A "Life Skills" Day
On Tuesday this week, I decided the girls and I needed to take a mini-break from the usual academics and regroup. Once we finished the usual morning routine, I let the girls bake a batch of brownies, and I really did little more than read them the recipe and supervise--they found all the ingredients and measuring spoons/cups and did all the measuring, dumping, and mixing. Bug even cracked the eggs, and Monkey assisted Goose with running the electric mixer. While those were cooling off, we walked down to the local craft store (can I tell you how excited I am that we can walk there?!), where we perused the shelves for future project ideas and bought the couple of things we'd come in for.

We returned home to consume our brownies and

a pot of tea, while discussing the current state of the entourage's education. We talked about what they're learning now, what they like that we do, what they don't like, how we might improve things, and if they had any particular requests for things they'd like to learn or do. I know they're only 5, 5, and 3, but it's still a productive meeting. Granted Goose mostly enjoyed the fact that I let her eat two brownies right before lunch, but Monkey and Bug had some really good things to contribute. Monkey requested that we do more projects for history again (she's absolutely right; I've been a complete slacker on that front for our unit about the pioneers). Bug asked that we start practicing for Bible quizzing, so she'll feel ready when they're big enough to do that at church (they'll start in the fall). Far be it from me to turn down a kid's request to dig deeper into the Bible! Bug also restated her desire to learn to knit. Then we brainstormed ideas for good writing assignments, reading options, and field trips. Besides teaching them how to evaluate their goals and activities, it's always helpful to get their buy-in for what they're learning.

The afternoon involved actually teaching Bug to knit. She's been begging me to teach her to knit or crochet ever since she received a crochet hook in her Valentine's Day craft kit, but I'd been putting her off until I remembered using knitting looms in my childhood. We purchased one along with some yarn from the craft store that morning, and after a five-minute tutorial she was off!

More of the afternoon was spent on a truly vital life skill: how to clean a bathroom. I usually get the girls to help me, but this time I gave them more of the lead and merely stuck my head in and instructed when necessary. Not much was necessary actually, and they seemed very pleased to take charge of the task themselves.

Library Day
The story time theme this week was weather, and the librarian had a few fun books about rain, rainbows, and wind. The entourage was disappointed though that storytime involved more song-and-dance participation activities than it did actual stories. However, we came home with lots of good books for us:
The Story of Growl
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?
Princess Furball
Five Little Monkeys Go Shopping
King of the Cats
The Princess and the Pea
A Tooth Fairy's Tale
Daisy 1, 2, 3

Since I was planning to start our new history unit next week, we also looked specifically for books about ancient Greece. We got a confused look from the children's librarian when I inquired about this subject while trailing a couple of kindergarteners and a preschooler, but she was willing to run with it and told me she'd keep an eye out for additional age-appropriate resources. She did help us find several things:
Ancient Greece (30-minute DVD for elementary students)
Ancient Greece Revealed (neat book for seeing into things like warships, houses, and the Trojan horse using partially transparent pages)
The One-eyed Giant and Other Monsters of Ancient Greece (picture book encyclopedia)
The Trojan Horse (picture book version)
The Hero and the Minotaur (picture book that also includes the story of Icarus)

New History Unit: Ancient Greece!
Despite the fact that we still have a few chapters of Little House on the Prairie left and I really wasn't planning to open this up until next week, I bowed to popular demand and agreed to kick off our study of Ancient Greece on Friday. The girls have seen me prepping and they simply couldn't stand the suspense anymore (Why follow-up the pioneers with Ancient Greece? Because Daddy and I let the girls watch Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief with us recently, and they're currently fascinated by the stories of Greek mythology.) I started the day by agreeing to read The Hero and the Minotaur after breakfast. Later we pulled out the poster that came with our Eye Witness book about Ancient Greece and gave the girls an overview of when and where along with tidbits about food, clothing, houses, theater, pottery, and the Olympic games (all topics we'll cover in more detail later). To top it off, I served up a finger-food lunch of things the Greeks would have eaten too: cucumbers, carrots, raisins, dates, figs, olives, cheese, sardines, nuts, pita bread, and baklava. I've been informed that we need to eat like Greeks more often.

The Three Rs
For Monkey and Bug's math this week, I introduced fractions. We went over the basics using halves and quarters, illustrated by a set of fraction bars and construction paper cutouts (then the real life application involved in baking those brownies on Tuesday). I've also seen both girls playing a fractions game on Starfall, and they seem to have a pretty good grasp of the topic. Of course, they also commandeered the paper cutouts and had lots of fun creating abstract designs with them. We continued practicing telling time, which went well with fractions since we discussed quarter past, half past, and quarter til. Both girls also reviewed their addition skills, and Bug practiced skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.


On the left, we did lessons outside some this week; I drew a clock face and a digital time and had them
draw the hands on the clock, then I wrote a numeric faction and had them color in appropriately.
On the right, Monkey and Bug created designs with the fraction cut outs.

Both girls got into the stack of Uncle N's easy readers this week, and I added a new activity that's somewhere between reading and writing that the girls call "making up their own reading lesson": In addition to the rhyming words they sorted last week, I printed and cut out a set of sight words and other commonly used words, which I spread out in the living room. Then I had them compose sentences using the words. This activity also involved their first ever grammar lesson, which Bug in particular really liked. When she was stumped with where to even begin, I explained that every sentence needs a noun (person, place, or thing) and a verb (being or doing) along with any other words you need to explain whatever you're trying to say. She excitedly sorted out the whole lot into three piles and methodically composed sentences by picking out one word from each of the first two piles and whatever else she needed from the third. Although I explained nouns and verbs to Monkey as well, she was content to go about the assignment more organically--picking out a few words that caught her eye and exchanging them for different ones until she came up with sentences that made sense. As a result of this activity I also now have a list of words the girls have requested I print up for their use next time.

Bug sorts words and composes sentences.

Monkey and Bug have also expressed distinct preferences for how they want to practice writing. Bug has really enjoyed completing fill-in-the-blank nursery rhymes and a set of Bible quizzing practice questions. Monkey is much more interested in writing about personal experiences or books we're reading using writing pages that are half lined and half blank, so there's also room to illustrate her composition. Both girls also did an "information hunt" (which I think Monkey was only really interested in because I let her help me come up with the questions). We came up with a page of questions about animals for the girls to answer, some of which they just knew and some I helped them look up the answers in our animal encyclopedia. (So far, I've managed to work Bible knowledge, history, literature, and science into our "writing" lessons.)

Goose this week has focused on the letter G using some worksheets and a brainstorming page of things that start with G. She's also done worksheets about matching patterns and pencil control. Then of course, she's usually listening in on whatever her sisters are doing.

Growing Their Faith
I think Monkey and Bug recently reached some point of epiphany in their young faith. Prayer and reading Bible stories has long been a part of our daily routine, and we've made sure the girls know that they're true stories--different from fairy tales or your run-of-the-mill picture books. But I think Monkey and Bug realized that these stories are not only true, they're important! I already mentioned Bug's request to practice Bible quizzing, and this week their curiosity about our usual Bible readings really jumped. They've discovered that there's more to the Bible than a Bible storybook--there are different sections and lots of details the storybook versions don't include. For example, one day this week their Little Kid's Bible included an excerpt about "the bad kings of Israel," but it left them hanging on whether the last king mentioned was a good king or a bad king. They had me get out the real Bible, and we spent the next 15 minutes or so reading through generation after generation of the kings of Israel and Judah and finding out which kings worshipped idols and which ones "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord." (It was one of those "this is why I love homeschooling moments": I didn't have to rush them out the door to school; we could just sit on the couch and read the Bible!) The other day I even heard Bug lead them in doing Bible drills. They don't know the books of the Bible yet, but she was racing her sisters to find the Old Testament, New Testament, the section with the prophets, chapter 27 (it didn't matter which book, just any chapter 27 would do apparently), etc. So many times this week I've overheard them spontaneously burst into praise songs--either snippets of songs they remember from church or tunes they make up themselves. Despite my own parenting uncertainties and the occasional really stressful days, this is what tells me Daddy and I are doing something right!