Lessons? Traveling!
Formal lessons didn't really happen much for the last two weeks. (The big girls practiced a bit of reading and some simple math, and they reviewed shapes and colors with Goose.) Instead we traveled--albeit in different directions. We all drove to Nana and Papa Bear's house first for a day, then Daddy and I left the girls behind and flew to Seattle for a couple of days to visit friends before embarking on a week-long Alaskan cruise (don't worry, family, I'll send out an email with photos about that later). As the pictures below will show, the girls had a blast!

Morning milk and snuggles with Nana; reading an Oz book with Papa Bear
at bedtime; snuggles with Uncle K, who came to visit for a few days too

A day the county fair with farm animals, cotton candy (and lots of other yummy foods), and rides.
The two photos on the bottom right were taken on the ferris wheel.

playing on a really cool wooden playground

playing in the local lake

riding around the neighborhood in style with Uncle K

making pillows with Nana (the girls got to pick out the fabric
and help with the sewing and stuffing)

coloring on their awesome collapsible cardboard playhouse

Birthday
Monkey and Bug's fifth birthday fell at the end of our trip, so we celebrated at Nana and Papa Bear's house before returning home, where they had more presents from Daddy and I and Grandma and Granddad waiting for them. They are thoroughly enjoying all their new things, and they even cooperated with cleaning out some old toys from the playroom to make more room!

Celebratory cupcakes at Nana and Papa Bear's house!

Monkey trying out the BB gun she and Bug got for their birthday.
Bug was actually even more enthusiastic about shooting than Monkey,
but my computer refuses to let me download the photos I took of her.

History Closer to Home

Monkey's little "pottery" bowl

While we didn't finish my list of topics and activities for imperial China, we decided to move on to a new unit when the girls returned from our travels with an intense interest in Native Americans. Daddy and I returned from Alaska with several pieces of Native American art that they admired, but mostly the interest came from watching Disney's Pocahontas. They're smart enough to realize that movies do not always match reality, so they came home with lots of questions. We sorted out the fantasy from reality, and they placed the era portrayed in the movie in their mental timeline ("after cavemen, but before people invented cars"). Once we got home they peppered me with questions about food preparation and storage, houses, and clothes. I pulled out the DK book about Native Americans, and they spent a long time just looking at the pictures and soaking it all in. We specifically read the sections about the Northwest and the area where we currently live. We even did two activities already: The girls searched the book for examples of pottery, and we pulled out the Playdough to create dolls and bowls; we also played a slightly modified version (we don't have room for a 100 ft long court) of a game called chunkey.