Going to the Ball

MWR hosted a daddy/daughter dance this weekend, which the girls have been looking forward to for weeks! They’ve seen Daddy and I attend formal military events, and they were thrilled to get a ball of their own with Daddy! They planned their own outfits and hairstyles, and Daddy took them out for a “fancy dinner” at a local sushi place before joining some of their friends and other daddies at the dance.

Library Day

This was the last storytimeless week, and the girls had a great time making a couple of new friends, playing with the toys, and picking out books. We came home with:

When the Wind Bears Go Dancing

This Little Pirate

Roly-poly Egg

Clementine

An Extraordinary Egg

Full Moon

Paper Boats

Little Louie the Baby Bloomer

In a People House

The Moon Lady

Fancy Vikings

Did you know Vikings were fancy? That’s the kind of conclusions you come to after your first week of studying Vikings with three little girls. After all, the Vikings did have a thing for bling, and they were pretty impressive craftsmen. The girls have been particularly admiring photos of artifacts and reproductions—necklaces, armbands, brooches, cloak clasps, detailed metal statues, intricate wood carving on boats, chests, and buildings. Next week we’re planning to make Viking costumes, so this week we did some prep work—going to the craft store for cloth remnants and beads, stringing necklaces, and noticing the details on the clothes of their Viking paper dolls, which they colored while we read about some famous Vikings like Harald Bluetooth and Olaf Haraldson. 

We actually started our week of studying Vikings by reading the poster that came with the Eyewitness History book—lots of blurbs about various facets of daily life. We took some time to actually read about Viking food, because the girls were very excited about our “Viking lunch.” Our menu included smoked fish, dried beef, peas, apples, berries, nuts, and rye bread with butter.

We also read most of the biography about Leif the Lucky (a wonderfully illustrated book that also introduced them to Eric the Red and King Olaf I). Along with that, I found a great documentary on Hulu about the Vikings that focused primarily on their North American explorations and colonies (Did you know they lived in North America for 500 years beginning in the late 900s?). Of course, talking about their raids and explorations meant we also spent some time studying maps, comparing our big world map with a detailed map I found that traces the paths they took—west to North America, south into the Mediterranean Sea, and east into Russia.

The Three Rs

Reading lessons this week proved to be repetitive, but confidence building. Bug read The Foot Book all week, and Monkey read Inside Outside Upside Down on all but one day when she took a break to read Pete the Cat. At least with the repeated books, the girls read them without needing me to read them first or to go over a challenging words list. Monkey in particular also enjoyed reading books to Goose this week, and Goose and I continued reading some of the Bob books.

Math lessons continue as usual—except for Monday when Daddy took advantage of his day off to take over the math lesson. (For some reason, Monkey and Bug both found this a bit intimidating at first, but since Daddy’s going to take over that subject once we’re past arithmetic, we figure they need to work with Daddy occasionally to get used to the idea.) This week both girls worked on addition: drilling problems involving addends less than 5 (given a page of 25 problems, Bug is significantly faster, but Monkey completed hers with a little more accuracy); working through double digit addends with carries (Bug can handle problems that carry into the hundreds place; Monkey is just gaining confidence with the concept of carrying); and they both practiced thinking through single digit problems with sums greater than 10. We also worked on fractions (identifying, creating, comparing) and telling time. Goose and I didn’t do much math this week, but Bug helped her practice counting to 20, and Monkey read to her from a favorite counting book. Goose spent some time poring over a telling time book, and occasionally asking questions about it.

For writing lessons this week, Bug continued doing worksheets: unscrambling words and sentences and matching up separated syllables to create words. Monkey on the other hand did one unscrambling words worksheet, but then got back into writing reports—eels and platypuses. This week both girls decided to write about our Viking studies in their composition books.

“Don’t Leave Me Behind!”
It’s a phrase we hear a lot from little Goose! This was kind of a big week for her, though, in her constant quest to keep up with her big sisters. We went to the super park twice this week, and both times Goose made it one of her missions to follow her sisters up the climbing rock. She’s almost there! (My policy is that I will happily help them get down, but if they want to get up, they have to be physically capable of getting there themselves.)

She’s also spent quite a bit of time the last couple of weeks watching her sisters build Lego constructions and practicing sticking and unsticking bricks. This week she built her first Lego tower that was more than a simple vertical line! She was so proud of herself: “I saw it in my head, and then I made it!”