the rose garden

New Art Exhibit!

The girls and I were very excited this week--we went to check out the new exhibit at the local art museum on Monday. There were really two exhibits going: The first one was a very temporary exhibit called "Art in Bloom." Local florist had been asked to create works of art using locally grown plants and flowers--some really gorgeous arrangements were displayed throughout the museum. Of course, we couldn't leave without a walk through the museum's actual gardens. The rose garden was in riotous bloom this time! In the rhododendron garden, the girls played a fun game of trying to match fallen leaves or flowers to what tree or bush they came from.

The other exhibit that will actually be there for several months was a collection of representative works of the last 50 years of art (painting and mixed media works) in California. We did our usual method of viewing the exhibit--trying to pause, however briefly, at each work to take it in and to note the artist and title. I punctuated our walk with questions: What do you see? What do you like? Why do you think the artist called it that? Or, if it was "untitled," what would you call it? How do you think the artist did that? What's it made of? The majority of the works were abstract paintings, so I got some pretty interesting answers! A friendly museum guide was also able to answer some of those last two questions for us. The guide also complemented the girls on their "wonderful museum behavior," and we shared that we just had to remember two words "walking and whispering." She was thrilled to see such little ones enjoying the artwork.

The enjoyment of artwork didn't stop at the museum though. Monkey and Bug were feeling inspired by particular paintings and asked if we could set up an outdoor studio for them to work in. Of course! We used a few folding chairs and a massive cardboard box that's been lying around and brought their painting supplies out under the carport. Monkey's painting on the left, titled "Blue," was inspired by a series of paintings with names like "Orange," "Red on Red," and "Green." The paintings were made of one predominate color, but the artists played with various tones and textures. Bug's painting on the right, titled "Bright Rainbow," was inspired by a painting called "Index Finger," in which the artist used a mix of plaster and charcoal applied by her index finger to create a pattern on canvas. Bug chose to brighten the palette for her work, but kept the artist's sense experimentation with a highly textured finished work using a thick application of paint.

Playdates & Making Friends

It feels like it's been a particularly social week! On Tuesday morning, we met several friends at church and took over a section of the parking lot, so the kids could ride bikes. Of course, they mostly ended up on the playground, but it was a good chance for both the moms and kids to hang out. As usual, Wednesday night is church, and Thursday night is OCF--both of which involve church friends, then on Friday we made it back to the homeschool park day (we've missed several weeks). The girls made two new friends (who's names they didn't get this time around), and got to play with one of the little boys they know from church. They made a couple of new friends at the library this week too. I'm so excited that Monkey and Bug have finally figured out this making friends thing, and what was once a terrifying and unwelcome possibility is now so easy for them.

They've gotten significantly better about talking to friendly strangers when we're out and about too--cashiers at the store, librarians, retirees at the commissary, they even waved to people in the neighborhood when we were out running (see below). We actually had a memorable conversation at the commissary this week: We were shopping at about the same pace as an elderly gentlemen, and eventually we exchanged more than pleasantries. As a young man he had really wanted to join the military. It turns out he was color blind, so the Navy didn't want him, then the Marines said he was too short, finally the Army was willing to enlist him, and he said it was the best thing he ever did. He retired 44 year's ago and says he still misses it. It was an honor to meet our own "Steve Rodgers"--a man who wasn't about to let a few physical shortcomings and naysayers keep him from serving his country. 

Library Day

Storytime is still on hiatus, and Monkey actually admitted that she prefers the library when it's not a storytime day. This week Bug initiated putting together a big floor puzzle about colors. Monkey and Bug jumped in to help and pretty soon they had two other preschoolers involved too. When they finally had it all together, Monkey and Bug helped the little ones review their colors before getting everybody to help them put it back in the box. We also took the time to pick out these books:

I Love My New Toy!

I'm a Baby. You're a Baby

Goodnight, Goodnight, Sleepyhead

Nicolas, Where Have You Been?

Why Do You Cry? : Not a Sob Story

The Foot Book

Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo

Herman the Helper

Library Mouse: A World to Explore

The Red Balloon

The Three Rs

For reading this week, Bug read Ten Black Dots and I Love My New Toy! She also spent quite a while sorting rhyming word cards. Monkey read Hop on Pop and I Love My New Toy! Goose decided she wanted to take a step back from formal lessons, so we didn't cover any additional lessons in the textbook this week, but she quite enthusiastically joined her sisters when they wanted to help her review the sounds she already knew from the textbook and practice letter recognition and singing the alphabet song.

For math, Goose is continuing to practice counting up to 20. Monkey and Bug are covering single and double digit addition (one of their exercises this week was coming up with how many ways you could make 5 or 7 or 10, etc.), fractions, telling time, and counting money. Bug is also learning skip counting for 4 and 5.

For writing, Bug wanted to copy a Bible verse and wrote out the alphabet for Goose. Monkey wrote about albatrosses. Both girls enjoyed a spelling activity that had them completing color words by adding in the missing consonant blends (i.e. "_ _ ue" needs "bl" to make "blue"). Adding these spelling activities into our lessons has definitely been a good thing, since Monkey at least has started spontaneously trying to figure out how to spell words she thinks of. I added a new thing this week that I falls best under "writing," although at this point the girls aren't putting pen to paper themselves. A long while back I bought them each a composition book that has gone mostly unused (bound pages are a bit hard to write in), so I decided to make use them this way: Friday afternoons we take time for narration; I do the actual writing, and they tell me what to write on pretty much any topic of their choice from our homeschool week--something we did this week, about a book they're reading, a topic they're learning about, etc. They really enjoyed it, and it'll be fun to have a record of what stuck out to them from the week. Eventually of course, I want the books to be something they write in themselves, but this seemed like a good place to start--it gives them a chance to write a composition without the stress of handwriting.

We're Running!

At some point in the last couple of weeks, Goose's gait changed from the flat-footed toddler run to an all out real run, and she is a runner! Not in the running away from me sense, fortunately, but in the she-wants-to-run-long-distances-just-for-the-joy-of-it sense. Lately, she's been spontaneously running laps whenever the opportunity presents itself--up and down the sidewalk at a friend's house, around the courtyard at church, around the playground, etc. So, when I was getting ready to go for my own run on Thursday, I asked if she wanted to run a lap around the block. She was so excited! Her sister's wanted in on the action too, of course, but while they would sprint, then wait, sprint, then wait and ended up completely exhausted at the end, Goose set herself a decent pace and kept it--and a stream of commentary--up for the entire lap, then wanted to do another one. I obliged and Monkey and Bug came for the second one too, but they slowed their pace considerably. Goose didn't! In fact, she figured out how to regulate her pace and would inform me that she was "going to put her speed on," and run ahead so I could catch up to her this time! After that I went for my own 2.5 mile run around the neighborhood and came back to the house to find her ready to go for another round! Her sister's headed to jujitsu class, and I agreed to take Goose for another lap before I took my shower and got us ready for OCF. Once again she kept a steady pace and a steady conversation and would definitely have been up for more if we'd had the time. Daddy and I looked at GoogleMaps later--that tiny girl ran 1.8 miles and wanted to go further! She says her goal is to get fast enough to go running with Daddy.

Tidbits

• We finished our study of women of the Bible. Since I last posted about this we read the book of Esther, and the New Testament "girl stories" (Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, Mary & Martha, several unnamed women who were healed and presumably became believers, Tabitha, Lydia, Priscilla, and we noted the prominent females in the early church who are named but have no real stories written in the Bible).
• Monkey requested that we read the Eyewitness pages about the ancient Greek games, and we read several myths and fables this week too.
• After reading The Red Balloon, we found the short movie on Netflix to watch (they loved it!). We compared the two versions of the story and talked about the concept of subtitles (the movie is French).