reading to me and to themselves everyday. Bug, in particular, has taken off! They received the Magic School Bug chapter books for their birthday, and Bug has read at least 8 of them in less than a week! I think our stack of library books may need to get bigger.

We're getting so big!

Happy Birthday!
Monkey and Bug celebrating their birthday was clearly the highlight of the week! One of the benefits of home schooling is that I can declare birthdays a school holiday, and since Daddy also happened to have a day off from classes, the girls saw no reason to delay the celebrations. The result: M&M cookie cake for breakfast! Followed closely, of course, by opening presents. The girls spent the rest of the morning looking at books and playing with toys, old and new. (The afternoon involved a leisurely library visit and a rescheduled violin lesson.)

Arts & Crafts
The girls got very crafty this week. They spent a lot of time on paper crafts, making dolls (ladies in kimonos to be exact), flowers, baskets, fans, etc. out of origami paper, wallpaper samples, and washi tape.

We also recently purchased a tub of clay from the craft store, and the girls tried their hand at making little coil pots (and a snowman). Now we're waiting for them to dry properly, so the girls can paint them.

Thanks to a few other craft store purchases (fake flowers & pipe cleaners), Bug finally got to make a craft she's been thinking about for ages (or at least it felt that way to her): a flower fairy! I handled the glue gun for her, and we were both very pleased with the result.

The Maps Are Lying!
Even before we'd eaten breakfast one morning, Goose wanted to know if the U.S. was the biggest country in the world. I told her I thought Russia was bigger, and we consulted Google to see if I was right (I was. It turns out Canada is also bigger.) Of course, we pulled out the big world map so she could located the countries. At some point her sisters wandered in, wiped the sleep from their eyes, and insisted we go down the rest of the top 20 list and locate the rest of the countries. We ran into a snag at number 12, Greenland, which appears significantly larger on the map than most of the other countries that outrank it. This led to a discussion of how people make maps and how map projections work, and resulted in my downloading Google Earth, so the girls could at least see the countries on a virtual globe. I think they would have continued happily comparing the countries on the map and the "globe" for a good long while, but tummies started growling and we opted for breakfast.

A Gopher! . . . Or Not.
Another morning started with a bit of excitement when a gopher emerged in the middle of our backyard during breakfast, and we watched him trundle around the yard and across the patio for the next 10 minutes or so before settling in to dig another tunnel entrance. The girls and the cat were utterly fascinated. When we finished our Bible reading, we looked up some information about gophers and their habits, and suddenly the girls weren't so excited about having this little beastie so close to our garden. Fortunately for our plants and unfortunately for the gopher, not five minutes later we spotted the neighbor's cat prancing across the back wall with a lifeless gopher in her mouth.

Tea & Scones & School

My little bakers took over the kitchen.

On the heels of our celebratory donuts and playground morning,
the girls and I had our semi-annual planning meeting. As usual, we had our discussions over mid-morning tea complete with mint tea and homemade chocolate chip scones (courtesy of Monkey and Goose--I was impressed by how little of the cooking I actually had to do!). We discussed their transitions to being officially in kindergarten and second grade respectively and what that would mean in terms of more challenging assignments and the kind of things they'd be learning about. For the big girls, this also means taking standardized tests in the spring. Nobody is happy about this (including Mommy), but I assured them we had plenty of time to practice and that they would be well prepared by the time testing rolls around.

I had each of their binders newly stocked with assignments, and we spent some time going through see and taking a peek at the kind of things they'd be doing. Goose's lessons are going to be more frequent and slightly more formalized as she continues learning to read and getting into more math than just counting. For the big girls their biggest change is in their writing assignments. I'll be expecting a lot more them this year in terms of how much they write and how well organized it is. For example, one of their assignments this week was a worksheet about a main idea ("my pet") and supporting details (name, appearance, personality, etc.). Then I had them work together to dictate a paragraph. They were so excited when they realized they had composed 8 sentences!

Fisherman's Wharf
We headed to one of our favorite local destinations this week!

They were quite taken with this sporty little convertible.

This time the adventure actually started in the parking lot: there's a huge car auction this weekend, and at least half of the parking is taken up with vintage and/or luxury cars. We've been spotting them driving around town, and the girls were thrilled to get an up close look at a few of them. We live not to far from the auction site itself, and one day we could actually hear the auctioneer calling. The girls were fascinated, so we looked up YouTube clips of auctioneers selling other things.

our favorite picnic spot

Next we headed for the wharf itself to do a little shopping. All three girls had money they could spend and items in mind that they'd spotted on previous visits. The girls each had to figure out how much the item cost, decide whether or not they had the money to cover it, and handle the transactions with the cashiers themselves.

Pelican!

Purchases made, we grabbed a to-go lunch from one of the seafood restaurants and made for the picnic tables by the beach. Throughout this visit (and for the past several days really), the girls have been keeping a sharp eye out for birds and applying the information we've been learning in our studies. On this outing, we spotted the usual plethora of pigeons and seagulls along with a pelican and a couple of cormorants. The girls took note of the different kinds of beaks and feet and why each bird had the kind it did. They've also been collecting feathers lately and were able to add several new ones to their collection. For each feather, they determine whether it's a flight feather or a down feather.

Cormorants & a seagull

While I knew we would be seeing birds on this outing, we also had an unexpected science lesson. Once we got down to the beach after lunch, we discovered hundreds of little dead fish scattered among the rocks! It was sad, gross, and puzzling. Based on a novel Daddy read with the girls recently, they speculated that the fish might have been poisoned by pollution. A quick Google search revealed that they may also have asphyxiated when too many of them swam into too shallow water. Being the good little homeschoolers we are, we took advantage of the presence of dead fish and dissected one with a plastic fork. The girls were utterly fascinated. We flipped open its gills, then slit it down the center to examine his stomach, ribs, and muscles. We also cracked its head open and popped out one of its eyes. The girls wanted to locate its brain, but that proved elusive. We think they were sardines or anchovies, based on what we learned at the aquarium recently.

Somebody put a piano on the wharf! Goose was so excited to
find "her" instrument in such an unexpected place.

Grocery Shopping
I know I wrote ages ago about how grocery shopping was such an educational experience for the girls when they were preschoolers. Now that they're a bit older that hasn't changed! We've just stepped up the "curriculum" as they've gotten older. They still love counting things out and weighing the veggies, and we often have opportunities to discuss nutritional and monetary value. And, of course, the simple life skills of meal planning and list making. For a while now I've been giving them assignments (e.g., "Monkey, pick out 2 cucumbers."). They get to practice a little independent decision making, and it speeds up the process a bit. This week, we reached a whole new level! I split the grocery list, and Bug grabbed her own little shopping cart to fill. (Monkey preferred to be my helper and push the big cart, while Goose tagged along with Bug.) She picked out most of the produce, and located other items like boxes of cereal and a carton of eggs. The girls have clearly been paying attention--she did a great job with the produce, and even assured me that she checked to make sure the eggs were all intact just like I do. She was thrilled to be allowed to take on such a responsibility.

Snapshots from This Week

We parked right next to the art museum for music lessons this week, so we
decided to spend some time in the sculpture garden afterward. Such a beautiful
day for picking flowers!

When we're not having adventures: Monkey's working
on a spelling assignment, Bug is completing a task in Khan Academy,
Goose is practicing writing her numbers in the rice tray, and you can see
my cookbooks for meal planning in the bottom left corner.