I Spy
Monkey and Bug came up with their own I Spy game for the car. One of them yells out something that catches their attention ("Yellow bus!") Then they continue finding things of the same color ("Yellow sign!" "Yellow car!") until something else jumps out at them ("Green sign!"). At some point while playing this game, they spotted what is now Monkey's dream car: a bright pink Jeep Wrangler with a soft top. "A pink car, Mommy! The kind that goes not on roads!"

Social Sunday
Sunday was a busy day, and we all had a great time. We had the usual Sunday school and church service, and after church another family invited to us to join them for lunch. Daddy and I had a great time getting to know another couple and their teenage son, and the entourage behaved beautifully (they even got compliments). When they weren't participating in the conversation (yes, they actually talked to new grown ups!), they sat quietly and ate their lunch, so the grown ups could chit chat. We had just enough time at home for naps before we headed out again to the great big playground for a BYO picnic dinner with church folks. Unfortunately--since I was hoping to meet more parents with little ones--it turned out to be just us, the children's pastor and her family, and the head pastor and his wife. We still had a lovely time getting to know each other a bit (once again the entourage actually talked to relatively new people!), and the girls had a blast on the playground. Monkey even conquered the huge climbing thing.

Library Day
We decided to do storytime on Tuesday afternoon again--this time because the girls asked Daddy to come. They enjoyed having Daddy to hang out with while doing puzzles and to read books to them,but we skipped storytime itself this week (unbeknownst to us they had some kids/teens rock band performing--really loud and not preschool appropriate songs. The entourage wasn't interested.)
This week we came home with:
George and Martha: One Fine Day
Richard Scarry's Best Little Word Book Ever! (the entourage has gotten very good at spotting Goldbug)
Dot & Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery
Cornelius
Counting Money (Daddy was explaining money to Bug this week)
Sheep Take a Hike

Unrelated to the library we've also started reading the Illustrated Classics edition of Peter Pan.

Little Helpers
Bug was legitimately helpful this week in assisting me in cooking a chicken cordon bleu casserole. Usually "helping" means it takes longer and requires lots of supervision and instruction. This time it meant Bug fixed the topping (mostly crushed saltines) and layered each ingredient while I prepped the next. She was quite proud of herself and, fortunately, the dish proved highly popular with everybody.

I also pulled a Tom Sawyer this week and had the entourage scrubbing cabinet fronts and baseboards. The kitchen is cleaner, and they have all mastered an important life skill and learned about the importance of attention to detail (though this last was more Bug's doing than mine).

Literary Comparative Analysis
One morning this week we watched the Super Why version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. This show always messes with the traditional tales, but this was exceptionally different (the troll was a neatfreak and the goats needed to learn some manners), and the original Three Billy Goats is one of the entourage's favorite stories (siblings who back each other up to defeat the bad guy--of course it's a favorite). They noted a few discrepancies while watching it, and afterwords they wanted to read the real story, stopping at the end of each page to point out the differences.

Math
A few weeks ago I purchased Preschool Math, a book chock full of crafts, games, and other hands-on activities to help preschoolers learn math concepts. Monkey and Bug have paged through it with interest, and today when Bug wanted to play something with me, I pulled out an idea from the book. We got out our box of small wooden blocks, and I set out a simple pattern (for example, red rectangle, blue square, repeat) and asked if they could copy it and predict what came next. Bug played along with accuracy and critiqued my technique (the blocks should be closer together apparently), but Monkey chose to create her own more complex pattern (disregarding color she laid out short, medium, tall, medium, short, medium, tall, medium, short). From there Monkey and Built a series of towers, first counting how many blocks up they could build, then experimenting with building sturdier towers by making them thicker and more complex (doors and windows). Monkey moved on to some other activity, and Bug proceeded to build an entire neighborhood of houses made from squares and triangles that she was very proud of. Goose of course was right in the midst of this activity practicing the fine motor skills of building simple towers and revelling in the pure joy of knocking them down.

Ideally, my plan is to do at least one an activity per week from this book or another source. Most of the activities involve items already on hand and are suitable for Goose to play alongside or to bring them to her level.

Later in the week at Monkey and Bug's request, I helped them with their matching numbers puzzles (each puzzle is a numeral, illustrations of the number of objects, and the number word). They've got 1 - 10 down nicely (numerals to objects), and we worked on 11 - 20. The teens are much harder for some reason.

Goodbye Again
We had to take Daddy to the airport at the end of the week to send him off on his next "big trip." Monkey and Bug did a lot more processing before he left this time: they wore his t-shirts around the house for several days before he left, a number of times they enacted pretend play with their buddies (stuffed animals & dolls) in which somebody's daddy had to leave for a while, and when they piled on the couch to watch Kung Fu Panda 2 the day before he left Bug even pieced together on her own that "Daddy wanted to watch the movie with us so we could get extra snuggle time." We will miss him!