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.

Scottish Games & Festival
We went to this event last year, but this year was even more exciting because Daddy was competing! (And everybody wants to see their daddy wear a kilt and throw a telephone pole, right?) The athletics lasted all day, and the girls and I watched four of the events. They got so excited when it was Daddy's turn to throw! Of course, eventually even that excitement wears thin, so we took several breaks to explore the rest of the festival: Monkey and Bug and I danced around a Maypole with the Queen's maids

(Goose just wanted to watch). The girls tried their hands at a kids version of the throwing games, and Bug made two perfect caber tosses in a row! (using a caber about the size of a fence post) She was
thrilled--apparently, it was first time that had happened this weekend. The had a great time filling out clan passports just like last year (a bunch of Scottish clans have information booths set up, and the kids can go around collecting stamps of each clan crest). They loved seeing all the images on the crests and were fearless about asking when they couldn't figure out what it was. We met Daddy for meat pies for lunch and a quick tour of the vendors before meandering back through the clan booths to watch the end of the games. Then we headed for what was perhaps the highlight of the girls day: cookies with the Queen. The

reenactors had an impressive royal tent set up, and "Mary, Queen of Scots" arrived with quite an entourage of guards and ladies in waiting. The girls did an excellent job introducing themselves to "Her Majesty" and receiving favors (beribboned pins). So much fun!

"Wave to the School Bus, Kids!"
Public schools started up here this Wednesday, so  the girls and I celebrated the freedom and joy of homeschooling by buying a box of donuts for breakfast and spending the morning at the playground. They had a blast, of course--creating ninja warrior courses and making up elaborate pretend plays, aided this time by a pine cone branch that bore a remarkable resemblance to Thor's hammer (apparently Goose is worthy of wielding it), also a "sword" and a "magic torch." For the record, the playground no longer has any evil magicians or super villains in residence.

The Usual Events
Just in case you were wondering what busy little homeschoolers do all day, here's the roundup:

• We continue reading through a children's Bible over breakfast (Moses just received instructions for building the Tabernacle). I've also been listening to hymns while doing chores. Goose particularly enjoys this ("Can we listen to those songs that talk more about Jesus? You know, the hums?")
• For the three Rs, Bug is reading The Secret Garden, Monkey just finished Mouse Soup, and Goose has completed lesson 6 of Alpha-Phonics. The big girls continue working on Khan Academy and doing timed drills for simple addition and subtraction, while Goose does some worksheets and math with manipulatives. This week the girls wrote notes to Grandma, and the big girls have started doing spelling units again. 
• Visits to the library continue to be a weekly event; although, the story/music time is on a break for August. We usually come home with 10 to 15 books.
• Every day also includes a reading time, usually after lunch when I read aloud. We use this time to read a selection of picture books (the girls' choice) and my choice of literature (currently international fairy tales from the Colored Fairy books) as well as books from our special studies, such as science topics (currently birds), artist studies (currently Georgia O'Keeffe), and history (no topic at the moment). 
• We're still working through our states workbook for our civics studies.
• The big girls continue their weekly jujitsu lessons. We all get in the pool once a week, and all three girls have been riding their bikes almost everyday. Even Goose has pedals again and no training wheels!
• The girls' instrument lessons are finally settling into their usual time slots now that the school kids are back into their usual routines.
•  Bug is still dabbling in Spanish, and Daddy even remembered that we have an old Rosetta Stone program she can do!
• The paints and craft supplies are pulled out on a regular basis as well. Everybody loves painting, and this week Bug built a skyscraper out of popsicle sticks. 

Delicious!
While we haven't been reading up on nutrition anymore, it's a topic that continues to be discussed. The girls really love the "red light"/"green light" categories! They're also continuing to help plan and cook meals. Recent meals have also been influenced by a French cookbook given to them by their Aunt S and Uncle J (Thank you! They love it!), and a kids cookbook we checked out from the library last week.

• Monkey's menu: baked salmon over lemons, cheesy garlic biscuits, and peas
• Bug's menu: roasted pork tenderloin with a sage rub, puree de panais et pomme de terre (parsnip-potato puree), and watermelon
• Goose's menu: biscuits, baked chicken legs, peas, and grapes

Gardening

The girls have taken an interest in gardening, and I'm really hoping the three of them can compensate for my decidedly black thumb (seriously, I killed a cactus once). We have a couple of mini greenhouse kits that we finally took the time to set up. One of the veggie plants is sprouting already! (No sprouts in the others yet, but we have some very interesting mold growing.) Bug took the extra greenhouse seeds plus some watermelon seeds and planted a garden in the yard. They're also lobbying that we try to grow a potted lemon tree (they miss the one at our former house here on the West Coast). I told them if we can succeed in growing things during our relatively short time here, we can do some research and give it a try at our next new house.

Of course, gardening isn't just about digging in the dirt! The greenhouses came with info pyramids about the life cycles of plants, and the girls watched a Magic School Bus episode about what plants need to grow. (I saw a couple of other relevant episodes in the list, which I'm sure we'll get to later.)

Hablas Espanol?
Bug recently announced that she's going to learn Spanish, and of course, she's pulled her sisters into the fun as well. We've always dabbled in it: we have a number of bilingual picture books around and the Little Pim DVD series. But this is the first time one of the girls has declared a real interest. So, I pulled out an old cell phone that will still connect to our wireless and downloaded a number of kids Spanish apps (mostly flashcards and matching games) as well as Google Translate. I also downloaded Translate on my phone, so I can answer those out-of-the-blue "How do you say . . . ?" questions while we're out and about. She can now occasionally be found wandering around the house repeating Spanish vocabulary words.

Art in Life
I really love seeing how our artist studies have seeped into how the girls see the world. For example, the other day, Goose and I were snuggled on the couch still in our PJs discussing the plan for the day, when Monkey wandered over and noted that we looked just like a Mary Cassatt painting--with the way we were sitting and the colors we were wearing.

After perusing the book of Georgia O'Keeffe paintings, Bug has been taking an interest in flowers, bringing samples inside and sketching or painting them. She noted though that her work was more in the style of Monet--it gave an impression of the flowers, but she couldn't do all the details that O'Keeffe did.

We finally put down an area rug in the study, and the girls got to break out the paints! It's been so long since we've had them that they mostly experimented with shapes and colors; although, Bug and I teamed up to make a painting of sunflowers.