Library Day
Storytime is on a hiatus for the next month and a half, but Monday was a small library event to acknowledge National Library Week. The librarians had snacks available--highly popular--and they joked that we could probably tell them all about the library's programs. (Obviously, we're there every week, and they know the girls by name, which I think is awesome.) They--the librarians and the kids--are very excited about the special events planned for the summer, and we're all looking forward to the kick off at the end of May.

Since we were returning to the library earlier in the week than usual we didn't actually return any books, but of course we walked out with a few additional ones: Little Red Riding Hood (which we accidently left behind last week) and Arthur and the Sword (more on this one below). We also checked out a Scholastic DVD that included video presentations of some of their favorite books: Rapunzel, The Elves and the Shoemaker, and The Billy Goats Gruff.

Botanical Garden and Zoo
With no storytime to attend on Wednesday we decided to make it a zoo day--except that we actually went to the botanical garden side of the park first since we'd never been there before. It was gorgeous, and the girls loved it! So many pretty flowers, fountains, and easily runnable pathways! They even had a special kids garden with a playhouse, a huge lawn chair, and a playground sort of area. My budding photographers took lots of pictures. Here's a small sampling:

When lunchtime approached, we caught the tram to the zoo (terribly exciting, especially with 3 preschoolers who raise their arms and scream like their on a roller coaster), so we could eat our picnic lunch while watching the monkeys. "No, apes!" exclaimed my Monkey, finger in the air. "They're apes because they don't have tails!" I stood corrected. It was a good choice; the apes were very active that day. The girls asked if we could visit the penguins (in the air conditioning) before we headed back to the garden and our car. During our walk to the penguins and back again, we determined whether or not each animal we passed was a mammal or not. The definition of mammals had come up earlier in the week (I've no idea how; it was just one of those random questions they ask.), so this gave them plenty of opportunity to practice their new-found knowledge.

Reading
Monkey decided this week that she wanted to finish learning to read the Star Wars easy reader book, which she did with a combination of sounding out, sight words, and memory/context clues. There were still a few words I had to read for her, but I was impressed with how much she could do on her own. Next she's decided she wants to read a recently acquired book called Larabee (Thank you, Dolly Parton). So far I've read it aloud to her by myself, then I read a phrase and she would repeat it, but sight reading the name "Larabee."

Bug is now about halfway through her reading book! This week in addition to the stories and word lists she reads, she added a new sound, p, and a new sight word, to. I also overheard her reading several of the Bob books to Goose, who was thrilled.

Math
We started off the week with a fun activity inspired by one of our library books, Measuring Penny, about a girl who finds all the different ways she can measure her dog. The girls each picked out a stuffed animal (we decided our pet cat was unlikely to cooperate). We measured just about every part of them using standard units (inches and centimeters), non-standard units (small blocks), and comparisons (heavier/lighter, softer/harder). The girls did all the measuring, and I wrote down the findings.

Bug continued to be very into worksheets, and in fact this week I finally got her a kindergarten/first grade math book to start working her way through. She loves her new workbook and completed three pages the first day we pulled it out. So far it's just been matching numerals to number of objects and practicing writing numerals. She also continues to spontaneously burst into counting up to 100.

Monkey is still doing the pre-k worksheets, and I was a little concerned about how Bug getting a new book would go over. It turned out to be a great thing! Now that Monkey can't compare her work to Bug's, she's tackled her "very own" sheets with confidence and was particularly proud of being able to complete an entire sheet (matching numerals to numbers of objects) all by herself! She still much prefers hands-on math, so we did several lessons with whatever she happens to playing with and we covered counting up to 20, addition, subtraction, and shapes/spatial relations that way.

History: Exploring Medieval Europe!
Quite serendipitously, just as I ran out of topics and projects related to Ancient Rome, the girls became intensely interested in Arthurian legend. This wasn't completely by chance I'll admit. The stories of Arthur and his knights are among my personal favorites. We had recently finished listening to the recording Daddy made of himself reading an abridged version of Howard Pyle's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and to follow up I had Netflix send us Disney's The Sword and the Stone, then we happened upon a beautifully illustrated storybook about Arthur and Excalibur (all the pictures were made to look like stained glass windows which we later compared to the samples of Medieval stained glass in our DK book). Their pretend play in the last week has frequently included Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, gathering his knights, and fighting off Mordred. At some point I think I overheard that Arthur had acquired a dragon too.

I decided this was the perfect segue into a different historical period and asked the girls if they'd be interested in studying Medieval Europe, when knights and kings like Arthur really lived. The suggestion was met with cheers and we dived right in! I introduced our formal studies with a great poster that came with the DK book that included tidbits of info on a wide variety of Medieval subjects. The girls immediately started planning their Medieval costumes (the sewing machine and I are not friends, so this involves scavenging for odds and ends, not starting from scratch). Happily we got a surprise package from Nana that very day that included several sets of footless tights: "Just like the medieval boys wore!" exclaimed Monkey. We haven't actually put costumes together yet, so maybe we'll have photos available next week.

Monkey and Bug asked if we could learn about Medieval music this week too. We read the section in the DK book about music and examined the photos of instruments; the organistrum and hurdy gurdy were particularly fascinating. Rather than make our own instruments this time, we did a quick Internet search and discovered Ancient FM, a commercial-free, streaming radio station of Medieval music. Perfect! We spent a rainy afternoon in the study listening to the music, which the girls loved, and working on various quiet, if unrelated, projects. They had fun trying to pick out the sounds of different instruments or guessing what events the music would be played for (a party? a parade? a show for the king?)