Library Day
Everybody loves storytime! Monkey actually participated the whole time this week. All three girls were more intentionally selective about their book choices this week, so we had a smaller stack to take home. Of course, we didn't return all the books from last week (on purpose, I don't think we've lost any yet). Here's what we added this week:

Just for fun:
Ella the Elegant Elephant
Adelita: A Mexican Cinderella Story
The First Drawing

Poetry:
Handsprings (poetry all about spring)

Science:
Trout Are Made of Trees

For Goose:
Alphabet House 
Storybook Treasury of Dick and Jane*

For Monkey:
Let's Go for a Drive*
Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire*

For Bug:
Fancy Nancy: 100th Day of School*
Ling & Ting: Share a Birthday*

Trout Are Made of Trees!
The girls laughed at the ridiculousness of this book title, but this great picture book about a woodland food chain quickly proved its case. We read it multiple times and talked a lot about the food web. In fact I found this printable card game that we turned into a science/art project instead by gluing the cards to construction paper and drawing arrows to show who eats what. Of course, this also involved a bit of research on what these animals actually eat.

Jesus & Bible Memory
I realized it's been ages since I've written about our Bible studies. They still happen! Usually, while the girls are eating breakfast, I read a Bible story, and we work on our memory verses. Right now we're using Goose's Little Kids' Adventure Bible to read through the life and teachings of Jesus (it takes all four gospels, puts all the stories in chronological order, and removes any duplicates). A fellow homeschooling mom gave me "an alphabet of Bible verses" about a month ago that we've been working through. The girls love it, and all three of them can recite the verses for A through E (Mt 7:7; Eph 4:32; Ps 55:22; Phil 4:6; Jas 1:17). We've also been working on Psalm 100 for children's choir, and even Goose can recite the whole Psalm with only a few prompts!

History
This week we finished reading through Colonial Voices and read Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. We also watched a Liberty's Kids episode about the conflict over the colonial postal service and Ben Franklin's becoming the first Postmaster General.

The Three Rs
Hmm . . . now that Goose knows enough to read a few Bob Books, she's been begging for more actual books at her level and completely turning her nose up at the idea of working through anymore lessons in Teach Your Child to Read. She did, however, enjoy playing with the rhyming cards I made for her (a few cards with endings plus initial sounds cards to be mixed up to form words). I also found a Dick and Jane reader at the library that she loves. She can sight read the first two or three stories and pick out the familiar words in the other stories. (In theory, I much prefer a phonics program to sight reading, but if it works, it works!)

For Goose's math this week, we used flashcards and goldfish crackers to work on number recognition and number sequence. She also likes to look over her sister's shoulders when they do their Khan Academy tasks, but they get annoyed when she answers the questions for them. They continue to teach her numbers through 100, addition, and shapes. The big girls continue to do drills for simple addition and subtraction and work on Khan Academy tasks. Monkey now has 39% of early math mastered, and Bug has 31% (Monkey's been mostly knocking out the easy stuff, while Bug has tackled some more challenging topics.) Playing games is still part of the routine, and this week we played a few rounds of checkers (me versus each big girl individually). Their ability to lose gracefully has definitely improved. I think it helped that they got to watch me almost lose to Bug and see how I handled that situation.

For writing this week, Monkey and Bug each picked a theme: Bug copied poems from Handsprings the first few days, then dictated a longer composition about her favorite poems and why she liked them. Monkey filled her week with animal studies. We researched online, then she wrote about foxes, wolves, and jaguars.

Music for Everybody!
Monkey started drum lessons this week! She did really well with the musical aspect of lessons--picked up on the proper way to hold the sticks and copied the first rhythm patterns really well. She learned drum roll, paradiddle, triplets, and the different notes (quarter, eighth, and sixteenth). She didn't handle the social interaction aspect of the lesson so well--she hid in the kitchen when he first arrived and even when she agreed to do the lesson she didn't actually speak to him. (Next week will be better.) She's loving playing the drum, though! She practices the rhythms Mr. B gave her along with some of her own at every opportunity.

Goose acquired an additional book this week that she's very excited about! Dr. J wanted her to have more songs to play at her current level before he teaches her any new skills. She was able to cross off another song this week and add a couple of new ones from the new book.

Bug had obviously improved since last week! She was able to read through "Twinkle" all by herself without looking at her fingers or having her teacher point to the notes for her. She also improved her bowing technique. It's not consistent yet, but it's getting better!