They love this tree at church!

Friends Outside!

The past couple of months the weather has finally been nice enough not to be cooped up indoors! We met a fellow homeschooling family for a picnic lunch at the neighborhood park one day (my photos turned out mysteriously blurry--very sad), and the girls have spent almost every afternoon outside playing with our backdoor neighbors. Their preschool son has been thrilled to have playmates that he's dubbed "my girlfriends" (it's easier than keeping their names straight when you're three). They have imaginative "adventures," dig for worms, play on his swing set, go for rides on the tractor (Mr. M has a riding lawn mower with a trailer), and they even invited us to join them for s'mores around their fire pit one evening. So much fun!

Three R's

Monkey acquired a set of Revolutionary War
army men, and she and Bug spent quite a bit of
time staging reasonably accurate battles
(note the Redcoats all lined up nicely, and
the blue Continentals scattered around the edge)

The three R's continue! Goose appears to have decided she's a kindergartner. In the span of about a week (maybe two), she completed all three preschool math workbooks I had for her! I printed up a few simple math worksheets at her request. She completed them, handed them back, and informed me that I really needed to find harder problems for her to work on. Well, ok then! She also seems to have succeeded in swallowing the alphabet whole using worksheets, a dry erase workbook, the Starfall website, and participation in her sisters' spelling lessons. The other day I watched over her shoulder while she played a game that required her to spell 3-letter words (like cat and man) after hearing the computer say them. She was terribly disappointed when we had to return her Dick and Jane anthology to the library, and she's been having me do a lot of repeat reading with her, while she reads the sight words she knows already. Starfall is also conducive to her determination to sight read because to get the site to say the instruction for each activity she has to click on the words individually.

Monkey and Bug have both reached that exciting point where they can pick just about any picture book and read it with minimal help. Lots of words are still tricky, but not enough to deter them! I still sit with each of them to read particular books, but they do a lot more reading on their own now. For writing they've been enjoying picture story prompts using free printable coloring sheets I find online as well as writing about our out-of-town adventures. For math, Khan Academy supplemented by math facts worksheets continues to be working well for us. Both big girls have completed just over 70% of the Early Math curriculum (kindergarten through second grade skills)--exactly where they need to be for the end of first grade. They've certainly slowed down their rate of mastery at this point as they're running into new and more difficult concepts, but I doubt it will take them an entire year to finish that last 30%.

Life Skills

Bug hand stitched this cozy
jacket herself using the sleeves
from a sweatshirt we turned
intoa pillow.

Academics aren't everything, and the girls have been learning some other important skills recently. They've gained further independence over bathtime (Goose is the only one who really needs help now). I've introduced kitchen clean up as a daily chore (they've been clearing their places after meals for awhile). Now they all help unload the clean dishes in the morning, and they take turns being my helper after dinner--scraping plates, loading the dishwasher, rinsing dishes, sweeping, etc. It's so nice to have help speeding up the process! 

The other thing they've learned how to do is work the scanner. I recently pointed out that their numerous artworks would not be able to come back to the West Coast with us, and Bug came up with the idea of using the scanner to create a digital portfolio she could keep on her netbook. I was happy to teach them how to use it, and they each created their portfolios and cheerfully tossed the hard copies into the recycling bin!

So this technological history lesson actually happened on our drive to Maine, but I forgot to write about it. We were getting some wiggles out at a rest stop and walked past a bank of pay phones. "What are those machines, Mommy?" Daddy and I laughed really hard when we realized they had no idea, and we explained the whole concept of phones having wires and not being mobile. They were also puzzled by phone books (they've probably never seen one of those before either). "Why would you need that?" We also made them figure out how you would listen and talk on them. They usually Skype or FaceTime for their own long-distance communication, so even having to hold something up to your ear and mouth was a bit of a foreign concept.

Library Days

All three girls have continued enjoying story time here, and have been active participants in all the songs and activities and have even piped up with relevant questions and comments. (I'm curious to see if this new-found confidence translates to other more populated story times.) I haven't kept track of the dozens of books we've checked out over the past month or so, but we've continued our usual wide selection of subjects: science (lots of books about rocks lately), poetry (some Robert Frost and A. A. Milne), art (storybooks and information books about the life and work of Claude Monet), and picture books (contemporary stories as well as classics and fairy tales). 

Music

The girls had a very positive experience singing with the children's choir during a service! We were particularly proud of Monkey for facing her fears and doing a beautiful job. Having Daddy present this time definitely helped boost her confidence.

The girls have all had their last music lessons here as well. Bug gained another real song, "Lightly Row," and Mr. D says she's acquired the solid foundational skills that will make her transition to a new teacher easier. Goose has also reached a good pausing point--she's reached a plateau where she needs to master the skills she has before moving on, and she really just wants time to play on the piano at her leisure (she is really looking forward to getting her own little keyboard when we return to the West Coast!). Monkey has been doing great with her drum teacher--making good progress and looking forward to starting up with a new teacher!