Quite Time
This photo is what my idea of a perfect autumn afternoon looks like: three happy girls with cozy blankets, hot tea, and good books gathered around the fireplace. My own tea and Bible study books are waiting for me! I've successfully instituted an after lunch quiet time that involves everyone picking out a book to read on their own. We've tried this before, but this is the first time I've actually had all three able to read independently. (The fact that Monkey in particular is cheerfully reading to herself for 30 or 45 minutes a day is an amazing milestone!)

The Election and Geography
We officially wrapped up our government study on November 9th when I read out the election results, and the girls colored in a map and added up electoral votes to figure out who the new president would be.

We're all excited about beginning our world geography studies! We've almost finished a small Maps & Globes workbook that goes over the basics of identifying continents and oceans, identifying cardinal directions, and learning about latitude and longitude. We also examined a number of maps, atlases, online mapping tools, and our globe to notice differences between them. I've been collecting worksheets to go into these topics in greater depth later, and we'll be doing studies about landforms and about individual continents after the holidays.

As a side study we've also been reading Land Ho!, a book about explorers from the Age of Exploration. So far we've learned about Christopher Colombus, John Cabot, Amerigo Vespucci, and Vasco de Balboa (Of course, we also noted that these men didn't really discover the North and South America; there were already people living here. In fact, they weren't even the first Europeans, since the Vikings had crossed into the Western Hemisphere about 500 years earlier.)

Adventures in Eating!
Have I mentioned how thankful I am not to be raising any picky eaters? They've had several opportunities to be adventurous recently: Apparently none of them remember eating acorn squash last fall; they were a bit skeptical at first, but I won them over when they realized the squash had been doused in butter and brown sugar. On their own initiative, they each decided to sample the jalapeno-stuffed olives that were being passed out at the grocery store. They immediately dashed for the store water fountain, but at least they tried them! Much more successfully, we also made smoothies using passion fruit harvested from Grandma's garden. Yum!

Academic Highlights
Monkey and Bug reached a major math milestone this week! They have successfully memorized all the multiplication tables! After the holidays their math focus will shift from primarily math facts to doing more work with math concepts in Khan Academy. Even with my intentionally holding them back in Khan until they had their multiplication tables, they're both almost halfway through third grade. I expect they'll move along through elementary math pretty quickly once I let them move at their own pace.

The highlight of science topics we've recently discussed was conducting a demonstration of a chemical reaction they learned about from a Bill Nye episode about chemicals. They cleaned a handful of pennies using vinegar and salt in a mason jar. Lots of discussion about the elements ensued. They also recently watched a Magic School Bus episode about bones and muscles, and Monkey's been telling her sisters interesting things she's learned from a Magic School Bus chapter book about bones.

In their writing lessons, since I wrote last, we've covered informational writing and poetry. For informational writing, Monkey and Bug each had to choose a topic, find three sources, take notes, write a rough draft, then type up a final paper. They did a great job! In fact, here are their reports read aloud by the authors:

They definitely had more fun with poetry though (who can blame them?!). I found a series of worksheets that uses "Casey at the Bat" as a starting point to discuss rhythm, rhyme, parts of poetry (couplets, stanzas, etc.), then went into different types of unrhymed poetry (haikus, diamante poems, etc.)

Here are a few samples of their poetry:

Sea, Sand, and Sky, a free verse poem by Bug

On Sunday morning
We went to the beach
And waves go rolling by.
We each have a sandwich,
And we stay there till dusk,
And that's the end of the day.

Monkeys, a cinquain poem by Monkey

Monkeys

Tails, hand-like feet

Monkeys love yummy fruit.

They like to climb and swing in trees.

Not apes

To the Zoo!

Everybody loves climbing fake
termite mounds!

The girls and I finally made it to the local zoo for a field trip of our own. It's a great little zoo, and the girls were very eager to get back and do the zoo more thoroughly than they were able to on the field trip with all the other kids from church. For this visit, the girls wanted to focus on the Africa section--zebras, giraffes, lions, ostriches, meerkats, a variety of interesting birds, and a couple of surprisingly lively tortoises ("That turtle's climbing on the other one!" "Is it going to be ok?" "Why are they making funny noises?" Meanwhile, a fellow mom and I are dying laughing, while assuring our kids that the tortoises are totally fine.) The girls were disappointed to discover that the elephants have been removed, but now we we're looking forward to seeing the rhinos who'll replace them. We also explored a botanical garden at the back of the zoo that they didn't get to explore before. It has clearly seen better days, but it's still has a lovely formal rose garden and gazebo that's perfect for taking a quiet break.

To the Games!
Daddy found a regional Highland games to compete in, and we

all had a blast watching him compete and exploring the Celtic festival. We even made friends for the day with another mom and her preschool daughter who were also there to watch their husband/daddy wear a kilt and throw heavy things. In addition to lots of time spent watching the athletes, we did our usual exploring of the Village of Clans and the vendors' booths. We admired all the clan crests and tartans along with some swords and armor (one clan even boasted a kilt-wearing Stormtrooper!), learned about the workings of a typical Scottish croft, watched an Irish step dancing competition and a sheepdog demonstration, and consumed Scottish pies, bridies, and shortbread. Yum! In addition to pumpkin painting and face painting, the children's section also included a tent of swordsmen, and we were able to sit in on a demonstration/lecture about the history of swords from the short, stabbing swords of the Bronze Age to modern fencing foils. The girls were absolutely fascinated; they did quite a bit of dueling with the balloon swords they acquired at the swordsmen's booth, and Monkey even decided to purchase a wooden one to bring home.

Happy Halloween!
Halloween this year was a nice low-key event. Our current neighborhood doesn't do trick-or-treating, but the local Y hosted a fall festival on Friday that included trunk-or-treating, a bounce house, and several carnival games for the kids. As usual, the real highlight for them is dressing up! (For the record, Bug specified that she is not a pirate, but a privateer--any piracy was therefore legal and patriotic.)

The girls have never shown an interest in carving a jack o' lantern. They want to eat the pumpkin! It's become our tradition to do just that every fall. This year we roasted pumpkin seeds and made pumpkin soup.

Tidbits

• We wrapped up our unit on the U.S. government just in time for the election. We read books about, talked about, and did worksheets about the three branches of government, different levels of government (local to federal), and the election process. We did not, however, talk much about the current candidates (It hasn't exactly been a kid-friendly election cycle!).
• Daddy and I recently decided to P90X together (it's an intense 90 day workout program). We didn't intend to include the entourage, but Lion decided it looked like too much fun to miss! She's particularly a fan of the plyometric day. She informed us, though, that she wouldn't participate on the days she had running club or gym class--she doesn't want to overdo it. Smart girl.
• We've been all about the Magic School Bus lately! Monkey's read chapter books about bats and the skeletal system, we've got a library book about ancient Egypt, and we've watched episodes about bats and energy.
• Bug completed the worksheets I had about the Spanish alphabet and basic phrases and vocabulary. She decided she wanted to step it up a bit, and Daddy remembered he had a stack of Instant Immersion Spanish CDs. She's loving it! And, now that it involves fun computer games, Monkey and Lion are intrigued as well.