Happy Independence Day!

We started off our 4th of July celebrations first thing in the morning with patriotic parfaits (sliced strawberries, vanilla yogurt, and blueberries) and watermelon stars for breakfast! Bug woke up early and helped me make the parfaits, then Monkey and Goose took turns using a cookie cutter to make the stars. Later that morning, the girls got to watch their very first parade! Fancy floats, huge balloons , cool cars, dance troupes, soldiers, sailors, and airmen in dress uniforms, clowns, history re-enactors, etc.--they loved it! We followed the crowds to a lawn party and patriotic concert the city was hosting, but decided we weren't up for fighting the ridiculous crowds.

"Is the parade coming yet?"

We decided to find our own all-American lunch (topped off with milkshakes) at a local burger joint. Yum! That afternoon I printed up Independence Day coloring sheets for the girls, and the whole day was filled with discussions about what exactly we were celebrating. The discussions culminated with a viewing of Liberty's Kids "The First Independence Day," so the girls got to see an animated historical fiction version about what actually happened. (Liberty's Kids is an acclaimed series about the Revolutionary War through the eyes of three colonial kids. We'll be watching it in its entirety this winter when we study colonial America.)

Bible Studies
We finished Mark's gospel before we left for our trip to Colorado and started a new study. For the forseeable future, we'll be studying major characters of the Old Testament. I started making bookmarks that list the Bible references for stories related to a particular character. We started with Jonah (because he had a short story we could easily get through before our trip), and now we're about halfway through the stories of Abraham. The benefit of having the bookmarks, rather than just picking up the Bible and reading, is that it means I've read through them ahead of time and can easily skip over any bits our girls aren't ready to deal with yet. The girls also like being able to help find the references listed, then check them off once we've finished. Of course, we're still reading the Bible storybook for Goose's benefit, but the big girls are ready for more details than the storybook gets into.

This month at church Monkey and Bug's class will be studying Exodus and Deuteronomy, and I'm sure Miss C has lots of fun things for them to learn and do on Sundays! She also prepared a folder for each kid to take home that includes activity sheets and coloring pages. Apparently, there's a prize available for each kid who turns in a completed folder by the end of the month, and our girls are just loving having a ready supply of things to color while getting previews of the stories they'll be learning at church. I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but our whole church is studying Jesus' parables this summer on Wednesday nights with age appropriate Bible studies/activities for everybody.

Swimming Lessons!
The girls were so excited (and a little nervous) about starting swimming lessons on Monday! We've had a lot of discussions about being brave (doing something good even when you're scared), and the girls have done beautifully. The classes are small--only 4 kids--so the girls get plenty of time with their teachers. Monkey and Bug are learning to glide and to do the freestyle and back strokes, along with doing other fun things like jumping in. Goose had a few teary, difficult moments at the beginning of the week (reasonable since she's only three and this is the first time anyone but Daddy or I has taught her a skill), but her teacher is great and she had definitely gained confidence by the end of the week. She's practicing holding her breath underwater, blowing bubbles, floating on her back, and doggie paddling.

The entourage waited so patiently for their classes to get started.

The Three Rs (Plus a Bit of History)
This week we were playing catch up from our two weeks away, preparing for our camping trip this weekend, and of course spending every morning at swimming lessons. As a result I decided to take it easy this week and just make sure we covered at least one formal lesson everyday.

• Monkey read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and Bug read Rosie's Walk.
• Bug practiced addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Monkey practiced addition and fractions; at some point this week, she also started piecing together the concept multiplication ("Hey, Mom, I know that two 2s is 4 and three 2s is 6!")
• Both girls completed word games from their Exodus & Deuteronomy folders for their writing lesson.

By popular demand we also did several history lessons this week: they wanted to read more Norse mythology and (no surprise) they're pretty fascinated by the Valkyrie.

Science: Electronics
The girls have done more electricity lessons with Daddy using the SnapCircuits set. In fact, after building something with Daddy and reviewing how it all worked, Monkey and Bug decided to take on a pretty complex project of their own. With minimal assistance from Daddy, they built something called a Space War Alarm (it makes cool noises that definitely sound like they came out of a sci-fi movie).

Fairy Tale Reality Check
The girls and I had a great dinner table conversation about how not every fairy tale that ends in a wedding is actually a good model for a healthy marriage. It started because of a  princess book Goose picked at the library; we had read it that afternoon, and the girls realized with surprise and confusion that the princess in the book doesn't have a name! (Bug asked, "How can the knight be in love with her if he doesn't even know her name?!") We talked about how marriages are built on a special friendship, common beliefs and interests, an ability to work together, etc., not on wealth and beauty (the princess in the book) or strength and common sense (the knight). The girls decided that Fiona and Shrek made the cut as did Aziza and Ahmed, but not Cinderella and her (also unnamed) prince.