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!).