Week 21

We took last week off for winter break.  The older two kids did a bit of reading and Abby did a bit of math each day, but nothing extensive at all.

Preschool

Letter Craft

Ellie asked to do the letter O this week.

We even put oatmeal on the Os!

Of course, this meant that everyone wanted to play in the oatmeal!

PreK Activity Book

Ellie didn't want to do much of it this week, which was fine.  She did work on one-to-one correspondence in other things, though.  She does great with that, but she has a hard time remembering the sequence from one to ten.  When I tell her to pick up five things in her room, she says, "How many is that?" If I show her how many on my hand, though, she will pick up the proper amount.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett has been zooming through the stories in 100 Easy Lessons.  He's really making huge strides in fluency.

Spelling

Emmett got his first spelling list this week!  He did great with most of the words, but got caught up with "am."  He wants to spell it "a-u-m."  When he says it slowly, he does say, "Ay-u-m."  I want to make sure these words are solid, so he'll repeat the list this next week.  he's only five, so I'm taking a better-too-slow-than-too-fast approach.

Math

We put up a new number line over the break.  With it up, we did quite a few exercises where I covered up certain numbers (between one and thirty) and he had to tell me which I covered up.  He also worked through some Miquon Orange pages that dealt with counting and number lines.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby did lessons 86 and 87.  She also really worked really hard on memorizing the third stanza of "Mr. Nobody."  She did some copywork from another poem and did a narration from The Boy Who Cried Wolf as well.

Writing

This week focused on Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer.  Abby didn't really care for it much...probably because it was a "boyly" story.  LOL

Reading

I picked up Poppy and Little House in the Big Wood from the library and gave her the choice.  She started Poppy this week.

Spelling

Abby's getting close to finishing up level 2!  She worked with words with the /oy/ sound this week.  She learned the generalization that we use "oy" at the end of a word and "oi" in the middle.

Handwriting

Abby worked on the letter p this week.  She did pretty well with it.  It feels like cursive it starting to become a bit less of work.  When she finishes her book, we'll work on doing some word writing for connecting letters a bit more.

Math

While we were on break Abby worked some with random Math Mammoth addition and subtraction review sheets.  We just got Singapore Math 2B and the first section reviews addition and subtraction with mental math.  We jumped right in and started the mental addition section.  She'll finish it next week, but the review was good.  It feels "easy" to her and she works quickly through it.

All Together

Science

We moved on to talking about birds this week.  The kids had fun bird watching outside.  There was an experiment that demonstrated how birds stay warm with special oils.  The kids thought it was fascinating.

History

We talked about the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars this week.  Emmett really seemed to enjoy when I pulled out the Lego blocks to show him how the Greeks from Sparta and Athens teamed up together to beat Persia.

Chess - NEW!

The kids got a chess set for Christmas.  I thought we'd add this in with easy and quick lessons from Chess is Child's Play.  Friday was their first lesson, so they didn't do much this week.  Ellie enjoyed learning the names for the rook and bishop.  Emmett and Abby learned about how the rook moves and how to capture a piece.

Week 20

I was very busy this week with a lot of orchestra rehearsals and a concert on Saturday, so Daddy took the week off.  We were out a lot because Daddy was home, but we made sure to get our schoolwork still done!

On Tuesday, we drove a bit of a ways to go to the Jasmine Moran Children's Museum.  Of course, the kids loved it.

While there, I found the perfect opportunity to take pictures of our little students.

The Tot

The Silly One

The Reluctant One 

(not just for schoolwork, just reluctant to do ANYTHING that isn't his idea)

The Studious One

Of course, there was a lot more to do!

Fix a car...

Go grocery shopping...

Play with some bubbles...

Learn a bit more about the human body...

...and a bunch more!

Of course, we also completed our regular work as well.  I just didn't take as many pictures of the boring stuff.  LOL

Preschool

Craft

We made reindeer antlers!  After we finished, we danced around to Rudolph!

PreK Activity Book

Ellie did all of her bookwork with Daddy this week because he was home.  She counted out music stickers (one-to-one correspondence), she listened to instructions about where to place farm animal stickers, she did some more or less work and she made a road with shapes.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett is still reviewing stories from 100 Easy Lessons.  He is jumping to more fluid reading and a lot less sounding out.  It took him a longer time to make the jump, but I'm pleased with his progress.

Spelling

Emmett worked through Step 5 this week.  He changed CVC words by changing their vowels.  He learned that every word has at least one vowel.

We hung the spelling whiteboard for him.  Abby got to a point where we weren't using it to teach the lessons.  Emmett seems to thrive on the actual manipulation of the tiles.  Instead of storing it under the bed, we hung it (and another one for the littles).

Math

We skipped anything that even looked like math this week.  Besides living math, we just basically skipped it.  :)

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby worked through lessons 83 through 85.  She's now got the first two stanzas of Mr. Nobody memorized.  We also discussed the proper time to use is/are.

Writing

Abby's selections this week came from A Child's Geography of the World by V.M. Hillyer.  Abby really enjoyed these selections.  I also think Emmett would.  I'll have to keep my eyes open for a used version of this book.

Reading

We picked up Ramona and Her Father from the library.  I could've gotten it a lot quicker on my kindle, but she wanted the book this time.  She's working through that for her "school" reading and Charlotte's Web on her spare time.

Spelling

Abby completed step 22 this week.  It taught about the third sound of a: the /ah/ sound.  She learned that a will traditionally make that sound before and L and after a W.  She is now capable of writing sentences such as "Put the water in the tall glass."  I love that she's not memorizing a bunch of lists, but learning a rule and applying it!

Handwriting

She focused on the letter P this week.  Since the formation in manuscript is similar to the cursive formation, it was not a difficult letter for her.  We also went back and reviewed Bs because those are really difficult.

Math

Abby has completed Singapore Math 2A!  She worked through some end of semester review.  I also added some addition review from Math Mammoth 2B.  I've seen vast improvement between fluidity with multi-digit addition with this review.

All Together

Science

We learned about reptiles this week!  We went to the zoo to get a good glimpse of some reptiles and amphibians in the herpetarium.  We also saw GIANT reptiles at the Galapagos turtle exhibit.

We focused on how reptile bodies are specially designed to endure harsher conditions than amphibians and did an experiment to illustrate how have scales/thick skin can be an advantage.

History

We moved back to Greece this week.  We learned about two important ancient Greek cities: Sparta and Athens.  Emmett told me he would have loved to live in Sparta, but Athens might have been a little bit boring.  LOL

We also began listening to D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths on audiobook.  Abby really enjoys these.  She's stayed up late a few nights listening and following along in the book.

Week 19

It looks like I took all of one picture of schoolwork this week...

Preschool

Craft

We cut out snowflakes this week!  Scissors are a great exercise in fine motor skills and Ellie struggles with these as well. We have these scissors where she can grip the whole of the scissors with her hand.  She LOVED them for this activity.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie reviewed patterning and drawing dots and lines.  The book also had her color in a boat.  She is our first child to have any interest in coloring and staying in the lines at this age.  The older two were just interested in drawing, no coloring please.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett has made the jump to self-identifying as a reader!  He climbs in bed and starts to sound out/read books.  He usually reads Little Critter books on his own.

Spelling

We introduced the letter tiles and sound cards this week.  Emmett focused on identifying vowels and consonants.

Math

We played some games as a family in the evening...but adding two dice together was about all he did this week.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

Abby did lessons 82 and 83 this week, which focused on Mr. Nobody.  This poem is longer than others that she's memorized, so we're taking it in chunks.  She's already got the first stanza down (and so does Emmett!).

Writing

Her selections came from The Light Princess by George MacDonald.  She was intrigued by this story and might be one we have to read together in the future.

Reading

I was a bit slow in getting to the library, so she read a few picture books that were history and science related.  She did begin Charlotte's Web on her own on Friday.

Spelling

Here is where my only picture comes in!  This week Abby learned that words don't end in u or v.  Now she knows that "English words don't end in i, j, u, or v."  In order to save the words from ending in u or v, she learned that we typically add a silent e at the end of the word.

Handwriting

Abby did O this week.  O has a harder connector in cursive so I thought it might be difficult for her, but with the simplicity of the letter shape, she did just fine.

Math

She did the section involving dividing by 3.  This was frustrating for her because she doesn't have her 3 multiplication facts memorized.  So, in order for her to figure it out, she had to either skip count or pull out her rods...which apparently made her feel dumb because she couldn't just KNOW the answer.

All Together

Science

This week we discussed amphibians.  We compared the metamorphosis of frogs and butterflies or incomplete and complete metamorphosis.  The kids made life cycle wheels for that.  They also learned about how newts "hear" with their legs.  We did a lab that displayed how sound travels and that really it's just movement.  Part of the lab involved playing with a slinky, so of course that was fun!

History

We learned about the Medes and the Persians this week.  The kids learned about Cyrus the Great and how he became the leader in Persia and then moved over and conquered all the way to the Indus River and then back through and even conquered Babylon!  (Apparently, Babylon is Abby's favorite.)  We left off with the cliffhanger that there was one country that the Persians didn't conquer - Greece!

Week 18

Preschool

Letter Craft

We are forgoing letter crafts this month for Christmas activities!  This week we strung Fruit Loops for the Christmas tree.  Abby and Emmett also strung, of course, but Ellie zoomed past them with her strand.  She loves stringing things.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie worked some with one-to-one correspondence (with stickers!) and drawing some more lines and dots.  We're working on proper pencil grip as well.  It looks like she might adopt a quadropod grip.

Junior K

Language

Reading

Emmett is still working well with reading me the stories from the last half of 100 Easy Lessons.  It's nice to have found a place where it's challenging, but not too challenging.

Spelling

Emmett did Step 2 this week, which was segmenting words into their different sounds.  When I did this step with Abby, she looked at me as if I was joking her because it was so easy for her.  She had been "spelling" her own words for a while.  Emmett, on the other hand, struggled for the first day with this exercise for the first day.  After that, he sailed through it.

Math

We did some work with number bonds again.  I'm not doing anything real formal with him because he's working fairly diligently with his reading.

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We worked through lessons 79-81 which reviewed titles of respect and her memorized poems.  We also introduced the poem Mr. Nobody, which will be her last bit of memory work for first grade grammar.

Writing

This week's selections came from A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner.  Being very familiar with Pooh, this was rather exciting for her.

Reading

Like I expected, Abby finished up Ramona Quimby, Age 8 this week.  She took the test and passed with 100%.  I think she's saving her points for a chocolate bar.

Spelling

Abby worked through step 20 this week, which talks about the soft sound of g.  This wasn't hard after last week discussing the soft sound of c.

Handwriting

We just got through some review this week.

Math

This was the last new section of Singapore Math 2A.  It deals with multiplication and division with 3 facts.  We just worked through the multiplication section this week.

All Together

Science

We peeked in on the world of fish this week.  Of course, this meant that we had to go get our OWN fish for observation.

We did an experiment that demonstrated how fish can stay at a certain level of water without working hard.  The kids thought this was almost magic.  This is why they love science!

History

In history this week, Greece got civilized again!  We discussed the writings of Homer, which the kids were somewhat familiar with because we read Mary Pope Osborne's Tales From the Odyssey.

We also learned about the Olympics.  We had our own mini olympics outside with footraces and discus throwing.

Week 17

My parents were in town this week so we made our best effort to get schoolwork out of the way as quickly as possible each day.  I'm pleased to say that we had skill subjects down and finished within 60-90 minutes most days.  :)

BUT, because we were trying to quickly finish lessons, I was not as focused at taking pictures.  Therefore, this post will be picture-less.  Oh well.

Preschool

Letter Craft

Skipped this in favor of hanging out with Grandma!

PreK Activity Book

I read the Little Red Hen to Ellie and she sequenced the story.  She also worked some on drawing lines and dots.

Junior K

Language

Reading

We worked through some 100 Easy Lessons again.  Emmett is flying through these lessons that we've already done.  BUT, I have seen some improvement with fluidity.  He's now capable of looking at a word, thinking about the different parts, and blending it all together before speaking.  He can now "say it fast" if he thinks about it, without sounding out.

He has complained that the stories are long and there are no pictures, but he's not sounding nearly as many words, and if he is motivated, reading is done for him in ten minutes.  Right now this feels like a sweet spot with him.  I don't want to try and push him mostly because I know it will be pointless.  When he is developmentally ready to make that jump to automaticity, he will spurt forward again.

Spelling

He is still LOVING the idea of spelling.  We continued to review the sounds all different letters can make.  I am taking this slowly, but he is doing really well.  I also am connecting spelling a bit with his handwriting practice so he is partly dictated by how well he can form the letters.

Emmett did spell his first word this week.  Grandpa has always affectionately called him "Punk" and he even spelled it!  He looked confused about which /k/ sound to use, but after I told him that we hardly end English words in "c" he correctly chose "k."  He was pleased with himself.

Math

We worked through some simple number bond games.  I tried to keep him sums to ten, but at this age, he loves grabbing the bigger rods to see what it is.  LOL

First Grade

Language

Grammar

We worked through Lessons 76-78 which focused on some review, abbreviations in an address and titles of respect.

Writing

This week's narrations and copywork were from The Reluctant Dragon.  Abby didn't love the story, but didn't struggle with any of it either.

Reading

Abby finished up Beezus and Ramona like I expected.  She was pretty insistent that she wanted to read Ramona, Age 8 so that's what we checked out next.  She's almost halfway through that.  When she finshes, I think I might encourage her to try something else for school and let her read Ramona on her spare time if she wants.  We'll see...

Spelling

We focused on the soft sound of C this week.  Abby seemed confused about when to use s or c (followed by e) for some sounds.  I'm sure part of that will resolve as she's exposed more to these words.  Regardless, she'll have a bit more review of these words next week than normal.

Handwriting

She worked on letter n and some review, I think.

Math

We are coming to the close of Singapore 2A.  Abby worked on the chapter that focuses on division by 2.  I'd like to keep the momentum we've got going with Singapore rather than switch back to MEP quite yet.  Today, though, we did work on some MEP puzzles.  I'm wondering if maybe this next semester it would be ideal to drop the IP/CWP from Singapore (which we use a year behind, so there's no real challenge) and add in half a lesson of MEP puzzles prior to her Singapore lesson.  We'll have to see what will work when we get the next Singapore set (sometime next week).  Traditionally, the B set of books have a lot of easier topics (money, geography, time) so it might be fine to have some challenging problems by way of MEP...

All Together

History

This week we read about the Mycenaeans.  I need to find some common household items made out of bronze and iron.  The kids understood that the barbarians were able to conquer the Mycenaeans because they had stronger weapons.  They have a hard time remembering that the barbarians had iron weapons and the Mycenaeans had bronze weapons.  I'm hoping we can take them to home depot or something and see/feel the difference.

Science

We did studied crustaceans this week.  The kids even enjoyed checking out our own crustaceans: roly polies!  These are their favorite bugs ever, so it was really easy to encourage them to work on some science this week.  LOL

Week 7

Tuesday of this last week was September 11th. That morning, we told the kids (in an age-appropriate way) what that day stood for. Then, they helped Daddy put out the flag.

Preschool

Letter Themes

Ellie chose to do z this week.  Zebras are one of her favorite animals, so of course we had to make zebras!

She still loves putting her letters on the coconut tree.

Of course, Hyrum loves it too.

PreK Activity Book

Ellie didn't request to do much of her book this past week, and I didn't push it.  She much preferred to hang out with Daddy.  When she does ask to do it, she usually wants to do more than one page, so she should "catch up" (whatever that is for a three-year-old) within a few days next week.

Junior K

Reading

Emmett still needs work on fluency.  For his reading this week, we broke up his stories into sections and printed them off. Then, he used a highlighter to find "teams" such as "ai."  He's doing really well.

Math

I realized that Emmett counts to twenty just fine, but skips fifteen.  When he uses "math names" he counts appropriately, so he obviously understands the progression of numbers.  Somehow, though, he's constantly forgetting fifteen.  We're working on counting normally and NOT skipping fifteen.  He counts snacks, lines, stairs, food, whatever.

Handwriting

We didn't work on any proper letter or number formation this week.  If there was something he was writing that we noticed was off, we fixed it.  We didn't do anything formal, though.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

We still worked a bit more with verbs.  I'm sure I could accelerate through FLL, but I don't really want to do any rigorous grammar at this level.

Reading

Abby began reading Stuart Little this week.  She's really enjoying the book.  I preread the chapter, then work through any unfamiliar words with her.  She'll be reading it for the next few weeks.  I purposefully am treating it like a "school assignment" so she doesn't zoom through this book like she has others.

Spelling

This is the last week of review through AAS Level 2.  She did fine remembering that with VCE words, we have to use K at the end rather than C because they DO end in E.

Handwriting

We only got through some review and I this week.  Slow and steady wins the race.

Math

This week was more review.  Abby wanted to go further, but we slowed it down and pulled out the manips and really looked at comparing numbers.  It's nice for me to only do the one easy lesson a day because we are done REALLY quickly.

All Together

Science

We finished up the section on the nervous section by doing a lab about the five senses.

One of the things they used smell for was vinegar.  Our kids couldn't tell us that it was vinegar, but both Abby and Emmett said that it smelled like painted or decorated eggs.  We counted that as correct because we do use vinegar when we dye eggs on Easter.

Vinegar was also a sight item, but it was in a jar.  Of course, the kids all believed it to be water.  After the lab, we talked about what other lab could help them know for sure.  They eat chose to taste the liquid.  Abby scrunched up her face, but Emmett liked it and kept dipping his fingers and eventually took the jar outside.  LOL

On Thursday, we moved on to discuss genetics.  Our kids have never actually asked how babies are made, so we very gently introduced them to the idea that a dad gives a cell and a mom gives a cell and then those two cells grow into a new baby.  They enjoyed the lab sheet where they checked out different features mom and dad had and then seeing which they got from each parent.

History

We learned about the people of the Indus River Valley.  The Story of the World introduced the idea that ancient peoples all lived near a river and used the river not only for water for their crops and to drink, but also to use as roads.  We also discussed citadels and the mystery of Mohenjo-Daro.  One of the activities in the activity guide was to make our own mud bricks because the houses surrounding citadels were made with bricks.  Well, we know what happens when our kids get near mud and we didn't wanna' open that can of worms.  So, we used food to create our own little replica of Mohenjo-Daro.

Our chicken mummy's salt was not wet enough to change this week, so we're waiting till sometime next week to switch it out.  

Week 6

Daddy had surgery on Tuesday, so I was a lot busier this week.  Besides the surgery and busing him and then the kids back and forth to the hospital, when he got home I had to take care of him on top of the kids.  He had a microdiscectomy/laminectomy to take care of a prolapsed disc in his back.  The relief of the sciatic nerve issues has been almost immediate, but the rest of the healing is taking a little longer than he'd like.  It's actually amazing the progress he's made in nearly a week, but he would still have liked to come home and be back to his daily routine in a couple of days.

When he's awake during the day, some of the kids will migrate towards him.  Sometimes they get a quick cuddle and head back off to play.  Other times, Daddy's feeling up to letting them watch a show on the TV in our room.  This is a rare treat in the middle of the school day.

For having dealt with major surgery in our family, I'm amazed that we missed as little school as we did.  On Tuesday, we basically missed the whole day.  But, because Friday is a light day, we were able to make up the excess without too much issue.

Preschool

Letter Themes

Ellie chose the letter C this week.  So, I hauled out the glue and pom poms and we made caterpillars.  She did this one all on her own and was very pleased with her caterpillar.

Having the pom poms out led to Hyrum wanting a turn.  He enjoyed our magnetic ones.  :)

PreK Activity Book

We did some color review, which was super easy.

The book introduced the story of the Three Little Pigs this week.  As I read the story to Ellie, I was reminded of when Abby was three.  She was OBSESSED with the three little pigs.  They played it in the back yard, she drew them on paper, we read the story over and over, she even made a huge cardboard box her very own brick house.  That year, for Halloween the three kids (at the time) were even the three little pigs and Daddy was the Big Bad Wolf.  Oh, memories! (Squee!  Look how TEENY they were!)

Anyway, Ellie enjoyed the Three Little Pigs.  Of course, we pulled out our three little pigs and the big bad wolf and played with them.  When Abby heard Ellie, she wandered over to join in the fun.  It's still fun to do those things!

Junior K

Reading Lessons

Emmett was still giving me grief over reading lessons.  He's got most of his basic phonograms down, so this week we moved back to 100 Easy Lessons.  I'm hoping that just reading the stories at the end of the book will give him a bit of fluency.  That is ALL he needs.

He has also been reading Daddy some of the rookie readers we have.

Math

We're still just playing games.  Sometimes Daddy will play war or something with Emmett.  We're trying to coast sideways because he still is not-quite-five

Handwriting

Emmett worked on forming numbers properly.  Eight and five still give him troubles.

First Grade

Language Arts

Grammar

We're still working with verbs.  This week, we put some nouns on different cards and action verbs on their own cards.  Then we paired nouns and verbs and made short sentences.  She's had some copywork where she is required to identify the noun(s) and verb.,

Writing

This week focused on copywork and narration from Mary Poppins.  I wonder if she would enjoy the book because she seemed to really enjoy the selections this week...

Reading

Abby read Miss Nelson is Missing and a few other picture books.  I have been searching for another good reading book for her.  She loved Miss Nelson, though.

Spelling

We worked the next step of vowel-consonant-e words this week.  She tested them all correct on Monday, but since it was a tumultuous week, we were both grateful to just sail through spelling this week.



Handwriting

We got through G and H this week, which was pretty good... We do lowercase than uppercase and then repeat with the new letter.



Math

We got Singapore 2a this week!  Abby completed the first unit this week, which was basically three weeks of assigned work.  The first few days she was flying through it, but the last couple of days I slowed her down and we are going to plod through slowly the 2a book.  (When I say slowly, I mean at the designated pace.  LOL)  I am hoping to slow her down with math.  She has really enjoyed being back in Singapore.

This week the focus was on extending the number line up to 1,000.  She loved trading out her tens for hundreds and figuring out was 63 tens make.

All Together

Science

Because Daddy had his surgery on Tuesday, we skipped a day of science.  That left one day for science, which we used to introduce the nervous system.  We did a lab where we tried to catch a ruler to test how fast our nerves worked.  I would have thought that Emmett, who has great hand-eye coordination, would have done great at this.  However, he could hardly catch the ruler!  I guess his nervous system isn't as developed as I had assumed!

History

We learned about Hammurabi and his Code as well as the Assyrians this week.  I checked out the Gilgamesh trilogy from the library.  We are planning on reading those this coming week for some review as well.

Our chicken mummy is coming along well.  A few days after surgery, Daddy was able to sit long enough to help change out the salt.  Here it is after two weeks!

Summer Fun Weeks 5-9

Well, it's been a bit of time since I've written here.  Summer has kind of created it's own routine.  On Mondays, we go to the movies (the inexpensive kid ones).  Tuesday is gymnastics.  Wednesday I have a meeting.  Thursday we have playgroup.  Friday is our only free day!  Luckily, though, we only have one more week of gymnastics and then the kids will be off till the school year starts again.

The Math

Abby is cruising through MEP y2.  By the end of this week, she'll be done with the first six weeks of lessons.  She has really enjoyed this session of math and it has come fairly easier to her.  Must be nice!  She also has gotten really good at mental math.  She can add and subtract three-digit numbers with relative ease!  She also is capable of working out simple multiplication and division.  I'm sure by the end of this school year, she will have her multiplication tables memorized.  She can already easily figure the x2, x3, and x4 tables.  Today, I asked her what the smallest 3-digit number she could think of was.  She thought for a bit and said, "Negative one-hundred!"

Emmett has started Miquon Orange.  He really enjoys the autonomy the rods give him to figure out the problems all ON HIS OWN.

Ellie begs to math every time one of the older kids pull out the rods.  She has started to play with them, and especially likes to use the ABC book we have for them.

The Reading

Abby has read through plenty of longer picture books, her favorite being the Billy and Blaze series.

Emmett made it to lesson 60ish in 100 Easy Lessons.  He started getting really fidgety during the lessons, so I started splitting them in half.  One day, I thought he might like Funnix, so we gave it a try and he loves it.  There is less fidgeting, and he is flying through.  I jumped back to lesson 40 in Funnix because it has a different scope and sequence.  It's a good thing, because he is double-timing it through and sometimes does two lessons a day.

Ellie, I am realizing, knows a very large amount (if not all) of her letters/sounds.  She plays around on Starfall, but is more frustrated by the mouse than the actual letter parts.

Unplanned Summer Fun

We've taken a bit of time to just enjoy summer.  This week (the last of June) has been the first week where we've been consistently in the triple digits.  As a result, we've done a lot of fun things!

• We've been to the zoo a few times.  One time we even went while it was raining!

• We pulled out the easel and the kids had a great time.  Hyrum thinks it's a buffet table with all of those crayons.  We were surprised to find a cute little drawing Abby must have done over a year ago!

• In our scripture study one week, we read about Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty.  So, we used tissue paper to make our own "coats" which we then rent into our own titles of liberty.

• All of our tadpoles turned into frogs.  Rather than buying mini crickets or meal worms, we opted to release them.  The kids loved growing tadpoles!  Last week, we saw a few little frogs that were bigger than the ones we released, but not full grown, and wondered if they were our "pets."

• Our blackberries produced a ton of fruit! I didn't get to eat much because the kids were constantly back there nibbling!  Ellie and Hyrum loved it.  Ellie ate nearly anything that resembled black.  Hyrum, on the other hand, was not that particular.  If it didn't break off into his hand, he ate it off the cane.  He ate a few crunchy ones and didn't seem to be bothered one bit!

• The pool has a new aqua climb that Emmett loves to do.  He can actually make it to the top square!  He had to pass the swim test to be able to do it.

• One week, the library had a Reptile/Amphibian day.  The kids loved seeing all the different animals!

• Hyrum is not only a walker... he is now a climber too!

(...and a stripper too!)

• Emmett has been bug-hunting all summer long.  He finds bugs, holds them, names them, and even build them little homes/nests.

• We've been to plenty of parks.

• We've played in plenty of splash parks and water areas trying to stay cool.

• We took advantage of $3 bowling (including shoe rental!).

• We painted.  We even let Hyrum paint.  He did a pretty good job for the first little bit...until he decided to eat the painter.

• We worked a bit in the garden.

• We even learned what happens when you try to jump a car with the cables on the wrong ends.  Whoops!