Lessons? Traveling!
Formal lessons didn't really happen much for the last two weeks. (The big girls practiced a bit of reading and some simple math, and they reviewed shapes and colors with Goose.) Instead we traveled--albeit in different directions. We all drove to Nana and Papa Bear's house first for a day, then Daddy and I left the girls behind and flew to Seattle for a couple of days to visit friends before embarking on a week-long Alaskan cruise (don't worry, family, I'll send out an email with photos about that later). As the pictures below will show, the girls had a blast!

Morning milk and snuggles with Nana; reading an Oz book with Papa Bear
at bedtime; snuggles with Uncle K, who came to visit for a few days too

A day the county fair with farm animals, cotton candy (and lots of other yummy foods), and rides.
The two photos on the bottom right were taken on the ferris wheel.

playing on a really cool wooden playground

playing in the local lake

riding around the neighborhood in style with Uncle K

making pillows with Nana (the girls got to pick out the fabric
and help with the sewing and stuffing)

coloring on their awesome collapsible cardboard playhouse

Birthday
Monkey and Bug's fifth birthday fell at the end of our trip, so we celebrated at Nana and Papa Bear's house before returning home, where they had more presents from Daddy and I and Grandma and Granddad waiting for them. They are thoroughly enjoying all their new things, and they even cooperated with cleaning out some old toys from the playroom to make more room!

Celebratory cupcakes at Nana and Papa Bear's house!

Monkey trying out the BB gun she and Bug got for their birthday.
Bug was actually even more enthusiastic about shooting than Monkey,
but my computer refuses to let me download the photos I took of her.

History Closer to Home

Monkey's little "pottery" bowl

While we didn't finish my list of topics and activities for imperial China, we decided to move on to a new unit when the girls returned from our travels with an intense interest in Native Americans. Daddy and I returned from Alaska with several pieces of Native American art that they admired, but mostly the interest came from watching Disney's Pocahontas. They're smart enough to realize that movies do not always match reality, so they came home with lots of questions. We sorted out the fantasy from reality, and they placed the era portrayed in the movie in their mental timeline ("after cavemen, but before people invented cars"). Once we got home they peppered me with questions about food preparation and storage, houses, and clothes. I pulled out the DK book about Native Americans, and they spent a long time just looking at the pictures and soaking it all in. We specifically read the sections about the Northwest and the area where we currently live. We even did two activities already: The girls searched the book for examples of pottery, and we pulled out the Playdough to create dolls and bowls; we also played a slightly modified version (we don't have room for a 100 ft long court) of a game called chunkey.

"First Day of School"
As year-round learners who are constantly soaking up information and who informed me that I needed to teach them to read when they turned 4 years old, declaring a first day of school just because "they're old enough" seemed pointless--especially since over the past year since that declaration we've slowly added a number of other academic subjects.  However, I stole a great idea from a fellow homeschooling mom's blog for turning everyone else's first day into a fun milestone for us: When the public school kids dragged their feet to the school bus on their first day of school this Tuesday, we loaded up into the car and headed to IHOP for a scrumptious breakfast and discussion of our own educational efforts.

My little foodies: Monkey and Bug decided to ditch the kids menu in favor
of splitting a Belgian waffle topped with cherries and vanilla cream. Goose
went for the chocolate funny face pancake that her sisters (quite cheerfully)
helped her eat.

We talked about all the things they're learning at home (reading, math, history, etc.) and the fun activities we have coming up (home school group, Wednesday nights at church, etc.). We talked about things they're going to be doing in the future (handwriting, studying locations along our cross-country trip in February) and what some of their favorite things are that we should do more of (history projects, visits to the zoo). We also talked about kindergarten--that kids their age would be going to school now and that if anyone asked, yes, Monkey and Bug could say they did kindergarten at home. At some point later in the week Bug gleefully announced that "We don't have to go to school! We learn ALL the time!" Home schooling win!

History
Monday turned out to be a sick day--only Monkey, fortunately, and she wasn't terribly sick, but it was just easier to declare it a general sick day and make lessons optional for everyone. They really wanted to do history though, so I pulled out a more involved lesson that actually turned into two back-to-back topics. We started out studying the Chinese invention of printing. We read about it in our Eyewitness book, then created our own "woodblock" print of their names using a sheet of Styrofoam and tempera paints.

From there of course they wanted to just paint, and they asked about what ancient Chinese paintings looked like. We watched a slideshow of traditional Chinese paintings (thank you, Google Images) and got out their brushes and paint palettes. Bug even picked a favorite painting of flowers that she wanted to emulate.

Later in the week we learned about Chinese medicine. I think they were a little weirded out by the idea of acupuncture, although they thought the maps of acupuncture points were pretty cool. The idea of herbal medicine definitely had more appeal, and at bath time they pretended to make an herbal soup, so they would stay healthy (fortunately, they knew better than to actually drink the bathwater).

Lessons
They didn't actually do much in their workbooks this week, but we did a lot of spontaneous math problems. Monkey and Bug would just start asking me to verify simple addition problems with sums less than 10. Monkey and I also spent some time doing math with their abacus, and Bug created a few of her own dot-to-dot activities (draw dots, connect and count them, figure out what the picture looks like afterwards). Bug also decided to intentionally do math during our grocery shopping trip, and she helped me figure out the cost of all the produce.

For reading Bug has continued reading from her textbook, and she reads more and more "the fast way." Monkey asked me to write a few sentences for her to read, but mostly she likes to pick a book for us to read together. I get her to sound out a word or two on each page, and we do repetition reading for the rest. Monkey has also been making letters out of found objects a lot--necklaces, blocks, string, etc. She has yet to spell any real words this way, but she has fun sounding out what she does put together.

Home School Group Kick-off Party
Our home school group is starting up again! This year we had a kick off party at Monkey Joe's--a warehouse-sized place with huge bouncy house things, included a massive bouncy pirate ship. We got there just as it opened for us, so the girls could explore the place before it turned into complete chaos. The timing turned out to be perfect: They played on the smaller things for about 40 minutes until the actual meeting started, at which point they were really ready for a rest. They were perfectly content to just sit quietly for the 20 minute meeting. Afterwards we ate the lunch we brought, and they were brave enough to experience the larger bouncy things. While the girls were too busy having fun/being overwhelmed to make friends with the other kids, I got to chat with friends from last year and meet a few new people with kids the same age.

Karate
Because the girls will have to miss several classes over the next couple of weeks, they went to an extra class this week in order to have enough lessons to qualify for yellow belt testing next month. No complaints from them though--they still initiate their own practices almost every day at home, and Goose has been insisting on going with them to watch their class (she practices with them at home). This week they even spread out a flat sheet on the living room floor, so they have a "mat" to bow on and off. They've particularly been practicing some of their new skills: hook punches, upper cuts, and side kicks.

Library Day
Before we actually headed off to the library on Monday, I decided to introduce the concept of oral book reports. I asked the girls to tell me about their favorite books from last week and why they liked them. Here's what they responded:

• Monkey: The Seven Chinese Brothers. I like that they were apart, then got back together. I like that they ate fish together. I like that one had legs that grew.
• Goose: [about I Am Invited to a Party!] There was Piggie going to a party, and they were getting all ready. And Piggie was getting all ready. I like it cause it has orange on it.
• Bug asked if, instead of telling me about the book, she could read it to me (I took a video of this, but now the camera's missing. Grrr....). She said she liked "that it was Piggie and Elephant going to a party. And I like that there were party noises at the party."

There's still no storytime, but we met several friends at the library this week. We came home with these books:
The Night Eater
Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo
Inch by Inch (Monkey was interested in inchworms this week; we spent a really long time looking at Google images of them)
Did I Tell You I Love You Today
All about Me (anatomy for toddlers)
How I Became a Pirate
Way out West Lives a Coyote Named Frank
The Secret House of Papa Mouse
The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China

We were actually back at the library on Thursday for the end of summer programs pizza party! The girls earned their tickets to the party by reading/having read to them 30 picture books. The girls thoroughly enjoyed their pizza and the opportunity to find themselves in the slideshow of photos from this summer's events.

Imperial China
The girls loved the book about the terracotta army that we got from the library this week. We read all about their discovery, the emperor's tomb, and how they would have looked when they were first made. Then of course we had to make own versions out of playdough.

(a horse and two soldiers)

We had a gray, rainy morning this week, and the girls did a fantastic job with their formal lessons, so I decided we'd "be lazy" by snuggling up on the couch and watching the History Channel clips about ancient China available online. The girls were intrigued. We learned about the Great Wall of China, the first emperor's unifying China and searching for immortality, traditions of the Chinese New Year, early legends of dragons, and ancient Chinese weapons technology. The girls spent lots of time during the rest of the week using Legos, Playmobil, and wooden blocks to build build palaces and stage battles for "the first emperor of China."

Bug and Monkey with one of the many palaces they constructed for the emperor.

Lessons
We added a new subject this week: handwriting. I hadn't actually planned on starting it yet, but we bought some workbooks, and Monkey and Bug just couldn't wait to get started. In addition to the standard lines for tracing and practicing all the letters, our books have activities for matching up letters and sounds, matching upper and lower case letters, and doing mazes and dot-to-dot activities practicing alphabetical order. We even found a couple of dry-erase books, which are particularly popular. The girls have made this one of their daily lessons, and Bug even worked handwriting into her reading lesson one day: she asked me to help her spell some of her sight words (i.e., said, you) because she thought writing them down would help her remember them better. She really seems to enjoy writing more legible letters. Monkey has been practicing the letters in her name, but mostly she works on the other activities in the book at this point.

Reading lessons continue, and Monkey and Bug have been more willing to attempt reading actual books! Bug still reads some out of her textbook, and Monkey definitely prefers to read sentences I write on the board (a preference we realized this week may be due to poor vision after she attempted--and failed--to read a book with small print; she has an eye appointment scheduled for the end of the month). They both tend to pick books they mostly have memorized and don't need to sound out every word, so that's been confidence boosting for them.

Math lessons still happen, of course. Bug usually works in one of the workbooks--comparisons, writing numbers, addition--and Monkey mostly uses manipulatives--measuring, counting, number recognition (on rulers and flash cards), and addition (flash cards and wooden blocks).

Let's Be Social!
The girls are finally getting this whole making friends thing. We started off the week on Sunday afternoon with a cookout at the house of one of Daddy's co-workers. The host's 6-year-old son, recently moved into a neighborhood with no kids, was ecstatic to have a trio of playmates arrive. They found him a little overwhelming at first, but I was impressed with how quickly they warmed up. By the time we were ready to go home they were busy helping him construct a series of roads for his trucks in the backyard and asking when they'd get to play with their new friend again.

The girls and I also made it to the neighborhood pool this week. In addition to swimming, they specifically said they were looking forward to possibly making a new friend at the pool, which they did--a little girl about Goose's age, whose daddy is also in the military. They had a blast in the pool. They can all kick around the pool with noodles tied on them, and Bug spent a lot of time practicing doggy paddling without a floaty. She can go a couple of yards all by herself!

Then on Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of our neighbors--a pretty low key event that involved pizza, cupcakes, and just letting the kids play while the grown ups chatted. The girls had fun playing with a bunch of familiar friends; although Monkey and an 11-year-old girl, C, nearly came to blows after C playfully "stole" Goose. Goose was having a great time, but Monkey was not ok with the situation. Fortunately, C handed Goose over before it devolved into violence.

Projects!
The girls really wanted to do a project one day this week, so we pulled out all the collage supplies, stickers, markers, and pencils and I just let them go for it. So much fun!

Library Day
Story time is on hiatus again, but of course we're at the library anyway! This week was particularly fun because some of our friends decided to join us. We moms got to chat and the kids had a blast playing in the cushions, looking at books, and doing puzzles. We came home with these books this week:
I'm Invited to a Party! (an Elephant and Piggie book)
Home Sweet Home
Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon
Kali's Song
The Seven Chinese Brothers (a Chinese folktale)

Ancient China
History lessons this week began with that last book mentioned above, and the girls really love this tale of seven brothers who rescue each other with super-human powers. The antagonist in this book happens to be Qin Shi Huang, the real first emperor of China, so that segued nicely into reading a brief biography of the man who united the Chinese states, while the girls colored paper dolls of girls from imperial China. Hearing four year olds' reactions to historical events is always fun: they were glad to hear that Qin Shi Huang managed to make the Chinese states stop fighting and work together, but absolutely horrified when we read that he also tried to burn all the books and scrolls.

I actually cook Chinese food pretty frequently, but this week I pointed out which meal's recipe was Chinese (beef and broccoli over white rice), and the next day Goose and Bug helped me turn the leftovers into fried rice for lunch. Later we actually read the sections in the book about food and took it into the kitchen, so they could smell some of the spices we read about. We also read about tea and made a small pot of green tea to share. They were big fans once I stirred in a little honey.

The entourage loved eating fried rice with chopsticks out of little fancy bowls.

We also read about traditional Chinese music and instruments, and I found a website that offered free streaming songs. We finished coloring and cutting out their paper dolls while we listened. The girls thought the instrumental pieces were really pretty, but they didn't like the singing much.

Karate
The girls continue to initiate lots of their own karate practices at home, and this week they enlisted me to help them work on their side kicks and punches. They particularly appreciate the clapper pad Brian got them, so they can hear when they get a really good strike. They've been working hard and finally mastered jumping jacks--very exciting, since that exercise has been a tough one since day one.

Lessons
This week Monkey has been practicing number recognition for 1-20 (out of order), and she's getting significantly better. Sample activities: she counts out 20 of something while I write the numerals on the white board, then she erasing them one at a time when I call them out in random order; I call out numbers in random order and she "writes" them on the floor using string or necklaces. Bug continues to prefer workbooks; she did over a dozen pages in her addition and math concepts books this week. Both girls also did sessions with Daddy reviewing the names and values of coins.

Both girls are reading at least a few sentences every day. Bug still works mostly out of her textbook, and Monkey's been getting me to write sentences on the white board for her. The girls are at about the same reading level now, so our theory about Monkey just suddenly "getting it" seems to have panned out.

At some point this week, I sat down with Goose with books about colors and shapes and confirmed that she now consistently knows all the basics (about half a dozen shapes and 8 or 9 colors). She can usually count up to 10 accurately, and she practices that pretty frequently all on her own.

Potty Training Update
After about a month and a half of potty training, we're throwing in the towel and going to back to pull ups all the time. Poor Goose went from stopping making progress to getting worse in the last week or so, so at the end of this week she and I had a conversation about how she seemed to be really struggling with this and maybe she wasn't quite ready yet. She readily agreed that pull ups sounded like a great idea. Now that we've actually had most of a day with no underwear, she's actually had to two completely successful incidents! I think maybe just the stress of all the accidents was getting to her.

Pool Party!
On Friday Daddy had the day off and we ditched our lessons in favor of attending the Command Summer Bash. The girls were really excited to get in the pool (a fun zero-entry one). They all practiced jumping in, and Monkey and Goose brought their goggles and practiced actually swimming and going under water. Goose got a kick out of having such a huge area of really shallow water to run around in. They also played in the bounce house (with a slide!). Even Goose jumped in after her sisters with no hesitation--that's a first! We enjoyed a cookout for lunch and got to hang out with some of Daddy's co-workers and their families.

Other Projects

We made fancy hats!

This looks like a random mess they made, I know. But it isn't!
This is a very carefully planned, complex piece of machinery.
I never figured out what it did exactly, but they informed me
that they were making a machine, which they designed on
on the fridge using different shaped magnets to represent
each piece. Then they built it on the playroom floor,
occasionally referring back to their "blueprint" on the fridge.

Weather Permitting

After about two weeks of seemingly non-stop rain showers and thunderstorms, the inclement weather was starting to get really old. Finally on Sunday the forecast included only rain, and I announced an afternoon activity that brightened the day for everyone: The girls donned their bathing suits and spent a good thirty minutes to an hour dancing, shrieking, running, and giggling in the "great, big sprinklers!" while Daddy and I watched from the shelter of the front porch. They came in drenched and shivering but very happy!

After that day, the weather really improved. To celebrate our first truly rain-free day, the girls and I made frozen pink lemonade to enjoy outside while doing our day's lessons with sidewalk chalk on the driveway. (It was one of those "This is why I love homeschooling!" moments.) We also pulled out the kid-powered vehicles and headed to the cul-de-sac to play. Goose had her little red riding toy, Monkey chose to bring her trike, and Bug brought her new bike. She still has training wheels, but she and Monkey outgrew their old bikes. Bug at least is getting a lot more confident on her "wobbly bike" and was even willing to get back on after toppling over when she hit a curb.

Zoo Day!

The good weather continued, and we decided to make Friday a zoo day. Some friends of ours were also going that day, but, while it was fun to say hi to familiar faces, we decided to stick to our own plan. The girls had a list of particular animals they wanted to see on this visit, and we tend to skip some animals and spend longer amounts of time studying others. Our first stop on this visit was the bears at Bug's request. Definitely a good choice! We got to witness one waking up the other by pulling on his ears and the ensuing play/fight. Pretty impressive. Bug also wanted to feed the giraffes and the goats. Fortunately, she told me this ahead of time, so I could make sure I brought appropriate change. Bug and Goose were brave enough to feed the giraffes; although Goose only

We had fun examining
several new statues--
animals made by reusing
old materials (we discovered
this lion, for example, had a
mane made of old nails).

A classic pose atop the elephant statue

gave them one lettuce leaf since the giraffe wrapped his tongue all the way around her wrist in his attempt to get it. (Me: "What did his tongue feel like?" Goose: "Gross!") Monkey decided to join them in feeding and petting the goats. At Monkey's request we found the bats (they were eating breakfast near the ceiling while the zookeeper cleaned the floor of their room) and the ostriches (they were conveniently right next to the fence when we arrived, so we got a really good view). We also ran into a zookeeper with a corn snake wrapped around his arm, so we got to take a close up look at that and to hear the keeper answer some questions about it. Another highlight was a new display at the gorilla house that allowed the girls to hear the different sounds they make and interpret facial expressions.

Library Day

This week's story time was supposedly about worms, but none of the books were about worms and we made coffee filter butterflies for the craft (fun even if unrelated to any of the books). We came home with these books:

White Tiger, Blue Serpent

The Butterfly's Dream

Let's Go for a Drive (an Elephant and Piggie book)

Cornelius

Don't Eat the Babysitter!

The Sleepy Little Alphabet

More on Imperial China

We checked out another Chinese storybook from the library this week: The Butterfly's Dream is a retelling of several of the ancient Chuang Tzu stories (they remind me of Aesop's fables), which the girls love--both the stories and the traditional Chinese style illustrations. We read it almost everyday. We also kept the White Tiger, Blue Serpent book, another Chinese folktale. The Butterfly's Dream even features the titles in Chinese calligraphy, which the girls were fascinated by. So, one day this week, we read the Eyewitness book's section on Chinese writing, and the girls did their reading lesson that day by painting words of their choice. (This of course evolved into a general painting pictures session.)

This week we also studied the Eyewitness sections on ancient Chinese farming. The girls were particularly interested in the man-powered irrigation machines. After reading up on farms, we watched the section of Fearless that featured rice planting and following the seasons through a farming village. They even had one of those irrigation machines. The girls also got to see typical clothes, buildings, and cooking techniques. 

Lessons
Neither of the big girls added new sounds this week, but they did lots of reading. Even Monkey has been much more willing to sound out words this week! She and Bug worked together to read several sentences when we had our lessons outside, and Monkey's been asking me to write sentences on the white board for her to read inside. Bug is still working her way through her textbook, and added the "funny words" talk and walk this week. For the reading lessons Goose requested, I wrote a half dozen letters on the white board and asked her to point to the ones I named. She can't actually do this very accurately of course, but she loved the game and she's slowly gaining some letter recognition.

Math has been fun this week too. On the day we did lessons outside, we practiced counting by tens: I wrote out the numbers and the girls screamed the names of them as loud as they could repeatedly. Our neighbors may have wondered what was going on, but we had a blast. Monkey and Bug also acquired new workbooks this week. The Target dollar bins had a great selection this week, and we came home with books for numbers 1-12 (just for Monkey), math concepts, and addition. Monkey did about a dozen pages in the number recognition book, and they both started on the addition books. Bug also worked on a couple of counting money pages from her current book.

Library Day
Library day was highly popular this week. The theme was mud, and story time involved several great, muddy books along with plates of actual mud to paint with. Fortunately, the librarians came well armed with wipes and paper towels (and--they reassured the moms--they scheduled this story time for right before the carpet cleaner came).

We came home with these books:
The Wizard
George and Martha: Rise and Shine
Frederick
While Mama had a Quick Little Chat
Blue Sea, Little Fish
The White Tiger and the Blue Serpent 
The Great Wall of China

Imperial China
The girls were very excited when I announced we'd be starting up our next history unit this week! We are now engrossed in Imperial China. We started by spending a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Disney's Mulan, which they loved. Interestingly, I think they were more intrigued by the brief scene on the Great Wall than anything else--thus the book I found at the library about the history, building methods, and current state of the Great Wall of China. Block versions of the Wall have built and rebuilt throughout the living room and playroom this week. Bug has been into perfecting her building methods (overlapping the bricks and building two layers of wall beside each other--she noted that she couldn't really fill in the space between them with dirt the way they built the real wall), and Monkey has been more interested in building the square towers that dot the Wall and manning them with soldiers.

At their suggestion we flipped through their series of Ask Me books for tidbits about China (the Great Wall of China, dancing dragons at festivals, Chinese calligraphy, and fishing with cormorants are all topics we stumbled upon). We also studied the Eyewitness book's sections about traditional Chinese dress and pored over the pictures, looking at robes, jewelry, and hairstyles. I even had a few items of clothing to pull out of my closet for them: an embroidered robe and a shirt with a mandarin collar and monkey fist buttons that they got to try on, and my old kung fu gi (uniform) for them to look at.

The yellow shirt Bug's wearing is actually a family heirloom from Daddy's grandmother
(maybe from Uncle K's travels in Asia?). The robe Monkey is wearing is just my dressing robe,
but she was excited that on her it had really long sleeves like Mulan's fancy dress.

The girls are extremely interested in kung fu between the drill and fight scenes from Mulan, their own study of karate (which they know is from Japan), and their knowledge that Daddy and I both studied kung fu. I picked out a few scenes from the Jet Li movie Fearless to watch with them that showed them not only what kung fu looks like, but also included scenes of a typical upper class home and city from Imperial China and allowed them to hear Chinese spoken (the version we have is subtitled). Monkey has been experimenting with inventing her own kung fu moves including using a "staff" (cheap plastic golf club).

Karate
I assured Monkey that someday she would get to really study kung fu, but in the meantime she and Bug both continue their enthusiastic study of karate. They do extra practices with Daddy a couple times a week, but they also help each other practice (and teach Goose) almost every day. Monkey and Bug take turns leading, and they ask me to help them remember all the things from class they should practice. This week in class they learned a side kick, back fist, and side fist. They also turned in their My Best Lists this week and earned black stripes on their belts. (The My Best List is a month-long parent-created check list of personal care, chores, and good attitudes for the students to complete. I love that this school is concerned about more than just performance on the mat.)

Lessons

The usual reading and math lessons continued this week. Monkey finished up her study of vowels, ending the week by coming up with a list of words that have long and short sounds for each letter. She also did more word building with the cards I made. This week I added a few word cards (for things like I, am, is, the), and we put together a sentence or two for her to read. Bug added the letter sound y as in yard this week, and she got through several word lists and two stories. Both girls did some math worksheets this week, and we started actual lessons in telling time using a wooden puzzle clock with moveable hands and a lift-a-flap paper one I made to help them remember how many minutes correspond to each number on the clock face. With Goose, the big girls and I all continue to casually teach her numbers 1-20, the ABCs, shapes, and colors.

(This photo refuses to go right side up. Weird.)

Library Day
As a result of the weekend's extended adventures, we missed story time this week, but I never actually wrote about story time last week (which we kept all the books from). The girls were less than impressed with story time this time around. The librarian read alphabet and counting books--actually really good ones that we've thoroughly enjoyed checking out; however, the real enjoyment is found in the illustrations which they obviously couldn't fully appreciate from across the room. They had great fun with the project though--painting with veggie stamps (mostly potatoes with shapes cut into them). We came home with these books:
Twenty-six Princesses
When I Grow Up
Hot! Hot! Hot!
Love the Baby
Hands off, Harry!
Me and Infinity
Obi-wan Kenobi: Jedi Knight (Star Wars easy reader book)
If the Shoe Fits (a fun trip through nursery rhymes with a large, househunting family)

More Stripes!
Karate classes were actually cancelled this week to celebrate Independence Day, but one of last week's classes was pretty exciting. Last Thursday, the girls completed their first strike test, in which they were required to demonstrate various kicks and punches. Monkey and Bug did a great job, and even  picked up quickly on the few punches they weren't actually familiar with yet (they've barely been going long enough to qualify). They passed their test, and each received a new blue stripe on their belts! Grandma, Goose, and I actually got to be there to watch, and Monkey and Bug were thrilled to show off their new stripes to Daddy later.

Happy Independence Day!
For the Fourth of July, we ditched the usual lessons in favor of explaining and celebrating what this holiday is all about. I'd given the girls a few off-hand explanations leading up to the 4th, but we started off the morning by watching the Fourth of July episode of Liberty's Kids (a PBS mini-series about the Revolutionary War; a great show that we'll be watching in it's entirety whenever we study colonial America). Monkey and Bug definitely grasped the basic concept that America used to be part of a different country, but Americans from a long time ago decided they wanted to make their own rules instead of having King George make them; thus, the Declaration of Independence was written. After that, we headed to the study to work on some 4th of July activities: mini-books about the holiday (coloring sheet, tracing words relevant to history, answering questions about contemporary celebrations, word search), a flag-themed search and find page, and a 4th of July Sudoku game (a 4x4 grid with pictures to paste in the blanks instead of numbers.

That afternoon we cut out watermelon stars with cookie cutters, made homemade peach ice cream, and headed outside to our street's block party to hang out with friends, enjoy more yummy food and a good view of the local fireworks show (despite the sudden downpour that immediately preceded them). The entourage was thrilled to get to stay up so late to watch the fireworks and all three girls actually loved them this year!

Lessons
Between the travel adventures and the 4th of July, we only ended up doing three days of our usual lessons. Monkey has now formally covered all the basic letter sounds, so I decided to reintroduce the vowels as a group. We covered a and e this week with each lesson including both long and short sounds. I also made a set of notecards with letters and syllables to have Monkey practice building words and actually sounding them out (for example, c + ar = car). For Bug's reading this week, she gained the letter sound i as in ice cream and read a full page story in her text book and a couple word lists. For For math, Monkey practiced some fill in the blank number sequences (i.e., 1 2 _ or 7 _ 9), and Bug continued working on subtraction. We decided to introduce both girls to a simplified version of Sudoku that involves only numbers 1-4. They loved it, so I'll definitely be looking up more of for them play with.

Beginning last week, the girls restarted an intense interest in puzzles (as in mazes, word searches, etc., not the wooden ones you piece together). All three girls were digging up old issues of Clubhouse, Jr. and Puzzle Buzz to pore over, and we acquired a new set of Brain Quest cards that they've been really into. We even remembered that we have a set for 2-3 year olds that Goose is just old enough to start enjoying. These usually require a parent's assistant to figure out the question or activity, but I've seen Bug helping Goose go through hers, and Monkey seems to just enjoy studying the cards all by herself. These cards involve every subject appropriate to the age group, so I can't even begin to tell you all the learning that's happening here!

"This is an exciting day! We get to have new experiences!"
     ~Bug, while waiting for the tow truck to arrive

Sometimes it's nice to have a four year old around to remind you that joy can be found in experiencing something new and exciting, even if the event isn't necessarily happy or pleasant in itself. That certainly proved true for last week. The fun began when Grandma arrived to help with the girls while I had minor surgery (Everything went well, and I'm recovering nicely.) The girls were fascinated by the idea that the doctor was going to open me up to fix something inside, and they were very eager to examine my incisions once I was up for company (they even left me in peace to sleep off the anesthesia!). Of course, with Grandma around they also got to do fun things like read lots of books, build impressive block towers, play at the mall playspace, eat lunch in the food court, and go swimming in the neighborhood pool. That last event also involved the excitement of leaping from the pool in terror at an earsplitting crack of thunder immediately followed by a torrential downpour.

Earlier in the week, we learned that Great Aunt A passed away, and the girls had their first experience of losing a loved one. When I gently reminded the girls that this meant we wouldn't see Great Aunt A again, I was immediately corrected: "No, Mommy! We'll get to see her again in heaven! Remember?" They knew she had been sick, and they were excited about the prospect of getting to see her again once God made her all better. Having that conversation with the girls made me very thankful that Daddy and I intentionally chose not to shelter our preschoolers from the concept of death. (I never told them the squished frog on the road was just sleepring, and rather than surreptitiously replace the deceased goldfish, we had a funeral in the back yard.)

The memorial service for Great Aunt A was scheduled for the weekend, so we all packed up and went to "help cheer up Uncle K" and "celebrate Great Aunt A." The celebration of Great Aunt A began by meeting all the "friendly strangers" who also loved her (her sisters and neighbors). I was very proud of the girls for how well they handled a house full of new people and for their ability to introduce themselves when asked to.  On Friday night, we got to witness/participate in a candlelight vigil on the lake where Uncle K lives. Monkey and Bug got to take turns going out in the canoe with Daddy (a highly popular new experience) before the vigil itself started, but we let just the grown ups take to the water while we stayed on the dock with a set of candles for the vigil itself. Being a trio of little kids, of course, the entourage pieced together that any celebration involves extra desserts, and it didn't take them long to locate an assortment of cookies to choose from once everyone came back inside. On Saturday, Daddy attended the memorial service, while the girls and I stayed in the family room but rejoined everyone for the reception. Uncle K had put together a wonderful slide of show of pictures from Great Aunt A's life, which the girls got particularly excited about once photos with Daddy and I and then the girls started appearing.

We headed home on Sunday, but at Bug's request we made a stop downtown first. She remembered that this city was a fairly large one, and she asked if we could go walk around and see the skyscrapers up close. We found street parking near a big plaza with fountains and statues of kids playing. The girls had a blast running around for a bit, and Goose was mesmerized by the fountain. The girls loved craning their necks back to try to see the tops of the buildings. We walked a couple of blocks, teaching the girls how to properly follow the crosswalk rules  (something they've never encountered before), and found a great little literary-themed park with some landscaping, sculptures, and fountains, and walkways with quotes and word games engraved in them. Their first experience of "a real city" was a huge sucess that had Bug creating her own skyscrapers out of playdough later in the week.

We left the city intending to drive the couple of hours home to arrive mid-afternoon. Then, shortly afer lunch, the car's warning ligts started flickering. Fortunately, we were able to get to a gas station before the car quit working altogether. I handled keeping the girls occupied while Daddy got in touch with our insurance's road-side assistance. For the girls this was absolutely thrilling--they got to see the tow truck arrive, watch him load up our car (a fascinating process), and then (the real highlight) we all got to ride in the tow truck to the car place! The adventure continued when they couldn't/wouldn't fix the car that evening, and we spent our third night in a hotel. The next day we made it all the way home by lunchtime.

They loved being tucked in all together in the hotel beds!

Library Day
This week's storytime was a farm theme--lots of fun books and a cow! As in, a real one in the field beside the library that the kids got to take turns petting. Daisy (the cow) belongs to two storytime regulars--5 and 7 year old sisters, who were very excited to introduce us to their cow and answer any questions.
We also turned in the girls reading programs this week (they each have a list of 35 books we read). Bug was particularly excited because she had six books on her list with stars by them that meant she read them all by herself! They each got a prize bag with a lollipop and a bunch of coupons (We used the one for free pizza buffet on Tuesday), and they each got to pick out a new book from a special shelf that they get to keep. We came home with these books:
Ladybug Girl at the Beach
Animals/Animales (a bilingual Eric Carle book)
Adios Oscar! (the previous three books were the ones the girls picked as their prizes)
Best Bear
Hip & Hop Don't Stop
One Ted Fell out of Bed
Fire Fighter Ted
Berlioz the Bear
The Little Rabbit
Shoe Baby

Doctors
I had two doctor appointments on Wednesday, and the girls were supposed to go to a neighbor's for a playdate. Unfortunately, their friend got strep throat at the last minute, and the girls ended up coming to the doctors with me. Not ideal of course, but they were beautifully behaved and quite brave about asking questions that the doctors were happy to answer.

Lessons
We picked lessons back up this week, and the girls jumped into them with no problems. Monkey reviewed a few letters and we formally introduced u (as in use), st, and qu. We also spent some time reading books through repetition. Monkey's lessons kept getting interrupted by potty training incidents, but we did manage to get in some simple addition problems. She also listened in on Bug's math lessons.

Bug was really excited about starting up math again this week. We practiced counting by 10s to 100 and by 1s up to 60, did simple addition problems (sums up to 10, frequently using a number line), and introduced the concept of subtraction (a combination of equations and manipulatives). For reading, she read through a couple lists of words and made it through one story in her textbook. She also read through 4 or 5 Bob books all by herself.

Bits of Monkey and Bug's math lessons this week

Goose has been very interested in the alphabet, and she's been getting me to write letters and draw appropriate pictures for them on the white board. Bug has been handling math lessons for Goose this week. She's been writing numbers with the right number of dots beside them and talking Goose through them.

Potty Training
Taking a longer but more laid back approach seems to be what will work for Goose. If we're home she wears underwear, and I give her occasional reminders to run to the potty if her bladder's full. She's still sorting out what that feels like, but at the end of the week she did actually tell me she had peepee in her bladder and get to the potty before she had an accident! (She's also had several Mommy-initiated accident-free successes.) Since I was solo parenting for most of this week (Daddy's chaperoning a youth retreat) I enlisted Monkey and Bug to help. I stole a page out of Grandma's book, and told them they would each get an M&M if they were the ones to rush Goose to the potty when she actually made it. So far that's happened twice, and they were really excited about it!

Karate Class
With Daddy out of town, I took Monkey and Bug to karate class this week. They were thrilled to show off their skills, and Goose loved getting to watch them too. I had fun seeing my little introverts be so appropriately loud and enthusiastic outside of our family. This week they learned to do side kicks and crescent kicks. Perhaps the highlight of lessons this week was earning a green stripe on their belts! The school's Life Lesson theme this month was teamwork, and the girls had to fill out (well, dictate answers to) a worksheet about what achievements might require teamwork, what they could contribute, and how the idea of teamwork applies in their family.

Water Play!
After a failed attempt to swim in the neighborhood pool (the access card reader isn't working!), we decided to go home and pull out our own pool. The girls played for a couple of hours and practiced skills like starfish floats and putting their faces in the water.

Library Day
This week's storytime theme was bugs, and the girls got to make caterpillars out of clothes pins and pompoms. Several of our friends were there too. We came home with these books:
Listen to the Rain
George and Martha: Encore
Fish Splish. Splash Dash
I Had a Hippopotamus

Potty Training Take #2
Goose didn't so much learn how to pee in the potty as Mommy relearned that every kid is different. For Monkey and Bug potty training meant a few days of intense potty training (diapers thrown away and Mommy and Aunt A issuing reminders every minute to "Tell me if you need to potty"), and they were golden--just the occasional accident after that week. For Goose it appears this is going to be a considerably longer process. Even with all formal lessons cancelled,  Uncle N on hand for constant back up, and even Daddy home from work for a few days, Goose completed six intense days without ever succeeding in reaching the potty in time. The intensity is stressing us all out and simply isn't possible to keep up. So, we're going into the next week planning to resume all normal activities and put her in pull ups when we're out and about.  Prayers appreciated.

our current favorite look

Despite all of that the entourage still managed to have lots of fun! Of course, just having Uncle N (aka, the teenage human jungle gym) around provided hours of entertainment. These cute little girls even managed to talk him into being a mommy horse and pretend to give birth to a baby horse (Bug) out from under a blanket (sorry folks, no video available for that one). They even had Granddad around for about 24 hrs of fun when he came to take Uncle N home. They read LOTS of book, watched episodes of Pingu (because everybody's 2-year-old loves Swedish claymation, right?), made fudge, and experimented with hairstyles.

Fortunately, with Uncle N and Daddy both around Monkey and Bug actually got to leave the house during this potty training attempt. They got to ride their bikes around the neighborhood, and of course attended their karate classes. Apparently, the class played a game to see who could stand in attention the longest (basically, the karate version of the quiet game). Monkey and Bug were very proud to report that they won both rounds! They also learned a front block this week. (Oh, and Monkey and Daddy also discussed that one is only allowed to punch or kick one's sisters during a parent-supervised sparring match--not whenever they make one angry. At least her form is looking good.)

Little Swimmers
Monkey and Bug finished up swimming lessons this week and continued to do a great job. The swimming milestone they accomplished this week was willingly going completely underwater and coming back up smiling! They're still working on doggy paddling while wearing a floaty belt and floating on their backs without assistance--Bug actually pulled this off the last day of lessons! My plan is to get us all in the pool pretty frequently this summer, so they can continue making progress, then do another formal session of swimming lessons toward the end of the season. The personal milestone they accomplished was handling the final day's "talent show" with grace.

Shots from the talent show (Monkey's on the left; Bug's on the right)

Goose has definitely been paying attention during the big girls classes. She's been lying on the floor of the living room practicing kicking and pulling her arms through the freestyle stroke.

Karate Kids
At least that's what Monkey and Bug have been calling themselves lately. They now LOVE karate lessons, and they've been so excited when "the plan for the day" includes going to karate school! The teachers have introduced new things each lesson, and Daddy's been practicing with them in between. They've been practicing punching and kicking sequences, a few jujitsu moves (the martial arts style of the week, which the girls really love), jumping jacks and push ups (Daddy is very proud to have the only preschoolers who can actually do correct push ups), the formalities of bowing in and out, and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Besides the class and karate skills, the girls are improving their personal skills too! All the kids had to rush back to their parents for their gloves at one point, and Bug didn't hesitate to let a "friendly stranger" (a classmate's dad) help her get her gloves on while Daddy helped Monkey. They've also brought two of their class rules back home with them: The One Rule (when a teacher/parent gives an instruction, you follow it the first time they say it) and The Zero Rule (when you know you're supposed to do something, you do it without being told). This Mommy and Daddy are big fans of these "new" rules and the girls excitement about the times they've remembered the Zero Rule about things like picking up their toys or clearing their dishes after meals.

Goose has been participating in the practice times at home and is already looking forward to "going to karate school when I get big."

The Weaver's Guild
With swimming lessons taking up so much time and energy this week, we just did one history lesson, but the project that we did with it is still keeping them busy. We read the section of the Eyewitness book about the medieval trade guilds and the different occupations that formed guilds. One of the relatively common occupations for women was weaving (although they technically couldn't join a guild), and this was an easy one for the girls to learn. We made a loom out of a shoebox lid and cut a shuttle out of cardboard. They picked out a rainbow yarn and decided to make a rug or a blanket for their dolls. It isn't finished yet, but it's coming along nicely.

Lessons
For her reading lessons, Monkey mostly wanted to do review sessions for particularly letter sounds (which is fine since she's actually learned the whole alphabet by now). We also covered the er as in mother and oo as too sounds this week. This also introduced the concept that the same sound can be made with multiple letter combinations (er/ir, oo/ue/ew). Monkey actually did several math worksheets this week that focused on matching numerals to the appropriate number of objects. We did a brief lesson about money (matching names and values to coins). She also requested that we all play Candy Land for one of her lessons. While this doesn't involve any numbers, it was good practice in following a sequence and rules of the game and introduced the concept of good sportsmanship (only one person can win, but everyone still has fun, and you need to at least pretend to be happy for the winner).

Bug added the ing letter combination to her lessons this week and continued to practice some sight words (said, girl, to, do). She read through several lists of words, a story, and even read random words found on things around the house. She's been excited to discover she can really read more than what's in her textbook.  She's also been trying to understand the concept of reading silently since she apparently realized recently that that's what I must be doing with my own magazines and books. She's still cheerfully working away at her math book! She did pages about shapes and patterns, matching numerals to objects, the concept of price tags, and introduced how to tell time.

Goose still loves having her own lessons that involve reviewing letters, shapes, and counting. She also participated in the round of Candy Land, which was a good opportunity to practice colors and following directions.

Photography
Monkey and Bug commandeered my camera at some point this week. Here's a sampling of their work:

Just Keep Swimming!

Swimming lessons started this week, and Monkey and Bug are loving them! After our family visit to the pool over the weekend and refreshers with Daddy about appropriate class behavior and participating, the girls followed their teacher and hopped into the water with no hesitation. (Let me take a moment to say how absolutely thrilled I am that it's not my kids freaking out poolside this year!) They've been tooling around with kickboards, learning to doggy paddle wearing a floaty belt (more confidence booster, than real flotation device), and practicing floating on their backs and learning the backstroke motions. One of their favorite games appears to be throwing a little rubber duck, then swimming out to retrieve it.

Goose has been dealing with the disappointment that she's not big enough for swimming lessons yet, but she's been enjoying a little one-on-one time with Daddy or me instead.

Goose and I decided to play with my new phone.

Outside of the swimming skills, the best thing to come out of these classes has been Monkey and Bug's ability to appropriately function in a class setting. Bug even connected the dots on the way home from their first class, after Daddy complimented their awesome behavior: "So, we need to be just like this for karate class--only karate I instead of swimming!"

Saturday we got in our neighborhood pool again, much to Goose's delight. She was also thrilled to have free use of one of her sisters' inner tubes and spent most of the pool time kicking around "swimming all by myself!" By the end, she realized she could also just lean back and chill. She didn't fall asleep in the pool, but she came awfully close! Monkey and Bug had been inspired to free themselves of the inner tubes by our purchase of floaty noodles and kickboards, which they loved. They are definitely gaining confidence in the water. Bug even swam a couple of feet underwater with no floaties or adult assistance. Granted, she didn't do it entirely on purpose, but she came of proud, not panicked!

Excellent Work, Young Grasshoppers

Monkey and Bug in guard position right after
their teacher tied on their new belts.

 If she hadn't recognized their faces, Monkey and Bug's teacher might have thought Daddy brought two completely different kids with him this time! The silent, cowering girls had been replaced with smiling, confident girls who followed every instruction, responded with "Yes, ma'am/No, ma'am," and even carried on conversations with her! Their first class this week involved learning the basic bowing in, punch, front kick, and how to "ki-ap." They got to use target pads and even had to time to sit and do a coloring sheet while chatting with their teacher. Their second and final introductory class was also this week. They and two other introductory students demonstrated their newly acquired skills to a small audience of parents and siblings, broke boards (Monkey was super excited about getting hers on the first try), and received their white belts and real uniforms. Goose continues to participate in the practice times at home.

Daddy shot several videos, but unfortunately, they're not transferring well from his phone to our computer. For grandparents and other readers who know us in person, you'll just have to wait til you can see the girls in action for yourselves.

Archery
We succeeded in finding a decent inexpensive kids bow and arrows, which the girls got to try out on Friday. Bug enthusiastically tried it first, but after one draw decided it hurt her fingers and handed it over to Monkey, who loved it! She kept at it for quite awhile, managed to hit the target a few times, and even tried drawing with either arm to see which she liked better. Goose is too little to draw it, of course, but she worked on the important lesson of staying behind the archer.

Lessons
Along with all the physical education the girls have had this week, we managed to keep up with their reading and math lessons too. For the record, we're currently year-round homeschooling. I think I'd have a rebellion on my hands if I suddenly declared they had to stop learning to read and do math for three months.

Monkey continues to be really into learning new sounds. This week she added the individual letter sounds: e as in egg, b, and i as in ice cream. She also added some letter combinations to her repertoire: ar as in jar, and ing. Particularly with the addition of the letter combinations, she's been willing to do more sounding out of actual words. In fact, by the end of the week we changed up how we came up with the lists. Most of the time we've brainstormed words and I write down what we come up with. By the end of the week, I would write down a word, and she would sound it out.

Early this week Monkey wanted to practice counting, so headed upstairs, and I had her assemble her buddies in rows of 5 counting all the way up to 25 all by herself. For the other three days we had lessons this week, I used math sign cards and toys to get her to solve simple addition problems with manipulatives.

Bug is inching along through her reading lessons. She didn't add any new sounds this week, but she's worked her way through a story and learning the sight words (or "funny words") girl, to, and do. Her math book gets much more enthusiasm. This week she did some simple addition problems, worked on the concept of estimating, and did a few pages of shape recognition.

Goose has been making lots of requests for the ABC song, and I've been steering her toward books about shapes and colors during those random "read me a book!" moments. 

Little Biologists
This week the girls learned alot about the classification of species using details of physical characteristics. Earlier this week, we used the Dragonology book we acquired recently to identify the three toy dragons the girls have (a hydra, a wyvern, and a two-toed wyvern). Later in the week, we bought three new plastic dinosaurs, and of course we also had to identify them (a platasaur, a brachiosaur, and a utaraptor) using the dinosaur book and a little Googling. After spending so much time identifying and reading about these beasts, by the end of the week Monkey was making up her own: Her little plastic turtle, I have been informed, is a Red Dediemus turtle that lives in trees and eats rocks and sticks. His name is Huckle.

"Wax on. Wax off."
The entourage has entered a new era. Monkey and Bug started karate lessons this week. On Tuesday they went with Daddy to observe a kids class and get to see who their teacher would be. They were intrigued by the class, and Bug ventured as close to the action as she could--standing with her toes right up to the edge of the mat. They agreed with Daddy that they wanted to sign up for the introductory class (just them, two other kids, and their teacher going over the very basics of bowing in, coming to attention, etc.). They have to complete two intro classes to get their white belts and join one of the slightly larger regular classes. Despite the girls enthusiasm going in, the first class on Thursday did not go well and involved Monkey and Bug both refusing to speak to their teacher or follow her instructions. Once home they had a serious discussion with Daddy about respecting their teacher and the importance of participation. It ended with the girls agreeing to practice with Daddy or me everyday until their next class, so they would have a little more confidence going in next Tuesday. Once Daddy and Monkey got through an initial power struggle, the home practices have gone really well with Goose insisting on getting her own karate lesson too. Daddy and I have been really impressed with how well all three girls are learning the new motions.

Library Day
Storytime is back! This week's theme was moles, and in addition to hearing several cute stories about moles, the girls got to make mole puppets on popsicle sticks that poke their heads out of styrofoam cup holes. We came home with these books:
Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs
Little Bear
Red Bear's Fun with Shapes
Finn McCool and the Great Fish

While not library books, we also finished reading the abridged The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood and continued reading from Where the Sidewalk Ends and making our way through the storybook version of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

Friendly Strangers
So, most kids reach "school age" and are given lessons in how dangerous strangers are and how one should never talk to strangers. Monkey and Bug, however, came into the world with an intense fear of strangers, and we recently decided it was time for them to join the civilized world and learn that most people are actually very nice and that they need to appropriately respond to friendly strangers saying hello. We had a discussion to that effect and read the story of Moses--because God can help them be brave enough to talk to, for example, their karate teacher just like He helped Moses be brave enough to go before Pharaoh (Moses had a sibling to back him up too!). We talked about how even our closest friends used to be strangers, and we also added "Be kind to friendly strangers" to the short list of rules that characterize "being a good shopper."

For Goose, the lone extrovert in the family, this isn't really an issue. At some point recently in prepping the big girls to encounter new people, Goose piped up with, "I like peoples!"

It's Summer Time!
It's officially summer: The pool is open, and we were in it! The water was still a bit chilly, but we had a great time. Remembering their hesitancy at the beginning of last summer, I wasn't sure what to expect from the girls, but they loved it! Monkey and Bug were happily kicking around the pool in their inner tubes right away, and they even ditched the tubes for awhile once Daddy showed them they had grown enough to touch the bottom of the shallow end without getting their faces in the water. Bug even jumped in all by herself with her tube on! Goose's favorite thing was being held under the arms while she paddled and kicked around the pool while yelling, "Swim! Swim!" or "Kick, kick, kick!" between occasional mouthfuls of pool water.

Reading, 'Rithmatic, and, um, History
Not quite the three R's but here's the rundown for the basic subject areas in our house:

Goose has been insisting on her own formal lessons almost every day this week. Mostly, we've been making the rounds of the posters we hung in the playroom a while back, so she's been going over the ABC's (she can sing the song), numbers 1-20 (she knows 1-10), colors (she probably knows half a dozen), and shapes (maybe 3 or 4).

Monkey has been really into learning new letter sounds this week: she formally added p, ch, and v, and we did a review session that involved a lot more than just the letter sounds that have been formally covered. One day this week Monkey asked if she could do extra reading instead of math, and I decided to go with it. We used a Sharpie and masking tape to label some of their wooden blocks with the appropriate shape names. Bug wanted in on this too, so they now each have a set of labeled shapes, and I've overheard them using those to teach Goose her shapes. Monkey also did a math worksheet this week that involved circling the appropriate numeral for the number of objects pictured. We also added a fun new math activity this week: fishbowl math. For Monkey, I filled the fishbowl with slips of paper on which I'd written numbers 1-20. She would blindly pick out a number, then count out the right number of objects from among her toys. This actually involved adding and subtracting skills because after the first number she never started from scratch; she simply added to or removed from the line up as needed.

Bug also enjoyed some fishbowl math; although her bowlful involved simple addition problems for sums up to 6. She pulled out the colored noodles to use as manipulatives, but only actually needed them for three problems. She also did pages in her math workbook: filling in numerals for addition sentences done in pictures and completing several pages of comparisons (circle the set that's greater, etc.). While reading lessons have definitely not been her favorite activity lately, she is still making progress. She added a new sound this week, b, and read a list or two of words and a brief story.

To start off our history studies this week, Bug requested that we make her a knight's helmet (Monkey's is too big for her), and the girls snuggled up with Daddy to look through a book he has about swords. We also read the section of the DK book about what jobs women had in Medieval times. I figured it was time to balance all the talk of knights and weapons, and real Medieval women certainly didn't spend all their time waiting around in fancy dresses to be rescued as the fairy tales would have you believe. Of course, the women of most interest to the girls were the wealthy landowners running large households. In particular they were intrigued by the concept of signet rings and wax seals on important papers and letters. We dug through my button jar to find a couple of fancy buttons (one of which actually does feature a design that looks like a coat of arms) and pulled out the playdough to experiment with creating our own seals. Bug even hung hers on a string and wore her signet necklace for several days this week.