Daddy was gone for less than a week this time, and Monkey and Bug were very happy to have a countable count down. This time, in addition to having the "Daddy TVs" to watch, he happened to send them a fist bump via picture text before he went off the grid. Having a Daddy fist bump on hand staved off more than one of Goose's meltdowns this week!
Nature Journal
I've read about nature/observation journals in a number of places, and I always thought, "That'll be so much fun when the girls are big enough!" However, they've been so enthusiastically exploring the outdoors and really getting into their field guides that I decided there was no point in waiting "until they were big enough." I explained the concept to three excited little girls, and we made a special trip to the store to buy a proper sketchbook. At this point they pick the topic, I write down what they dictate, and they've collected specimens (a new word for their vocabulary). I'm looking forward to having their drawings in there soon, too. Their first topic of study: ants! First on the agenda of course was to find some--unfortunately, a pretty easy task where we live. For closer observation, I caught a few on pieces of scotch tape, which Monkey and Bug insisted should be put inside our book. They gleefully ran inside to retrieve our magnifying glass and handheld microscope for an even better look. We looked them up in our field guide, read the paragraph and compared the pictures to determine, which kind of ant we have. Then the girls dictated a list of all the things they know about ants (topped by "They bite!"). Finally, we wrapped up with a rousing rendition of "The Ants Go Marching." Later this week we spotted a huge anthill in the median of a parking lot and stopped for a few moments to observe all the scurrying around.
Math
We played more games of Magic this week, so the girls got lots of practice in counting, addition, and greater than/less than comparisons. This week I decided to step up the game and made them actual counters instead of letting them add up their cards on my fingers. They now each have a small Gladware container with 20 squares cut from foamy sheets. Goose insisted on participating of course, so she also has a container with 5 squares, which she happily counts out while we play: "free, free, free, . . . " Playing with the counters has hardly been limited to while we're playing Magic. Monkey and Bug have had a great time stacking them, arranging them in various patterns, and dividing them into groups of different numbers, which means they're discovering things like "there are 2 tens in 20."
Heidi
We finished reading Heidi this week, and I let them start watching a movie version (it's about 3 hours long, so we'll finish it eventually). They are much bigger fans of the book than the movie (these apples didn't fall far from the tree, did they?). What's been particularly interesting to me is that they haven't been nearly as taken with Heidi and the goats as they have been with Clara and her wheelchair. They've spent lots of time pushing each other or a stuffed animal around in a kid-size rocking chair attempting to navigate our house while only one of them can walk. They've also been playing doctor quite a bit, and Goose has made a very willing patient, although she's not terribly good at answering questions about her well-being.
Library Day
It was another quiet library day, with just one other little boy and his mom in the kids section. He sat in on some of our story reading. The librarian made sure we knew that storytime starts up again in just a few weeks. I love having a library where they know us by name! This week we came home with these books:
Father Comes Home (Little Bear)
Fairy Poems by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Sheep in a Shop
Just One Bite
I'm Going Now! (Elephant & Piggie)
Starting Life: Butterfly (what they wanted to learn about this week)
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