Library Day
We're sticking with, and still loving, our new storytime-free library day. The girls played with the magnetic building blocks (they built the pyramids of Giza), and we read tons of books. We came home with these books:
Take a Kiss to School
If You Seek Adventure
Rhinos Who Skateboard
Good-bye, 328 Shin Dang Dong
Lizard Sees the World
Little Blue and Little Yellow
Daisy Is a Mommy
That's Not Fair, Hare!
Frederick
The Vanities

Three Rs
For reading this week, Bug finished Danny and the Dinosaur and read "Owl and Little Bear." Monkey is just two pages shy of finishing "Your Friend, Little Bear" (reading is still agonizingly slow most days, but she is making progress). We also did an extra reading/writing lesson about vowels and syllables, which they loved! I wrote the vowels on the white board, explained why they're special letters, had the girls tell me the different sounds they make and come up with a word for each sound. This segued nicely into syllables since every syllable has to have a vowel sound. I wrote words up on the board and had them underlining all the vowels, splitting words into syllables with vertical lines and having good discussions about confusing things like silent es and how in some words a particular vowel doesn't sound like itself at all (e.g., we pronounce was as if it were spelled wuz).

For writing this week, we did that review spelling unit I mentioned (very helpful), reviewed capitalization and verbs vs. nouns, and both girls dictated journal entries about the pizza and movie night they had with Daddy and some family friends (I went with the mommies to man an Officer's Christian Fellowship table for a new milspouses event. We book-ended the event with dinner and dessert and had a fantastic girl's night!)

For math, Monkey practiced counting by 2s, fractions, and subtraction; creating and reading graphs; estimating weight and volume (and actually measuring volume); and counting money. Bug practiced multiplying by 2 and 3, subtraction, counting money, and addition. Monkey and Bug particularly loved the counting money activity this week: I found a printable to create a dice with pictures of multiple coins on each side. The girls would roll two dice and add up the money shown.

Jujitsu
Monkey and Bug acquired new belts this week!
They had to complete a demonstration at the end of class to prove they know the required katas, and they had to answer a few questions about the martial art they're studying.

Quick Updates

• For their Bible studies this week, at home we're reading about Solomon, and at church they learned about the first plague in Egypt and memorized Exodus 6:5.
• For history this week we didn't do any projects, but we read a bunch of sections in the Eyewitness book (so we can get through it all before we have to pack it up): On the Banks of the Nile (about seasonal floods), Famous Pharaohs, The Royal Court, Preparing for the Tomb, Everlasting Bodies (both about mummification rituals and techniques), The Great Pyramids, The Valley of the Kings, Gods and Goddesses, and Medicine.
• Swimming lessons continue. This week before lessons we talked about what skills they needed to master before they can move up a level (particularly motivating for Bug). This week Bug asked her teacher if she could practice more swimming all by herself and was thrilled when Mr. V agreed. 
• On Saturday we helped out a fellow military family by watching their 1-year-old daughter for the morning. The girls had a fantastic time getting to be the big kids. It was a good learning experience too--evaluating what toys would be really good for her and which ones should be put out of her reach entirely, picking what foods she could eat for snack, vigilantly keeping her out of certain room or at least away from our cat (who's not a fan of babies and toddlers), and helping toddler proof the kitchen and living room (what would be safe for her and what should she stay out of).

Bug is still building things! This three room house even had internal doorways.