Weekend at the Pinnacles

We survived a family first this past weekend: camping! Admittedly, we had a rough start Friday evening that involved getting the tent halfway up only to have it start really raining. The tent was assembled successfully, but Daddy and I and the inside of the tent were pretty soaked (the girls watched this process from the car). We decided to do a little exploring of the park via car while praying that the rain would stop. It did . . . kinda. Enough to get a fire going and roast hot dogs; although the s'mores that followed were a bit damp since a light rain kept coming and going. The girls were SO excited about cooking their own hot dogs and marshmallows though! Daddy also took them for a walk after dinner with a break to listen to the ranger talk  about the local wildlife we might see. (I stayed at the campsite to "tend the fire," i.e., enjoy a little peace and quiet.) They definitely paid attention to the ranger because the next morning they successfully identified a large bird outside the nature center as a condor! A mountain lion had apparently left a deer carcass in a nearby creek bed overnight, and the condors were feasting on Saturday.

Fortunately, the rain clouds cleared up, and Saturday was gorgeous and wonderful! These girls proved themselves little troopers once again! We spent the morning/early afternoon completing a 4 mile hike--only Goose had to be carried and only for the last tenth of a mile. For this weekend and future adventures, we got the girls each their own "hiking pack" (adult fanny pack re-purposed as a kid's shoulder bag), equipped with their own water bottle, snack, lightweight waterproof jacket, headlamp, mirror, whistle, and signal light. We explained that those last three items in particular were in case they got lost and made sure they knew how to use them. Having their own hiking packs and survival gear definitely upped the seriousness of the expedition for them and added to the sense of accomplishment. They even got to use their new headlamps, since the trail we hiked involved walking/crawling/climbing through a series of unlit talus caves. The trail took us up to a beautiful reservoir where we admired the scenery and observed (but did not feed) an incredibly brave ground squirrel. At a few points along the trail we stopped to watch some rock climbers, and the girls were inspired to do their own bouldering along the way.

That hike really wore everybody out, and we happily spent the rest of the afternoon/evening just hanging out at the campsite. It's always fun to listen in on the girls playing, and this weekend proved particular interesting since we didn't bring any toys--there were no complaints; they relied entirely on their imaginations fed by good stories and good lessons to entertain themselves: They gathered little pebbles and pretended to be Hansel and Gretel dropping the little white stones around the campsite. They pretended the woods were full of Leafmen, and that Queen Tara (from Epic) joined forces with Queen Elsa (from Frozen) to fight off the bad guys with their combined powers. They noted the similarities and differences between our tent and the Tabernacle; at some point I'm pretty sure I even heard them staging a sacrifice (don't worry, no actual animals were harmed in this reenactment). They formed their own Native American tribe, danced around the campfire, and invented their own language. They pretended to be the ducks from Make Way for Ducklings and followed Daddy around in a nice neat line quacking as loud as they could. They observed a colony of ants consuming something and tried to figure out where the anthill was. They adopted a rather large rock, which they carried around for awhile in whatever play they were doing. Et cetera, et cetera.

They learned all kinds of other useful things: how to open and close the bear safe and why we put things in there, how to light and thoroughly douse a campfire, how to roast hot dogs and marshmallows and what to do if they catch on fire (blow them out and eat them anyway), how to make a s'more, how to properly enter and exit the tent in order to get the least amount of dirt possible in it, the importance of the "leave it better than you found it" principle, and how to find your way out of a sleeping bag (poor Goose was quite distressed when she woke to discover she had burrowed herself into the foot of it), that campsites are awesome places for star gazing (we located the big dipper and decided we needed to learn more constellations before we go camping again), and that Daddy is really good with a small air rifle but that the rest of us could use some practice (Monkey was the one other person who succeeded in knocking a little juice bottle off the tree branch. We even let Goose sit in my lap and shoot off a few pellets--she was pretty excited).

We made pancakes and packed up Sunday morning, and made it home by lunch time. Overall, a great trip! The girls are already excited about next time!

Tentacles!
Some friends of ours had this past Monday off from school (They've recently decided to home school next year, and the entourage is SO excited!), so we decided to meet at the aquarium to check out the new exhibit: Tentacles! It was a great exhibit, and we learned all about octopuses, squid, cuttlefish, and nautiluses. Most of these creature are amazingly good at camouflage, so we had fun playing "spot the cephalopod" as we approached each new tank.

Of course, we had to revisit some favorite spots, too. I was proud of the girls when we went through the jellyfish exhibit: Monkey and Bug were excitedly telling their friends the different species of jellyfish and explaining the whole life cycle. We spent some time in the kids' sections about ocean mammals and the kelp forest. In fact, we got to the kelp forest just in a time to watch a bit of a program with a diver in the tank before we headed for home.

Library Day
We were a bit late for storytime this week, but we made it in time to hear most of the books about growing things. We came home with these books:
The Boy in the Garden
Jungle Baseball Game
Englebert Joins the Circus
Boys' Team
Cat the Cat, Who is That?
The Cardboard Piano
Dig Hole, Soft Mole
Little Flower
Going to the Zoo

We went to the library last week too, but I completely forgot to write about it. I forget the theme for storytime, but we came home with these books:
At the Beach
Out of the Way! Out of the Way!
Argus
Library Mouse: A Friend's Tale
Kathy's Hats: A Story of Hope
Miss Spider's Wedding
Tillie and the Wall
Bringing in the New Year
Have You Ever Done That?

The Three R's
Major milestone for Goose this past week! Early in the week when Daddy was reading them a bedtime story, Goose jumped in to read the word "cat." Daddy told me about it and suggested that she might be ready to start really learning to read instead of just doing the preschool "letter of the week" lessons. I wasn't going to push it (she's only 3!), but I wish you could have seen her little eyes light up when I asked if she was interested! Not only was she interested, but she wanted to start right now! I obliged, of course. She did the first three lessons in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons this week, and she had me do some repetitive reading with her. I read and she repeated Ready, Set, Skip! and Kitty Up! multiple times this week. She was so excited to report to Daddy that she "could really read now!" She also did lots of counting as usual, and I confirmed that she knows the numerals 1-10 out of order.

For reading this week, Bug read Inside, Outside, Upside Down and Are You My Mother?  and Monkey read Where's Spot? and Inside, Outside, Upside Down.

For math, we continued our focus on place value and sums less than 10. I threw in a little work with fractions and occasionally asked them what time it was just to keep those skills fresh. Progress is being made! In fact, by the end of the week, Bug had proved her competency with her place value skills, and I gave her some skip counting connect the dots activities to do instead. Monkey also did some more than/less than problems which helped reinforce the place value knowledge.

For writing this week, Bug continued practicing some problematic letters, and Monkey did a report about armadillos. (For the record, family members, I keep suggesting letter writing as a good project, but nobody's biting. I'll keep trying.) I introduced the concept of spelling as a subject this week. We're not doing spelling lists at this point; I'm just trying to convince them that they are capable of sorting out how to spell some words themselves. They really enjoyed a cut-and-paste activity that had them connecting different beginning sounds to ending syllables (i.e., adding dr, th, s, and w to ink).

Real Greeks
We didn't do any history projects this week, but Monkey and Bug did some ancient-Greece themed coloring sheets while I read to them about famous real Greeks instead of the famous mythical ones. The DK book has a section of blurbs about people in the following categories: statesmen, writers and artists, thinkers, and scientists.

Super Novas
In keeping with our spontaneous science "curriculum" we learned about super novas this week. As we were getting out of the car after Wednesday night church, the girls were asking about stars: How far away are they? What are they made of? And this led to Bug inquiring about what would happen if one exploded. When we got inside, we Googled it, and watched a YouTube video of what does happen when a star goes super nova and admired lots of still shots. Daddy came home at some point in all this and stepped in to help explain things too.

Day Trip!
We kicked off the week last weekend by taking a day trip to a nearby city to enjoy some things our wonderful little town doesn't have. First we hit up a couple of bookstores. We made a number of purchases at a decent sized used bookstore (how can we resist?!), then browsed Barnes & Noble just for fun. We ate at a Chick-fil-a (highly popular), then enjoyed a first for all of us: a semi-pro ultimate frisbee game! (Daddy has played on ultimate teams and even coached a high school team for awhile.) So much fun! It was a really close game, but the home team won. We explained the sport to the girls, and they loved cheering--especially Goose--regardless of whether they knew what was going on. They proved pretty entertaining for some of the other spectators as well.

Women of Faith
With all the excitement of Nana visiting, I completely forgot to write about the Bible study the girls and I started a couple of weeks ago (we still have a daily Bible time even if we ditch formal lessons). A while back Bug commented with disappointment that there weren't very many girls in the Bible. I had to agree that there were more male major players than female, but I pointed out that there were actually a lot of girls in the real Bible who simply weren't featured in the Bible storybooks we've been using. We decided that for the big girls at least it was time to set aside the kiddie version of the Bible and dig into the real deal. (We still read stories from the preschool Bible storybook too, because the fun pictures are more engaging for Goose.) I finally found the time to do a little research and bookmark a bunch of "girl stories" from the Old Testament to get us started. So far we've read about:

• Eve
• Rebekah
• Shiphrah & Puah
• Jochobed & Miriam
• Rahab
• Deborah
• Jael
• Ruth
• Hannah
• Abigail
• Queen of Sheba
• Widow of Zarephath

The girls have really enjoyed it, and it's made them pay attention to other stories and see how girls of faith played a part even when they weren't the main character. For example, when we read about Naaman being healed of the skin disease in Goose's storybook, they pointed out how brave the slave girl had to be to tell her master about the prophet who could ask God to heal him.

Holy Week

Of course, this week we paused our study of girls of the Bible to focus on Holy Week. It kicked off on Palm Sunday when the girls unexpectedly processed in and played in the children's bell choir! They had missed church on Wednesday to spend some extra time with Nana, so we didn't have a heads up, but they handled it beautifully! The bells are color coded, so whenever the choir director held up a particular color card they knew to ring their bell. All three girls rang the same color, and R, a 12-year-old babysitter-in-training, helped guide them through it. 

For our morning Bible time we've been reading through all the events of Holy Week, using the Bible storybook and the real Bible. The girls and I also made our traditional shopping trip for fresh flowers. I let them each pick out a bunch to divide into vases and distribute around the house when we got home. We went to church the evening of Good Friday: while the grown ups watched  The Passion of the Christ, the kids dressed up in biblical costumes and watched The Jesus Film for Children. Since the kids' movie was significantly shorter than ours, they followed up the resurrection scene with a celebratory dance party.

On Saturday to further prepare for Sunday morning we dyed Easter eggs and made resurrection cookies--pecan meringue cookies that vaguely resemble rocky tombs are "buried and sealed" in the oven overnight. The next morning when you bite them open they're empty inside!  (Someone from church gave me the recipe, but you can find it here ). Easter Sunday meant treats for breakfast, new dresses for church, an egg hunt after the worship service, and an afternoon spent enjoying a potluck dinner and lots of hanging out time with friends! He is risen!

The girls are so excited about chocolate bunnies for breakfast!
Our Easter Sunday breakfast table also featured dyed eggs
and resurrection cookies and was decorated by a few of the
vases of flowers.

The Three Rs
For Monkey and Bug, we made a few changes in our formal lessons for math and reading this week, and it's definitely been a good thing! In our math lessons, I realized that we've reached our limit for new concepts at the moment, and we really need to focus on math facts. The girls are usually pretty quick to pick up new concepts, but I realized they still have to think about every little thing. Going forward is going to be a lot easier if we speed up that processing! So this week we've focused on two things: place value/reading two-digit numbers and sums less than 10. To help with this, I actually got a subscription to Education.com to get unlimited access to their thousands of worksheets. They have some really colorful and fun ones that will make drilling the facts a little more interesting. The girls are making progress! I got the occasional protest that "This is boring," but reading numbers is getting easier (less attempting to read them backwards: so 52 is "fifty-two," not "twenty-five"), and they've been excited about more and more simple addition problems that they just know instead of having to count out. 

I also realized that all the joy had gone out of our reading lessons.

Unrelated to the 3 Rs: This is what
happens when a trio of little girls on
the sunny West Coast is feeling
inspiredby Frozen to "make a snowman."

All three of us were bored and frustrated. Monkey even declared at one point that she "hated reading" [followed by melodramatic slump onto couch]. Since I know how much they both love books, something had to change! I decided to blame the easy readers. While they were technically composed of words they girls could sound out or know by sight, they were neither imaginative nor particularly well written. I banished them to the recycling bin, and no one complained. Instead I combed our shelves for thoroughly enjoyable, real books that just happen to be relatively easy to read. I also added several of those books from the used book store to the stack. Then I designated a book shelf in the hallway as our reading lesson shelf. I explained to the girls that these were the books we'd use for reading lessons now since they were all books I knew they could read. They are welcome to read them by themselves at any time, but I request that they be returned to this particular shelf when finished. (The contents of the shelf with change with their skill level and just to add some variety.) 

So, at the beginning of every day, I ask each girl to chose a book from the shelf. I take the books and write a list of potentially challenging words (because they're long or an exception to the usual phonics rules or simply unfamiliar). When it's time for reading lessons, we read through the list of challenging words (usually multiple times) before tackling the book itself. On occasion, I've also read the book to them first if requested. At this point I've also allowed repeat readings of the same book, since it's definitely improved their confidence and number of sight words. The joy is back! Reading lessons have been so much more fun and successful this week, and they're definitely reading more pages/words than they've been willing to previously.

Monkey has read:
Inside, Outside, Upside Down
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
Where Is Spot?

Bug has read:
Snug House, Bug House
Go, Dog. Go!
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Writing lessons continue as usual. Bug has spent more time concentrating on particular letters that are giving her trouble using tracing worksheets. Monkey decided to write a research paper about cobras this week. They both copied Matthew 28:6, and they still like coming up with random lists of words they want to know how to spell.

Goose learned the letter J this week, and she's starting to explore the concept of addition. I'm not doing formal lessons with this, but it's just been coming up. For example, at dinner she's been noticing things like if two of us are drinking juice and three of us are drinking milk, then we have five drinks total.

A Bit of History
We finally had time to do a history project this week. We read about and looked at many samples of ancient Greek pottery and the paintings on them. Then we did our own versions. First the girls painted background colors on Chinette plates. Once those dried, they went back and drew pictures and patterns on them using dark markers.

We also spent some time reading through our DK Eyewitness book. We covered the sections about what Greek homes were like, what women's lives were like, and how kids were raised.

The girls and I enjoyed a spontaneous field trip when we spotted this cruise ship anchored off the coast while we were driving home from Walmart. We took a detour to walk down the closest pier where we got to watch a surfing class, a couple of sailboats, the ferries going back and forth from the cruise ship, and the day's catch of all the fishermen lining the pier. 

Nana's Here!
We got to have a long-awaited visit with Nana last week! We ditched our formal lessons in favor of playing tourist and getting in some quality time with Daddy's mom. Here are the highlighted activities:

Everybody loves a morning at the beach! The girls started out just playing in the sand and building sand castles, and they slowly inched toward the waterline in search of better building sand and treasures to decorate with. By the time we left all three of them were soaked up to their knees! It was so much fun to see them get braver at their own pace.

Our West Coast girls!

Monkey and Bug progressed from timidly checking out the surf shoulder-to-shoulder
to gleefully being "chased" (and occasionally caught) by the waves.

Nana's visit was the occasion for a couple of movie nights too. First, the girls got to introduce Nana to their current favorite film, Epic, while Mommy and Daddy got a real date night (whoohoo!). Later in the week we all watched Frozen together (it really is as good as the hype; we were impressed). I was also reminded of why lately I have only watched movies with the girls that I've already seen. Since I couldn't give them a detailed summary beforehand, we had to stop the movie several times to explain what was going on, assure them it was a Disney movie that had to have a happy ending, and give them a chance to calm down.

It's Nana, so of course we had to hit up the local shopping hot spot: Cannery Row! We explored all the neat little shops, and even stopped for create-your-own ice cream sandwiches at the Nestle Tollhouse Cafe. Yum!

The sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf were particularly lively the morning we visited. They were swimming through in the water, bumping each other around on the floating platform, and making so much noise! As usual there were a few otters playing around the corner, and the harbor seals basking on the rocks just a short walk away. We actually got to explore the rocky beach near the harbor seals, and the girls found some gorgeous shells that hadn't been broken yet. We topped off the morning with sea food by the water and a trip to the candy store for dessert.

"Look, Nana! I can be a harbor seal on a rock too!"

Then there were all the moments of just good quality time: reading books, playing at the playground down the street, introducing Nana to friends at church, taking her to watch their jujitsu class, building with Marbleworks, Skyping with Papa Bear and Aunt S, etc.

By the end of the week, these girls were worn out! Nana left Friday morning, and we decided to take it pretty easy that day. I decided we'd pick lessons back up again on Monday, but we spent lots of time snuggling on the couch reading books before meeting our homeschooling friends at the playground. Everybody even got in a nice long nap that afternoon--which is particularly good since we had a friend's super hero birthday party to attend that evening!

Love Homeschooling Moments
While some days in the homeschooling life devolve in battles of the wills to get simple things done, I had a number of "this is why I love homeschooling" experiences this week:

Relationship building: One day Bug offered to lead Goose's lessons. Goose thought this was a brilliant idea! Bug read her their favorite counting book, then supervised her completing a collage for her letter of the week. Besides watching the sweetness of the big sister/little sister interactions, this came me some solid one-on-one time with Monkey, who was thrilled to have me all to herself for a little while. I know this sounds weird as a bonding activity, but I spent most of that time teaching her how to unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher. She was extremely proud of being able to genuinely help by learning a new "grown up" skill.

Freedom and flexibility: Thursday morning started off with a big disappointment for the girls that I was powerless to fix. What I could do though was ditch the normal routine and come up with a plan B that we all really enjoyed: After an early lunch, we each packed an "artistic bag" and headed to a local art museum location we haven't visited yet. Monkey currently wants to be an artist when she grows up, so I suggested she do as many artist do and bring a clipboard, paper, and drawing tools to copy the artwork or find inspiration in the museum's garden. She loved this idea! And of course, her sisters wanted in on the fun too. Goose brought her camera, Bug couldn't decide so she brought coloring materials and a camera, and I brought my notebook and pen.While the gallery itself was between temporary exhibits, it hardly mattered. This location features a formal rose garden, a shaded rhododendron garden with winding pebble paths, a duck pond (complete with territorial goose; we hissed back and he wisely realized he was going to lose that fight), and several courtyards with permanent statuary, lovely plants, a fountain, and fun painted tiles.

We decided to settle in the rose garden for a while, and the girls had a blast admiring the flowers and discovering all the discreet stone animals among the rose bushes. Monkey and Bug found good spots at separate bistro tables and set to work on their drawings, while Goose went snap happy all over the garden. At some point Monkey told me she "needed some time with just God" and asked to go to the opposite end of the garden and for me to please keep Goose from following her. I was happy to help, and Monkey seemed to come back much refreshed by a little solitude and personal devotional time. It was an afternoon well spent!

little artists hard at work

All-in-one learning: I love it when something the girls are spontaneously interested in pulls together so many skills from academic subjects, and we have a great time doing it! This week it all started with The Moon Might be Milk, one of our library books this week. First, we enjoyed the story about a little girl and some animals speculating about what foods the moon might be made of (literature), then at the entourage's request we also discussed what the moon, stars, and sun are really made of (science). At the end the book includes the recipe for Granny's sugar moon cookies, which the girls asked if we could make. I agreed on two conditions: they get all their chores done (it was cleaning day) and they had to read the recipe themselves. It's amazing what a trio of little girls can accomplish with the right motivation! Monkey and Bug worked together to read the recipe (reading) and figure out the measurements (math: measuring & fractions). Even Goose got to help out by dumping things in (fine motor skills) and by accomplishing occasional tasks like "We need a tablespoon. That's the biggest spoon in that box. Can you find the biggest spoon?" (math: comparisons). Just being able to exactly follow the instructions given is a good math and science skill, not to mention all the life skills they got to practice: how to set the oven temperature, how to use an electric mixer, how to crack eggs, etc.

How Science Happens
At this stage "science" isn't a subject that happens in a curriculum sort of way, so it doesn't get much specific focus here, but that doesn't mean the girls are clueless on the topic. Here are a few ways science happened in our house this week:

• Monkey rediscovered and was enthralled by a field guide of rocks and minerals. I spent a long time reading her the names of different samples throughout the book as well as reading and explaining the sections "The Earth" (describing different layers, plate tectonics, earthquakes, and how mountains are formed) and "The Rock Cycle" (explaining how elements and minerals are processed in the Earth to become different kinds of rocks).
• Bug inquired about how we get honey (she knew bees made it, but who's the middle man? what's the process?). I gave her a quick explanation of the top of my head, and later we found a How It's Made episode that went into details.
• Monkey decided she wanted to do a research paper about monkeys for her writing lesson one day. This meant reading up on monkeys in the Animal Encyclopedia, then, of course, getting sidetracked by the moles on the opposite page and learning all about them too.
• All three girls noticed and closely examined the various stages of calla lilies outside our front door--at one point we had new buds, fully bloomed lilies, and wilting lilies all on the same plant. Similar things were noted as we reveled in the many varieties of flowers at the art museum gardens later in the week.
• We also had discussions about what the moon and sun are actually made of after reading The Moon Might Be Milk. Monkey and Bug were highly disappointed in the little girl's grandmother when she never explained what the moon's really made of and left the girl thinking it was a sugar cookie.
• Our making the moon cookies should also be considered an early foray into experimenting since we followed the process described and confirmed the hypothesis--the recipe does make yummy cookies that look like the moon!
• Segueing nicely from our baking experience, the girls asked to watch an episode of The Magic School Bus, and we found one that delved into the chemistry involved in baking.
• After a reading of Doctor DeSoto, we discussed which animals Dr. DeSoto would or would not treat based on their diet and whether or not they actually had teeth.

Things like this come up all the time as the girls explore the world around them and ask a constant stream of questions, and of course, when one girl asks the others are always listening in too.

History . . .  Well, the Fictional Parts Anyway
So, I'll confess, my own interest in the ancient Greeks we're studying is mostly in the ancient Greek mythology, and these little girls didn't fall far from the tree. We did read several sections in our library book Ancient Greece Revealed that deal with historical fact: archaeological evidence of the really ancient Greek civilizations then the revival around 1200 BC, what the Parthenon looked like and what it was for, the Olympics, what Greek warships were like and how a naval battle would have gone down, and what Greek theater was like.

Mostly though, we read lots of the Greeks' fiction: Aesop's fables, Jason and the Golden Fleece, and descriptions of mythological monsters both in books and online. On Friday night we even let the girls watch Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters with me. Daddy and I watched it several nights earlier, and I made sure the girls had heard of all the mythical creatures involved and knew something of their traditional back stories. Of course, my literary analysis brain kicked in, and the girls and I compared the "Jason and the Golden Fleece" story to the "Percy and the Golden Fleece" story.

One of the girls' favorite parts of our history studies this week, though, was putting on our own little Greek play. We chose one of Aesop's fables ("The Lion and the Mouse"), they figured out who would be which character (Bug was the Lion, Monkey was the Hunter, Goose was the Mouse, and I was the Chorus and read all the parts), they each made a paper plate mask to represent their character, and finally we put on the show! So much fun!

Miss Independence
This week before the big girls' jujitsu class, a tearful Monkey said she was just too tired and could we please tuck her in to bed and not have her go to class today. We agreed, and the poor girl really did stay in bed for the next two and a half hours! (I guess the poor girl really needed her rest, and I am so thankful she's self-aware enough to make the request!) This of course, left Bug attending class solo. There are very few instances in which Monkey and Bug have done anything separately, and she was anxious about it. She and Daddy talked about how she probably didn't really want to miss out on something as fun as jujitsu class just because she was a scared. It proved to be quite the confidence building activity for her! She successfully partnered with someone not her sister (and made a new friend!) and was the only student in her class to successfully sneak up on her instructor during one of the activities. She came home excited about the class, and even suggested to Monkey that sometimes they should be partners with other kids in the class instead of just each other.

Three Rs
Goose: counting to 20, the letter I

Bug: math (telling time, place value, fractions, multiple-digit addition, skip counting), reading (Dot, I Broke My Trunk!, cookie recipe, composing sentences with paper words), writing (note to Grandma, Bible quizzing, random word list--she asks me how to spell whatever words she's interested in writing)

Monkey: math (telling time, place value, fractions, single-digit addition, introduced multiple-digit addition), reading (easy reader, I Broke My Trunk!, cookie recipe, sort rhyming paper words), writing (note to Grandma, research paper about monkeys, random word list)

Library Day
Our schedule this week required that we visit the library a couple of days early, and therefore not at storytime this week. The girls thoroughly enjoyed having the children's section to themselves for a change and had a great time playing with the building toys and a set of bumble bee puppets that were added recently. As a result, I ended up picking out most of the books this time:
I Broke My Trunk!
Little Bear's Friend
Whistle for Willie
Mirette on the High Wire
Dog Number One, Dog Number Ten
Doctor DeSoto
The Moon Might Be Milk

San Diego!
Daddy had this past week off, and we decided to take the entourage to San Diego. These girls have really become amazing travelers! Let's start with the fact that preparing for the trip meant me writing an illustrated packing list on their white board and passing out their individual duffel bags. Monkey and Bug packed their own bags, and Bug (our resident fashionista) helped Goose put her outfits together. I didn't even double check to make sure they had everything before we left (granted, I meant to, but it just didn't happen, and they were fine!) Then they spent the entire day (going and returning) cheerfully entertained in the back seat with a backpack of action figures they packed themselves, a tote bag of magazines and notepads with a baggie of crayons, a trio of magnadoodles, a couple of Spanish DVDs, and their current favorite movie--Mulan. I'm also loving the fact that we've reached the stage where we can travel without the hassle of a stroller or diapers! They are all real troopers about spending most of the days walking around, too. We were able to spend three full days exploring the city, and here are the highlights:

San Diego Zoo: We couldn't possibly visit San Diego without spending a day at the zoo! We started off our visit with a 30 minute tour on a double decker bus--sitting in the open top, of course. Next--and probably even more popular--we took the Skyfari (aerial tram) to the far end of the zoo to get to the animals we wanted to see most. Our top priority animals were the arctic animals and the panda bears since the zoo near our last house didn't have those. We also toured the apes and monkeys exhibits and the big animals (big cats, elephants, hippos, etc.). Of course, the girls spent time climbing on all the statue animals too!

(Left) Our little monkeys watching the zoo monkeys. (Center) The entourage pretending to be polar bear cubs.
(Right) Bug and Goose enjoying the Skyfari! Monkey is in the tram behind them with Daddy.

U.S.S. Midway: We were seriously impressed with our tour of this decommissioned air craft carrier. It featured very well done exhibits of this "floating city" and a flight deck full of sample aircraft from WWII through Desert Storm, some of which we could even enter. It had a family audio tour that Monkey and Bug could listen to as well, and they participated in the Junior Pilot Program--answering about a dozen questions in their booklets as we progressed through the ship and getting their wings pinned on by one of the veterans volunteering at the information desk. Daddy and the big girls took an additional tour of the island to see the bridge and air traffic control. Goose was too short to go, so she and I spent some extra time exploring the aircraft she could board and just running around the flight deck. This stop in San Diego was particularly special to us, because Granddad was a medical officer on board just a few years before it decommissioned. That made it especially fun to tour the sick bay and to see what the officers' racks and mess hall were like.

Little fighter pilots!

(Left) We got to board a troop carrier helicopter. (Top right) Monkey and Bug did the island tour with Daddy and pretended to be air traffic controllers. (Bottom right) Monkey and Bug filled out their worksheets to qualify for their Junior Pilot wings, while Goose looks on.

During the Midway tour we got to see the kind of rack we think Granddad had and one of the medical exam rooms he worked in.

Old Town: We ended up spending 6 hours on the Midway (and could have spent more), so we didn't have as much time to explore Old Town as we would have liked, and unfortunately, we missed most of the historical re-enactors in the "Birthplace of California," the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in the state. It includes a plaza surrounded by restored historic buildings--some are set up as living history museums and others have been turned into fun little shops and restaurants. We poked around for a while, then had dinner at a nice Mexican place.

SeaWorld: The girls loved SeaWorld! We skipped the touch tank/aquarium pieces, since we have a such an awesome aquarium close to home, but we did lots of rides and shows! The dolphin show actually featured more human acrobats than dolphins, but they did some pretty impressive stunts in fun bird-themed costumes. The sea lions and otters had a tv-show themed comedy show that was quite entertaining. We managed to arrive early enough for the orca show to sit just at the edge of the splash zone--great views. In between catching the shows we spent lots of time in the Sesame Street themed amusement park (three rides plus a huge bounce house and climbing play space). Monkey and Bug were even brave enough to go on the teacup ride all by themselves (unfortunately, they weren't actually strong enough to spin it by themselves, and they decided it's a lot more fun when Mommy or Daddy come too). Monkey and Bug also got to go with Daddy on a helicopter simulation ride (Goose and I joined them in the beluga whale exhibit once they exited) and tube-style rapids ride (Monkey and Bug were less than thrilled with this one because "Daddy told us we'd get wet, but he didn't tell us we'd get super wet!" Apparently, that's an important distinction.) Unfortunately, Goose--our little thrill seeker--is still too short to go on the "big rides"--a source of serious disappointment on several occasions. She even wanted to go on the Manta roller coaster with Daddy!

(Left) The girls watching beluga whales. (Center) Shamu! (Right) The entourage on their favorite ride--the spinning "tea cups."

Miss K! To wrap up our San Diego vacation, we went out to dinner with Miss K, our babysitter from our last duty station who just happens to attend college in San Diego! The girls were pretty excited about sushi and yakisoba followed by ice cream, and Miss K was thrilled to escape cafeteria food for an evening. It was fun to catch up with her, and the girls loved playing with her in the courtyard of the restaurant for a little while.

Greek Fashion
We started off our week with a foray into ancient Greek fashion. We read the appropriate section of the Eye Witness book and perused the book for additional samples. Tradition chitons turned out to be incredibly easy to make! Two rectangles of fabric, a handful of safety pins, a belt and--voila!--outfit complete!

We also read the Eye Witness section about food (while we did feast last Friday, we didn't actually read up on the food specifically). Another day we settled in for a long cozy teatime and read a wide selection of Aesop's fables and Heracles stories. The fables, of course, led to lots of good discussions about what lessons the stories are teaching. We wrapped up our history studies this week by watching the DVD about ancient Greece that we got from the library. It covered a lot of aspects of life in ancient Greece, and the girls got to see video of actual ruins along with replicas and reenactments of things like the Olympic games (not entirely historically accurate as the athletes were, thankfully, fully clothed for the video).

Library Day
The theme for storytime was mysteries, and the books read all involved questions being asked or things not being what they seemed (e.g., It Looked Like Spilled Milk). The girls played cheerfully alongside some other kids afterward and picked out lots of books for us to bring home:
Once There was a Bull . . . Frog
An Edible Alphabet
Are We There Yet, Daddy?
The Queen of France
You're Finally Here!
Lolly-pops
Count Down to Clean Up!
Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend
When the Teddy Bears Came
You're Mean, Lily Jean!
Felix Feels Better
Sumo Mouse
(Note: I very rarely pick out the books to take home now. All three girls have gotten to be pretty excited about picking out their own books. Goose picks things off the shelf at random, but Monkey and Bug seem to have gotten a little more distinguishing in their choices. I've no idea what their criteria is, but not every book that comes off the shelf gets put in our bag now.)

Three Rs
Math for Monkey and Bug involved more work on telling time and simple fractions (they can now add up things like 1/4 + 1/4 = 1/2), and continuing to work on adding multi-digit numbers (they were very excited to discover some Starfall games that work on this skill this week too). I realized some of the Starfall games they were trying to play also involved subtraction, so we did a lesson on that as well. They both grasped the concept pretty quickly (really it's a just a matter of their remembering that "-" means "take away"). Bug is still practicing skip counting and working on memorizing the 5 times table. Goose is still practicing counting through some picture books, worksheets, and just spontaneously counting objects.

For reading the big girls are still having fun picking through our collection of easy readers, and they were thrilled to discover a new Bob book easy reader at the library, which they both read through on Friday. Bug has also really enjoyed reading familiar books to Goose--fun for all! Goose learned the letter H this week and mostly wanted to repeat the activity of thinking up things that start with H and having me draw them on the white board. Monkey and Bug always get in on this too.

To practice writing this week, both girls wanted to answer question pages: Bug wanted to practice Bible quizzing (she did the stories of Moses and Jonah this week), and Monkey wanted to learn about sea animals (conveniently enough, before our visit to the aquarium, so she was feeling very knowledgeable about the jellyfish and octopuses). Monkey also spent some time practicing her name and a few other random words she wanted to spell.

To the Aquarium!
The girls and I spent a fantastic afternoon at the aquarium this week! (That membership card is going to get lots of use.) It's a huge place, so we just focused on a few highlights: We arrived just in time for the Albatross Encounter and got to meet the only albatross living in captivity (she was rescued as a chick after a wing injury). Then we headed to the exhibit about jellyfish to complete a kind of scavenger hunt. The aquarium's website has tons of printable activities; this one had labeled photos of different species of jellyfish for the girls to identify and check off as they found them. The girls could usually do this based on differences in physical details without my having to tell them the species name first.


playing in the tidal pools and climbing into a life-size giant clam

Then we headed for the hands-on kids section that had been too crowded to enter last time we were there. They loved it! They got to climb through "kelp forest" and "coral reef" play spaces that included tiny screens with videos of the kind of creatures that would live there, they played with plastic fish and boats in a "tidal pool" complete with regularly occurring waves and "rocks" they could rearrange to study the affects of the waves, they dressed up in sea life costumes, they made crayon rubbings of pictures of different local species of sea life, listened to the noises of things like seals, dolphins, and whales and tried out the movements of flippers and fins. Before we left we made it to the penguin feeding and Q & A session. In addition to all the typical adult members of the rookery, they had an adolescent penguin who still had her baby feathers and an adult penguin in the process of molting.

A "Life Skills" Day
On Tuesday this week, I decided the girls and I needed to take a mini-break from the usual academics and regroup. Once we finished the usual morning routine, I let the girls bake a batch of brownies, and I really did little more than read them the recipe and supervise--they found all the ingredients and measuring spoons/cups and did all the measuring, dumping, and mixing. Bug even cracked the eggs, and Monkey assisted Goose with running the electric mixer. While those were cooling off, we walked down to the local craft store (can I tell you how excited I am that we can walk there?!), where we perused the shelves for future project ideas and bought the couple of things we'd come in for.

We returned home to consume our brownies and

a pot of tea, while discussing the current state of the entourage's education. We talked about what they're learning now, what they like that we do, what they don't like, how we might improve things, and if they had any particular requests for things they'd like to learn or do. I know they're only 5, 5, and 3, but it's still a productive meeting. Granted Goose mostly enjoyed the fact that I let her eat two brownies right before lunch, but Monkey and Bug had some really good things to contribute. Monkey requested that we do more projects for history again (she's absolutely right; I've been a complete slacker on that front for our unit about the pioneers). Bug asked that we start practicing for Bible quizzing, so she'll feel ready when they're big enough to do that at church (they'll start in the fall). Far be it from me to turn down a kid's request to dig deeper into the Bible! Bug also restated her desire to learn to knit. Then we brainstormed ideas for good writing assignments, reading options, and field trips. Besides teaching them how to evaluate their goals and activities, it's always helpful to get their buy-in for what they're learning.

The afternoon involved actually teaching Bug to knit. She's been begging me to teach her to knit or crochet ever since she received a crochet hook in her Valentine's Day craft kit, but I'd been putting her off until I remembered using knitting looms in my childhood. We purchased one along with some yarn from the craft store that morning, and after a five-minute tutorial she was off!

More of the afternoon was spent on a truly vital life skill: how to clean a bathroom. I usually get the girls to help me, but this time I gave them more of the lead and merely stuck my head in and instructed when necessary. Not much was necessary actually, and they seemed very pleased to take charge of the task themselves.

Library Day
The story time theme this week was weather, and the librarian had a few fun books about rain, rainbows, and wind. The entourage was disappointed though that storytime involved more song-and-dance participation activities than it did actual stories. However, we came home with lots of good books for us:
The Story of Growl
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?
Princess Furball
Five Little Monkeys Go Shopping
King of the Cats
The Princess and the Pea
A Tooth Fairy's Tale
Daisy 1, 2, 3

Since I was planning to start our new history unit next week, we also looked specifically for books about ancient Greece. We got a confused look from the children's librarian when I inquired about this subject while trailing a couple of kindergarteners and a preschooler, but she was willing to run with it and told me she'd keep an eye out for additional age-appropriate resources. She did help us find several things:
Ancient Greece (30-minute DVD for elementary students)
Ancient Greece Revealed (neat book for seeing into things like warships, houses, and the Trojan horse using partially transparent pages)
The One-eyed Giant and Other Monsters of Ancient Greece (picture book encyclopedia)
The Trojan Horse (picture book version)
The Hero and the Minotaur (picture book that also includes the story of Icarus)

New History Unit: Ancient Greece!
Despite the fact that we still have a few chapters of Little House on the Prairie left and I really wasn't planning to open this up until next week, I bowed to popular demand and agreed to kick off our study of Ancient Greece on Friday. The girls have seen me prepping and they simply couldn't stand the suspense anymore (Why follow-up the pioneers with Ancient Greece? Because Daddy and I let the girls watch Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief with us recently, and they're currently fascinated by the stories of Greek mythology.) I started the day by agreeing to read The Hero and the Minotaur after breakfast. Later we pulled out the poster that came with our Eye Witness book about Ancient Greece and gave the girls an overview of when and where along with tidbits about food, clothing, houses, theater, pottery, and the Olympic games (all topics we'll cover in more detail later). To top it off, I served up a finger-food lunch of things the Greeks would have eaten too: cucumbers, carrots, raisins, dates, figs, olives, cheese, sardines, nuts, pita bread, and baklava. I've been informed that we need to eat like Greeks more often.

The Three Rs
For Monkey and Bug's math this week, I introduced fractions. We went over the basics using halves and quarters, illustrated by a set of fraction bars and construction paper cutouts (then the real life application involved in baking those brownies on Tuesday). I've also seen both girls playing a fractions game on Starfall, and they seem to have a pretty good grasp of the topic. Of course, they also commandeered the paper cutouts and had lots of fun creating abstract designs with them. We continued practicing telling time, which went well with fractions since we discussed quarter past, half past, and quarter til. Both girls also reviewed their addition skills, and Bug practiced skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.


On the left, we did lessons outside some this week; I drew a clock face and a digital time and had them
draw the hands on the clock, then I wrote a numeric faction and had them color in appropriately.
On the right, Monkey and Bug created designs with the fraction cut outs.

Both girls got into the stack of Uncle N's easy readers this week, and I added a new activity that's somewhere between reading and writing that the girls call "making up their own reading lesson": In addition to the rhyming words they sorted last week, I printed and cut out a set of sight words and other commonly used words, which I spread out in the living room. Then I had them compose sentences using the words. This activity also involved their first ever grammar lesson, which Bug in particular really liked. When she was stumped with where to even begin, I explained that every sentence needs a noun (person, place, or thing) and a verb (being or doing) along with any other words you need to explain whatever you're trying to say. She excitedly sorted out the whole lot into three piles and methodically composed sentences by picking out one word from each of the first two piles and whatever else she needed from the third. Although I explained nouns and verbs to Monkey as well, she was content to go about the assignment more organically--picking out a few words that caught her eye and exchanging them for different ones until she came up with sentences that made sense. As a result of this activity I also now have a list of words the girls have requested I print up for their use next time.

Bug sorts words and composes sentences.

Monkey and Bug have also expressed distinct preferences for how they want to practice writing. Bug has really enjoyed completing fill-in-the-blank nursery rhymes and a set of Bible quizzing practice questions. Monkey is much more interested in writing about personal experiences or books we're reading using writing pages that are half lined and half blank, so there's also room to illustrate her composition. Both girls also did an "information hunt" (which I think Monkey was only really interested in because I let her help me come up with the questions). We came up with a page of questions about animals for the girls to answer, some of which they just knew and some I helped them look up the answers in our animal encyclopedia. (So far, I've managed to work Bible knowledge, history, literature, and science into our "writing" lessons.)

Goose this week has focused on the letter G using some worksheets and a brainstorming page of things that start with G. She's also done worksheets about matching patterns and pencil control. Then of course, she's usually listening in on whatever her sisters are doing.

Growing Their Faith
I think Monkey and Bug recently reached some point of epiphany in their young faith. Prayer and reading Bible stories has long been a part of our daily routine, and we've made sure the girls know that they're true stories--different from fairy tales or your run-of-the-mill picture books. But I think Monkey and Bug realized that these stories are not only true, they're important! I already mentioned Bug's request to practice Bible quizzing, and this week their curiosity about our usual Bible readings really jumped. They've discovered that there's more to the Bible than a Bible storybook--there are different sections and lots of details the storybook versions don't include. For example, one day this week their Little Kid's Bible included an excerpt about "the bad kings of Israel," but it left them hanging on whether the last king mentioned was a good king or a bad king. They had me get out the real Bible, and we spent the next 15 minutes or so reading through generation after generation of the kings of Israel and Judah and finding out which kings worshipped idols and which ones "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord." (It was one of those "this is why I love homeschooling moments": I didn't have to rush them out the door to school; we could just sit on the couch and read the Bible!) The other day I even heard Bug lead them in doing Bible drills. They don't know the books of the Bible yet, but she was racing her sisters to find the Old Testament, New Testament, the section with the prophets, chapter 27 (it didn't matter which book, just any chapter 27 would do apparently), etc. So many times this week I've overheard them spontaneously burst into praise songs--either snippets of songs they remember from church or tunes they make up themselves. Despite my own parenting uncertainties and the occasional really stressful days, this is what tells me Daddy and I are doing something right!

Three Rs
After such an exciting weekend in San Francisco the girls were pretty excited about having some real stay-at-home days at the beginning of this week. They also rediscovered Starfall.com this week and really mastered using a mouse with a desktop instead of the touchpad on one of the netbooks. They were particularly excited about all the math games they could actually really do instead of just randomly guessing their way through them. They've really learned a ton since the last time they got into this site! (Particularly ego-boosting for me is that they mostly gravitated to the activities labeled for 1st graders!) While not "Three R" related, the site also has quite a music selection, and Monkey decided to play DJ and instigated a little dance party for her sisters with a combination of preschool songs and classical music.

For reading, Monkey is back into the reading textbook this week and doing very well. Bug finally pulled through and finished Are You My Mother? At some point she complained about reading lessons being boring, so we brainstormed a bit and came up with some ways to make it more interested. Bug actually remembered the little paper easy readers Uncle N passed down to them, and we decided it might be more motivated for her to read things she could get through in only one or two sittings. I also made a rhyming activity for both of them to work on together that was pretty popular. I typed up and cut out a bunch of rhyming words, scattered them on the living room floor, then asked the girls to sort out the words that rhyme and read them to me.

Goose learned the letter F this week, and her big sisters really jumped in together on that activity too. I introduced it by writing a big F on the white board and asking all three girls to brainstorm things that start with F and I would draw them. They came up with a ton! And Bug even copied them onto a piece of construction paper when Monkey erased the board to create her own art.

 

Goose is still enthusiastically completing counting worksheets for her math lessons (This is something Goose requests, not something I'm making her sit down and do. To be honest, I can't print them up fast enough for her most days!) For the big girls I changed up how we do math lessons a bit (they still do them separately, though). Instead of choosing one math topic and just focusing on that for the lesson that day, I've been choosing two or three topics for each girls and finding really quick activities for each them. They seem to really like the new method and are just soaking it up. They've both been practicing telling time--focusing on o'clocks and half-pasts at this point. I had them both practice making tens ("If I have X, how many more do I need to make 10?"). It turns out Bug already has these all memorized, but Monkey still counts most of them out on the number line. Monkey continues to practice number recognition for teens and tens, did some greater/less than problems, and practiced simple addition. Bug continues working on adding multi-digit number including carries, practiced skip counting by 2, 5, and 10, and worked on multiplication problems for those numbers as well.



For their writing assignments with week, Monkey and Bug wrote/dictated about our trip to San Francisco and books we're reading. Monkey was really into this and did two about Little House on the Prairie with lovely artwork to with them. Bug is more of a perfectionist, who gets stymied when the letters don't work out quite the way she wants them to (for example, they end up backwards or don't fit on the line properly). She decided to practice a few particularly problem letters to work on the first problem, and was (eventually) willing to work with me to come up with creative solutions for the latter.

History
The girls are still loving reading Little House on the Prairie. This week we talked about things like the pioneers having to make their own furniture and not being able to just run to the store for something (Pa went to the store and had to be gone for four days). The Ingalls survived malaria with the help of their neighbors and had several good and bad interactions with the local Native Americans. This week we also indulged in one of the prairie living staples--cornbread with molasses. Very popular! The girls also pulled out our A to Z in the Alamo book this week, and I pointed out that while this happened before Laura was born, it was roughly the same time period of American settlement of the West.

Library Day
This week's storytime theme was books and the library, and the librarian found some really cute ones to share. Although Monkey and Bug still don't participate in the sing-alongs, they do at least now stand up for the opening and closing songs that are the same every week. This week they also decided that the usual crowd wasn't too many kids afterall, and they actually wanted to stay and play a bit. We came home with these books:
Rhinos Play Soccer
Let's Make Rabbits
Ten Puppies
The Lollipop Caper
Elephants Never Forget
Anansi and the Talking Melons
Magic in the Mist
Can I Keep Him?

Church Workday
This Saturday was a church workday with lots of indoors and outdoors cleaning and maintenance to get done. Fortunately, this was a kid-friendly event, and our girls plus their best friend K3 jumped right in to scrub floor boards, doorways, tables, chairs, and glass doors as high as they could reach with diluted vinegar. Bug also contributed by helping Daddy run cables through a tight space in the sanctuary. After all that we ran out of jobs for little ones, and they spent the rest of the time running around the church campus with the other kids, picking flowers, finding pretty rocks and cool bugs, and finishing up the morning with a picnic lunch provided by some of the other ladies.

We also met up with a big group of other homeschoolers at the
playground this week. The girls made a few new friends, and
had fun building mountains in the wood chips.

San Francisco!
We decided to take advantage of our west coast location and Daddy's 3-day weekend schedule to make a trip to a city none of us have visited before. We managed to pack in a lot of fun!

Driving around town: We spent some time just driving around and taking in the city--steep hills (so exciting for the 5 and under set!), cable cars and trolleys, fancy houses, murals (especially in Haight-Ashbury), and of course, the Golden Gate Bridge. Sadly, it was a drizzly foggy weekend, so we didn't get a single good photo op of the bridge. However, it was pretty cool to drive over it and see the bridge towers just disappear into the clouds.

Exploratorium: This was an awesome, if rather crowded, science museum with hands on exhibits about magnets, electricity, light and colors, sound, weather, optical illusions, plants, cell biology, seashells--really the list is practically endless, and we had a blast dashing from one station to the next.

At left: Monkey and Goose play with magnets and a tube filled with water and iron filings.
At top: The entourage works with a little boy to turn the floating beach ball exhibit into a cannon.
(they discovered that if you tip the air stream at just the right angle it sends the ball shooting across the room)
At bottom: They loved dancing with the multi-colored shadows!

Marine's Memorial Club: This was actually the hotel we stayed in, but it proved an attraction all by itself. Both the lobby and the hotel library feature display cases full of military memorabilia--uniforms from different eras, model planes and tanks, MacArthur's corn cob pipe, etc.

Alcatraz: The girls were pretty excited about just getting to this destination since the journey involved a boat ride across the bay. We watched a short film about the island's history--it went from being a military post guarding the bay to a federal prison, then was briefly occupied by Native Americans after the prison closed. We toured the cellhouse and surrounding buildings and learned about both the prisoners and the families who lived on the island (Did you know about 60 guards brought their families with them to live on the island? The 75 kids or so took the ferry across the bay everyday to go to school.)

Left: Everybody enjoyed the boat ride to Alcatraz.
Right: Once on the island Bug studies a furnished cell.

Pier 39: Around lunchtime on Saturday, we strolled around Pier 39--lots of fun little shops and a few street performers--and stopped at one of the seafood restaurants along the pier for clam chowder and calamari.

standing under the Dragon Gate
 

Chinatown: This was probably the girls favorite destination (in fact, Monkey told me we should move to San Francisco someday, so we can go to Chinatown all the time). The girls loved poking around in all the shops full of trinkets, and Monkey and Bug each purchased an ornate little box for keeping their baby teeth in. (Bug has a marginally loose tooth, and informed me months ago that when her teeth fell out she wanted to keep them in a fancy box. We realized Chinatown was probably the ideal place to find that.) We stopped in at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory--a bit hard to find, but totally worth the search! We got to watch them filling and folding fortune cookies, grab a handful of still warm, broken ones they gave out as samples, and decided to buy a couple of bags to take with us. Yum! Of course, we had to eat dinner in Chinatown too. The highlight at dinner was probably the tanks full of live fish, crabs, and lobster. Our girls definitely have a healthy sense of where their food comes from: when I explained that the animals weren't here as pets but as future dinners, Bug leaned forward to get on eye level with a fish, pointed a finger, and grinned, "You are tasty!"

Computer History Museum: We made a detour to San Jose
to visit this fascinating museum near Google's campus. We arrived just in time to see a demonstration of the world's only working Babbage Difference Engine (a mechanical computer designed during the Victorian era). Monkey and Bug were fascinated and as expected had tons of questions: "It doesn't have a screen. How do you see what you're doing?" "How do you tell it what to do?" "What's that part do?" etc. From there we toured the main exhibit that covered 2000 years of computing history (from abacuses to Watson). Daddy helped the girls grasp the progress being made by comparing sizes throughout the exhibit; for example, vacuum tubes the size of the girls' stacked fists shrank to transistors the size of their pinkies, etc. They really enjoyed a wall display with a bunch of robots and descriptions of what they could do; then at the end we visited the gift shop and they got to play with robot bugs! There were some funny moments too--like when we had to explain to the girls that phones used to be connected to a wall with a wire and they were only for talking. This was practically incomprehensible to our little techies.

Left: Monkey and Bug with the Babbage Difference Engine (Please note: they only look unhappy because I asked them to pause their study of the machine to take a picture. I did not make this mistake again.) Center: Doesn't everyone teach their kindergartners about logic gates? Right: The girls got to climb inside a GoogleMaps car (Goose is in there too).