Nature Park
We started off the week with a trip to a nature park about 20 minutes away and had a fantastic time. It has a relatively short loop trail, so it works beautifully for an outing with the entourage. We brought our  nature journal with us, of course, along with several field guides at Bug's suggestion. We took lots of pictures of things to put in our journal and stopped at a gazebo to make rubbings of leaves we collected along the trail. We stopped at the pond, and the girls asked about a drain-looking thing out in the middle. They speculated that it might be for sucking up the water, but then they worried about the fish and we decided to track down a worker to answer their questions. We found one who was very excited to answer the questions of a preschooler (Bug was brave enough to ask him herself!). It turned out their original theory was right! When the water reaches a certain level, it goes down the drain and gets carried to the wetlands a couple dozen yards away. He assured the girls that the fish would be fine. In our attempt to find a knowledgeable worker, we stumbled into the interpretive center, and the entourage spent quite a while poring over pinned bugs and taxidermied local wildlife. Fascinating.

They had a great time trying to balance on the cypress knees.

Everybody loves a taxidermied beast!

Lessons
Reading lessons continue daily! We went back to lesson 1, and I sit with each girl separately. This has worked out well since they're definitely absorbing all this at different speeds. Whoever isn't actively participating usually sits nearby and colors or looks at books. I figure it can't hurt for them to hear it an extra time anyway. This week I also started keeping an eye out for words in regular books that I know they could sound out, and I walk them through it. By the end of this week they read 4 pages in a Bob Book! (tiny paperback readers that follow the same letter order/phonics concepts that our curriculum does) I think this has provided the breakthrough in helping them understand that reading means sounding out, not just memorizing.

Also as part of our lessons time this week we made a number line and an alphabet line. We used bulletin board borders, and I wrote with a Sharpie while they looked over my shoulder and told me what came next. Our number line goes up to 20, and they almost know it (the upper teens are still iffy). Our alphabet line includes uppercase and lowercase letters, and its creation involved lots of renditions of the ABC song as they tried to remember what letter came next.

We've been rereading The Wizard of Oz during our lessons time as well at their request. I think they realized that it's easier to get through chapter books without Goose around, and this book is definitely their favorite so far!

Library Day
The girls loved the craft at storytime this week. The theme was bears, and they made bear paper bag puppets. Watching their coloring styles was pretty fascinating. Goose colored a few faint random scribbles before going roaring around the room with it. Bug picked out two colors (one as an overall color and the other for accents like eyebrows and nose), and methodically filled in the spaces. Monkey picked up one crayon after another, putting down layers of color within the prominent facial features. She commented when she was done that she like how the colors looked all mixed up together.

Left to right: Monkey, Goose, and Bug

We came home with lots of books this week:
Turk and Runt
Hey, Mama Goose
Four Scary Stories (a Tomie dePaola book about imps and goblins being scared of kids)
Pigs Make Me Sneeze!
A Kiss for Little Bear
Best Buds
I Spy Super Challenger! (This is a game book, not a storybook, and the girls have had a great time challenging each other to find items in the pictures.)
Klondike Gold
Jellyfish
Farm Animals (The previous two were our "What do you want to learn about?" books.)

Costumes
The girls have been loving the new additions to the dress up box! Almost everyday they come up with an idea for what they want to be for Halloween, so I'm curious to see what they actually end up wearing. Monkey pretty consistently goes for some version of Captain Hook (what is it with this girl's fixation on the bad guys!?). Bug marched into the living room one afternoon and informed me that she was The Greatest One. I had to agree with her: she had on a queen's crown, a police vest, fairy wings, and a superhero cape (she may also have been wielding a light saber). Goose will wear anything she can actually put on herself, which usually involves her purple sparkly fedora and a variety of shiny necklaces and bracelets.

Projects
We pulled out the paints this week, and the girls are getting far more intentional with their creations. Well, Goose still scribbles obviously, but she's getting a better part of the paint on the paper now. Monkey painted a robot with a bird overhead, a dinosaur on each side, and snake curled up at the bottom. Bug used a dot paint marker to create two neat lines, then turned them into flowers using a crayon.

Left to right: Monkey, Goose, and Bug

Pet Store Field Trip
We joined our homeschool group for a field trip to the pet store this week. One of the workers led us around the store  and took a number of animals out of their cages for the kids to look at and touch while she talked about them: a couple of turtles, a variety of lizards, a ball python, a guinea pig, and several ferrets (who actually got to run around a bit with the kids). The girls had fun but they never did get brave enough to actually touch anything (Of course, I think Bug was more put off by the fact that she'd have to use hand sanitizer afterward than the animals themselves.) Perhaps the cutest moment was Goose putting a finger to lips and whispering to the big kids to "Shshsh! Quiet!" when the worker brought the reptiles out.