Monkey and Bug made Easter flowers this week (construction paper hand & footprints + rolled construction paper + tape). They were supposed to be lilies, but these creative girls would never go so ordinary as white :-) It was Bug's idea to try it with footprints. I was skeptical at first, but she was right: they actually made nice pseudo-Calla lilies.
I recently made several games for the entourage. Tic-tac-toe (white paper grid + contact paper + milk caps) is popular. They understand the concept of getting three in a row, but they fail to see the point of getting in each other's way. Mostly, they play with patterns and shapes on the grid and see how many milk caps they can stack without knocking them over. Good times. The alphabet game (ABC wheel + contact paper + clothes pins with abc's on them) was actually less of a challenge for them than I anticipated. Score another for unschooling, right? I had no idea they could match almost all the upper and lower case letters! The pom pom game (sour cream container with holes in the lid + half a dozen mini pom poms) is actually a bigger hit with the big girls than I thought it would be. Goose loves it of course, and Monkey and Bug having been using it to start teaching Goose her colors.
More Words
Additions to Goose's vocabulary this week: uh oh, balloon, all done
Music
I started a new thing this week. I put a couple of classical music CDs in the car to alternate with the girls sing-along CDs as we're out and about. This week I introduced them to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and was very impressed with the reception it got. Not only did they want to hear every note (a challenge when I don't want to blast them out of their carseats on the crescendos), but I heard comments like the following from the backseat: "I like those loud cymbals!" "That trumpet surprised me!" "The bestest instrument is all the instruments" (translation: They prefer when the whole orchestra plays instead of the solo bits.) They also made their own music with homemade shakers (toilet paper tubes + pistachio shells + dry rice + paper + packing tape). Early in the week Bug noticed the nice sound that pistachio shells make when she ran her fingers through them, so I offered to teach her how to make an instrument out them. It was a very popular activity!
Computer Skills
Monkey's and Bug's computer skills continue to improve. They mostly play with Starfall and have discovered many more games besides the alphabet ones (calendars, nursery rhymes, counting, classic kids songs, holidays). I don't have to help them at all anymore: They discovered that the website will read aloud any word they click on, so they don't have to ask me for instructions, and they even know how to open the link to the website I put on the desktop. They've also figured out how to use the mouse for the desktop computer. Since Monkey and Bug have been playing Jumpstart games on the desktop, even Goose has figured out that fun things happen when you push buttons (or bang the keyboard).
Playing Tag
Needless to say, the girls took a good nap this day. (And Bug was just fine after her face plant. She jumped right up without even crying and kept running.)
Hooray for Pocoyo!
We discovered a new favorite TV show. It's about a 2-year-old, Pocoyo, exploring the everyday things in his world. For some reason (maybe the simple storylines and bouncy music?), he has the entourage captivated. I have no idea where it originated, but it's quite an international experience: The characters' names are Spanish, the animation style is Japanese, and the narrator who interacts with Pocoyo is British. (It gets additional Mommy points for each episode being only 7 minutes long.)
Library Day
Library Day was quite the expedition this week, because we decided to go to "the Big Library" instead of our little branch library. We went early in order to have time to play on the playground, but the entourage chose to all but ignore the actual playground. Instead they ran past the playground to the gazebo overlooking the turtle pond. We saw two turtles and two geese, which we got a better look at through the fence than we could at the gazebo.
They then decided to run all the way around the pond (even Goose walked most of the way). Following the path all the way meant we went past the amphitheater, and what preschooler can resist a chance to run around an empty stage!
We also discovered that Goose has the balance to handle shallow steps all by herself.
We returned briefly to the playground and ran into some friends of ours from church before heading into the library itself. Monkey and Bug insisted on going to storytime, and seem to enjoy it despite the fact that they don't participate in any of the hand rhymes/songs/get-your-wiggles-out stuff (I think they view those as merely tolerable interruptions to an otherwise lovely time). The theme was rainbows this week, and they got to glue together rainbow caterpillars afterwards. Actually looking for books to bring home is a little more challenging here, since there are so many distractions (lots of puzzles, stuffed animals, a puppet theater, oversize checker games, etc.), but we came home with the following:
Hey, Mama Goose
Curious George Gets a Medal
Circus Parade
Cat the Cat, Who Is That?
An Invitation to the Butterfly Ball: A Counting Rhyme
Little Red Riding Hood
Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons
The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight
They also took some time to share the stuffed animals with the library statues.
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