Happy Thanksgiving!
Obviously our most recent civics studies have focused on Thanksgiving! (We've also discussed the Liberty Bell and the Statue of Liberty since I wrote last.) After studying Plymouth colony in depth for our colonial studies last year, I was pleased that the girls could tell me the story this year instead of vice versa. We did also read a book about the traditional first Thanksgiving, illustrated with photos from Plimouth Plantation (the living history museum) and full of "first person" accounts of the events. All three girls made "thankful turkeys" (they wrote things they're thankful for on each feather), and the big girls also completed a couple of writing assignments: one about the importance of Thanksgiving and one imagining they were a child in the colony.

Of course, you can't learn about Thanksgiving without joining friends for an actual feast! On Thursday afternoon, we headed to the house of some neighborhood friends with our contributions to the feast. Additional friends and family members arrived to eat, play games, eat some more, and just have a great time! (In all the excitement, no pictures were taken. Sorry, folks.)

Go! Go! Go!
Goose got to start gymnastics last week and loved it! (The big girls did very well in their second class.) Most of the class is spent doing laps through an obstacle course of gymnastics activities (practicing somersaults, balance beams, jumping, etc.). Immediately following her class we spent about an hour in a nearby playground that included a pretty extensive bouldering wall. After doing a run through of all the other playground equipment, all three girls settled into conquering the wall. As if that wasn't enough to wear out Goose's little legs, she went running with Daddy the very next morning. They did a 2.5 mile loop that involved road, woods, boardwalk, and beach.

Geek Culture
Daddy and I recently introduced the girls to some classic fantasy movies: The Hobbit (the animated one from the 70s), The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. These little nuts didn't fall far from the tree, and they are huge fans! We have had many discussions about character traits, plot points, motivation, back story, etc. for all three movies, as well as the usual book/movie comparisons for Labyrinth (it's loosely based on Maurice Sendak's Outside, Over There). They're excited about someday reading The Hobbit too. Monkey and Bug in particular were fascinated by the puppetry in The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and we successfully searched the web for behind-the-scenes videos and pictures.

Bug's Extras
Bug has definitely found her stride in getting her formal lessons done efficiently. With her additional free time she's been pursuing a couple of personal interests. Daddy introduced her to computer programming awhile back by walking her through the creation of a math problem generator. In the past couple of weeks he also found an online resource (Code.org) she can use mostly on her own to create a Star Wars-themed game. She was thrilled! Given her interest in coding and her mastery of handwriting (in print; we'll tackle cursive next year), we decided it was time to find a typing course for her. I discovered Typing.com, a free online typing course that's a similar set up to Khan Academy (she can log in as a student and walk herself through the lessons and activities to earn points and badges for mastering keys). Ten minutes in she exclaimed, "Mommy, I like this!"

She's also been following through on a different interest: sewing.
She recently designed and created a small stuffed doll named Scrappy. I gave pointers and helped thread a few needles, but she did everything else.

Lego Challenges

These Lego challenge cards have been hugely popular in our house recently. I printed and cut out a few pages of them for the girls to keep in a box in the playroom. They have been
successfully kept busy for hours following the building suggestions on these little cards! (Parenting tip for encouraging Lego play: Spread out a sheet in the play area on which they can dump the bin of Legos. Clean up is as easy as gathering the four corners of the sheet and pouring them all back.)



Bible
All three girls continue to memorize lots of good Bible verses through our church's Awana Clubs (actually the big girls are currently memorizing the books of the Bible). Between those verses and our at home daily Bible readings, we've had lots of interesting discussions lately on everything from marriage in ancient Persia (thanks to Queens Vashti & Esther) to attempting to explain the Trinity (the girls remembered St. Patrick's analogy of the shamrock and that seemed to help) to looking up the origin story of Lucifer/Satan. Raising children in the faith is not for the faint of heart!

The Three Rs
The big girls continue to practice math facts for addition, subtraction, and multiplication while slowly working their way through 3rd grade math in Khan Academy (Monkey's at 19% and Bug's at 33%). Goose continues to play with lots of manipulatives and do a variety of kindergarten level worksheets.

For writing for the big girls, we're still doing weekly

Tea time + reading aloud by turn =
happy little homeschoolers

spelling units based on sight words and sound families, and they usually complete 3 or 4 small composition assignments each week (with grammar lessons thrown in periodically). Monkey generally runs with whatever suggestion I hand her, but Bug's been using some of that extra time to watch silent films on YouTube (Charlie Chaplin is a new favorite) and write reports about them (identifying details, plot summary, and her opinion). Monkey still does handwriting assignments (usually copywork of whatever she's memorizing for Awana), and I keep Goose's binder stocked with worksheets that require practicing her letters; she flies through them.

For reading lessons lately, Monkey has been loving books by Arnold Lobel or Edward Marshall. She has mastered a lot more sight words, which makes listening so much more pleasant! Goose has pretty well rejected the AlphaPhonics textbook in favor of actually practicing reading books (I can't blame her, and so far it's working well). To that end, I recently bought three more sets of Bob books, and I discovered this blog where The Measured Mom has over 100 free printable sight word books! (She also has letter books, but Goose is past that.) Bug continues to establish her identity as a serious bookworm. Fortunately, I have her keeping up her own reading log, so I don't actually have to remember what she's pulled off the home library shelves. She usually has multiple books going at once--a mix of novels and non-fiction. I recently introduced her to the American Girl novels (the historical ones), and she loves them! In fact, so far they've inspired her to look for non-fiction library books about European immigrants in the 1800s and frontier life as well as the Nez Perce tribe of the American Southwest.

I babysat for a friend recently, and most of the morning looked
like this--reading aloud and playing with Legos.