Planning for the Past

We didn't actually do any history lessons this week, but the girls got some previews of our next unit as I spent lots of time this week preparing for it! To give myself my best chance for getting a lot accomplished, I had my mother’s helper come over for a couple of hours. I now have some great resources and projects planned for our study of the Vikings, and the girls were SO excited to have R come over to play!

Unrelated to our next unit, but confirming of my current method of teaching history: At some point this week, the girls came across Daddy’s book about knives and other bladed weapons through history. As they were flipping through it, they were able to identify all the time periods we've studied so far based on a few weapons samples and the era-appropriate artwork that accompanied them.

Library Day

The girls made another friend at the library this week. G is a (probably) 3-year-old who joined them at the puzzle table and requested Bug’s help in getting a puzzle put together. Bug was quite willing to jump in, help out, and even introduce herself. The girls actually spent tons of time playing with a felt board this week that included lots of pieces for building landscapes and dressing people. We came home with these books:

Fox on Wheels

King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson

Take Care, Good Knight

Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night

Leon the Chameleon

When No One Is Watching

Leif the Lucky (a biography for our next history unit)

Little Quack’s Hide and Seek

Tico and the Golden Wings

Let’s Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy (new development: these last three books were picked when the girls had me help them seek out some of their current favorite authors)

The Three Rs

The big girls have actually started do more independent reading! Being able to really read books to Goose has definitely been part of their motivation (and Goose is thrilled, of course). As part of our actual reading lesson time, Monkey read Where’s Spot?, The Doghouse, and Ten Black Dots; and Bug read Ten Apples Up on Top, Rosie’s Walk, and Inside Outside Upside Down. Goose seems to have decided that she’s not actually ready for the text book lessons yet, but she’s been having me read through the Bob books sets of alphabet and pre-reading skills books.

For math, both big girls have worked on addition, place value (we added in the hundreds place this week), and fractions (we did a fun hands-on activity where I built little Lego towers and had them tell me what fraction of the tower was constructed of a particular color of block). Bug also practiced skip counting, and Monkey been doing an independent study of telling time—she’s been actively seeking out books about time, telling time games on Starfall.com, and asking questions about the current time using the clock in the playroom (intentionally hung at their eye level).

For writing, the girls are still really into the worksheets. This week they did activities that involved unscrambling words, supplying the missing letters in words, and creating plurals. They also worked on filling out a family tree and added entries to their composition books.

Obviously, this isn't at the play-
ground, but Bug was pretty excited
about figuring out how to climb the
doorway.

Park Days

We actually got out to playgrounds four times this week! Time at the playground is never wasted, and not just because the girls get plenty of exercise while running, climbing, and mastering skills like pumping on the swings. It’s a great place for independently building social skills—making friends and negotiating play space. While the kids are free to do their own thing, the moms are right there on the sidelines to help out if things get out of hand as well as modelling the whole “turning strangers into friends” thing. With our girls at least, time at the park inevitably turns into building language arts and problem solving skills as they invent plays involving complex storylines and frequently large casts of characters pulled from familiar stories, history, or their own imaginations. The spontaneously compose songs and build entire unique worlds out of simple playground equipment. The possibilities are endless!