We are loving this beautiful weather! The girls decided to have a pretend picnic with their buddies, and it just looked like a picture perfect childhood memory."I did it!"
The climbing dome has been conquered! Monkey and bug finally figured out--all by themselves--how to actually climb up it. (Thus, the triumphant yell when Monkey reached the top for the first time ever.) They are now all over this thing; although I don't think Bug has actually gone to the very top yet. She informed me that she needed to get better at going down before she went any higher. Probably a wise choice, but Monkey figured out that she doesn't have to climb down: she can just hold on tight, slip through one of the top triangles, and drop to the ground. Goose is also very excited about this development, but fortunately she's satisfied with running around and through the bottom right now.
New Word
Goose now says "kitty"! Well, she doesn't pronounce the ts, but it definitely counts when she's yelling it while chasing after the poor beast.
Pretend Play
Monkey and Bug recently expanded their pretend play repertoire. They now play doctor (doctor/workbench tools + exam table/arm of the couch + doctor's/reading light; Goose is frequently drafted to be the patient), mechanic (workbench tools + trikes in the garage; usually Monkey "finds the problem" and takes it to Bug for fixing), school (couch = school bus; buddies = students; Monkey and Bug usually pronounce some location in the house their buddies' class and the drop them off, sign them in, and inform them of what project they're going to be doing).
More Steps to Reading
We started off our week playing the jumping letters game alot: Monkey and Bug push the climb 'n slide off the mat in the play room, and they take turns jumping to whatever letter I call out. They don't even need many clues anymore (i.e., "The letter B is in a blue square"). Monkey and Bug have been really into letter sounds and what words start with what letter, so I decided it was a good time to start making letter books:
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| It's just pages staples together: the cover is a tracing page, and they can glue in cutouts of clipart that start with the right letter. |
Pet Store
Bug has been begging to go to the zoo lately, but the closest one is 1 1/2 hours away, so it's not really a spur-of-the-moment trip. However, we discovered a temporarily satisfactory substitute: PetCo! We got to see and talk about: gerbils, hampsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, rats, mice, ferrets (we got to pet one!), lots of fish, sea stars, sea anenomes, hermit crabs, a variety of snakes, turtles, lizards, scorpions, a cockatiel, a bunch of parakeets, and a dog getting his hair cut. Who needs a zoo?! Goose also thought this was a really exciting outing because I let her walk and many of the tanks are low enough that she could see in them.
Bling
Goose recently discovered accessorizing. Bags, sunglasses, and mardi gras beads (lots of them) are now among her favorite toys. This, of course, results in my occasionally having to referree spats by yelling across the house, "Give Goose her bling back!"
Sample Questions from This Week:
Where does Jesus live?
How do ants talk?
Why do I have to wear clothes outside?
Why did that bug crawl in my food to die?
Library Day
The girls made a friend at the library this week: a 3 or 4 year old girl who was also hanging out on the bean bag chairs. I think this was the first time I've ever actually witnessed Monkey and Bug talking to a kid who wasn't one of our neighbors that we see every day.
We came home with these books:
Pigs Make Me Sneeze!
Dinotrux
Mushrooms in the Rain
Mouse Count
Look! Look! Look!
Follow the Moon
The Gingerbread Man
Across the Stream
Honey...Honey...Lion!
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