Library Day
We had another week without a librarian-led storytime, but of course we enjoyed our own. I read at least a dozen books that the girls pulled off the shelf, and had the occasional random preschooler stop by to join us briefly. When I finally insisted my voice was tired, we wandered over to a project table the children's librarian had set up with paper and ocean life stamps. The girls had a great putting stamps on paper and on their hands. We came home with these books:
The Carrot Seed
I'm Big!
Moo!
Captain Abdul's Pirate School
Fireflies, Fireflies, Light My Way
Froggy's Halloween
Chocolatina
Otis and the Puppy
Ask Dr. K. Fisher about Dinosaurs
Marie in Fourth Position
Rhinos who Skateboard

Happy Birthday!

Everybody loves making birthday cookies!

Monkey and Bug turned 6! We didn't actually celebrate on their birthday, but we did quite a bit of celebrating. I gave them their choice of meals one day, so we ate at their favorite local fast food place for lunch and a yummy noodle shop for dinner (their favorite because they can each get their own plate of stir fried noodles; my favorite because each plate is only $1!). Before going out to dinner they got to open presents and cards (writing thank notes is on the lesson plan for next week). The next day they were very busy with some of those presents: Monkey experimented with her digital drum set; Bug has started knitting a purse using one of her looms; and I taught the girls how to play pick up sticks and mancala (they got a 10 in 1 game set). Miss C, the Kids' Club teacher at church, took them out for ice cream. This was their first time going somewhere with an adult who wasn't a family member;
they were a little nervous when I first told them the plan, but they were excited about the ice cream and about getting some 2 on 1 time with Miss C. They had a great time, and Miss C said they were extremely polite and well behaved (makes a mommy proud!). Monkey and Bug said they didn't want a birthday cake--they wanted to make and decorate sugar cookies instead! They turned out beautifully! (You'll note there was no mention of a party in all this celebrating. That's not because I'm depriving my kids of childhood fun; that's because they requested we not have one. They've been to a number of birthday parties, and they both said they really didn't want everyone staring at them and singing, so could we just do a family celebration, please? Absolutely!)

Three Rs
Several new things were started this week. Both girls are big fans of the math and writing workfolders: I stocked them with several weeks worth of sheets, and the girls have enjoyed being able to choose their own lessons every morning.

In math this week, Bug worked on: addition, subtraction, fractions, telling time, counting money, and creating/reading bar graphs. Monkey worked on all the same things plus we introduced counting by 5s using a dot-to-dot activity. Both girls also did addition flashcards with me this week (adding digits 0-12). I was actually impressed by how many they could do without counting on their fingers and by just how many they were willing to do in a sitting (30-50 problems).

We introduced spelling tests this week as well. Bug had her first list down in short order and asked if she could take her test early and not have to deal with it the rest of the week. I agreed, and she spelled every word correctly with no hesitation. Monkey knew what letters were in all the words with confidence, but she really struggled with remembering what order they went in. She actually only missed one; my plan is to put it on next weeks list, so she can review it again. The girls got to choose their writing pages, and they both opted to do grammar all this week, so we learned about nouns and verbs (using sheets that had them circling words or filling in blanks). Bug also started learning cursive this week. She started with her name, of course, and she loves it!

For reading, Monkey read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, Raindrop Plop, Kitty Up, and The Orange Book. Bug read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons on multiple days (because she wanted to learn all the words well enough to read it to Goose) and Raindrop Plop. This week I also created word-building cards (little cards with individual letters, digraphs, and common word endings on them). We spread out the cards and I had Monkey and Bug see what words they could build and I wrote down a list of what they came up with. Monkey loved this activity!

Notes on Other Subjects
Science: The Frizz is back in play! The girls watched a Magic School Bus episode about desert plants and animals, because they remembered that we'd been to some deserts on our trips and they wanted to learn more about it again.

Bible: In our family reading time, we finished the stories of Jacob and started a new bookmark with the stories about Gideon. Bible quizzing was introduced at church this Wednesday. Monkey and Bug are so excited about their new workbooks about Exodus! Goose's class of preschoolers and kindergartners will be learning about the creation story for the next month or so.

History: This week we learned about runes and picture stones. We read the appropriate sections from the Eyewitness book, and I found photographs of more picture stones online for them to peruse. To wrap it up, each of the big girls created their own using a paper-wrapped cereal box. Once again their personal styles came out: Monkey made hers a thing of personal significance with a drawing of our family; Bug meticulously copied the style of the Jelling Stone, one of the most famous and well-preserved examples.

Both sides of Monkey's picture stone: on one side she drew Mommy and Daddy
and on the other side she drew herself holding her stuffed inch worm with her sisters on either side

Both sides of Bug's picture stone with an inset image of the Jelling Stone

Doctor Who?
One day this week found us facing an exceptionally large mountain of clean clothes to fold, and my solution to keeping us all entertained and get the job done was to introduce the girls to Classic Doctor Who. Definitely a good choice--they loved it! Thanks to a new offering by Netflix, we got to watch a series of episodes about the 2nd Doctor and the Mind Robber from the late 1960s. While Daddy and I have deemed the current Doctor Who show too scary and complex for the girls to enjoy, the Classic Doctor is just their speed. The plotlines are fairly simple and slow moving, and the special effects are hilariously bad (for example, the bad robots in these episodes were obviously people with cardboard boxes on their heads and torsos and dryer vent tubes on their arms and legs). Just in case you were wondering it was indeed educational! The Mind Robber episodes feature characters brought to life from mythology and fairytales and the girls had fun identifying characters like Medusa and Repunzel and recalling the original storylines and how they were the same/different from the parts they played in the show. Of course, this being Doctor Who lots of discussion was had about how time works (and "what does the future mean?"). Once we explained it all the big girls at least could get in on the humor of one of the Doctor's companions being a "girl from the distant future"--the year 2000, which came and went before they were even born! In contrast the Doctor's other companion was a boy from the 1700s.