The Great Pyramid

What a fun day!  We learned about the Great Pyramid in school.  While I was describing what a pyramid is, Miss M remembered she had seen in a program and promptly decided to build one using the couch cushions.  It wasn't very stable but she enjoyed piling up the pillows and quickly laying down next to her "pyramid" so they could fall on her.  I enjoyed watching her brainstorm which pillows should go where and was happy I didn't try to rein her back into our original activity too quickly.

Next we did some prewriting with the hieroglyphics activity.  I poured salt over the cards and they used their fingers to trace the design, then I gave them paper to try and draw their own versions.  Littlest did circles and the older girls quickly decided they needed to add rainbows and birthday cakes but it was still good practice.

They all really enjoyed stamping the rectangle bricks on the pyramid structure.  I opted to use the salt that was left over from the previous project instead of opening the bag of sand included in the materials.  That will get placed in our general art materials for something else.

Our weather has been so weird lately, one day warm and the next cold and blustery.  The girls had been cooped up for a while and needed to let some energy out so we popped in our beloved Dance N Beats DVD to try out some new routines for a while.  It also gave me a chance to clean up the salt and paint while keeping them engaged in something school related rather than letting them loose in the play area, from which it would be more difficult to get them to come back later.  I have found that Dance N Beats makes a good transition or break for all of us.

That was it for the week, as far as structured school went.  It's been one of those weeks where everything tends to go a little askew (kind of like the picture placement in this post--I cannot for the life of me get that first picture to move where I want it).  I am hoping for a more normal week and looking forward to getting to do more of our units.

Giddy Up, Cowgirls!

We are finally getting back into the swing of our normal routine after a couple weeks of illness and a family vacation to The Happiest Place on Earth (we had a blast and I may do a blog post on some ideas for making it work with toddlers).

This month our theme is In The Desert and it is looking pretty fun.  We missed the first week while we were in Disneyland but I didn't want to just skip those units so we did a few activities last night before bed from the Cowboy Boots unit and today we did a medley of other activities from the first week.

Miss M has her shapes and colors down so I concentrated on introducing this month's concepts (square and brown) to Littlest after she finished dinner (which included rubbing pizza sauce in her hair, followed by a quick wash in the sink).  I presented her with the circle shape and the new square and asked her to identify them (which she did very quickly).  I want to do a more in-depth assessment of which shapes she knows and doesn't know so we can do some activities to support the weaker concepts.  Then I took the square that came with my MGT materials and a smaller, white square I cut out separately and we worked on the concept of big and little (also one that she knows pretty well).  Lastly we worked on identifying the colors white and brown.  I would put the squares in front of her and ask her to point to one of the colors, then switch them around and ask again.  It's important not to get into a pattern (for example, you always ask about the one closest to her hand first, then the other) so they are really learning the concept and not the order of presentation.  This was a harder one for her so I think colors may be our focus this week.

We did the cowboy boot craft, which of course I altered a little bit to continue to work on the concept of square and some fine motor practice.  Daddy helped Littlest trace the white square I had cut out onto her boot with a brown marker (bringing in the color concept again) and then I gave her square stickers to use to finish decorating it.  Miss M did the same thing but more independently.  She took both boots when they were done and tried to strap them to her feet.  Littlest ran and put on her snow boots.

I used the boots to decorate boxes for the Cowboy Boot toss using our super fun counting block manipulatives that came in this month's box.  I gave each girl a set of ten blocks and had them sit in their new hula hoops.  They took apart their blocks, with me counting while Littlest took hers apart and Miss M surprising us with her ability to count to 9 in Spanish (thanks to Diego episodes on Amazon Prime).  Then they practiced tossing the blocks into the boxes from inside their hula hoops.  This morning Miss M is using them as "ice cream" and randomly dumping them out to use for patterning.

We finished off the evening by reading "Coyote" by Gerald McDermott.  This is a retelling of a Native American folktale.  Besides being a good way to introduce the desert, it also has a good moral about what it means to be a good friend and how not to treat people.

This morning we had our first regular session of school in a while with our friend.  I decided to change up calendar time a little bit by starting with today's date and working backwards.  They are so used to telling me which number comes next, it was good practice to work on which one comes first.  We also practiced the pattern a little bit; I think after nap we will look at it again and try to recreate it with the counting blocks.

We checked out the theme poster using our Looking Glasses.  Thanks to our book last night, Miss M could identify the coyote readily and did a very nice impression of one howling at the moon.  Littlest found the cacti and the cowgirl.

We introduced the letter H and practiced galloping around the living room like horses.  After a couple rounds, they decided they'd rather ride horses so they grabbed blankets to stand in for their worthy steeds and did a few more laps before we started reading this month's story book.  I really like the Who Am I? books that Mother Goose Time does; this one is all desert animals.  There are quite a few animals in the book, most of which the girls were unfamiliar with so they got a little antsy and we only made it halfway through but it was fun to watch them curl up like armadillo lizards, make pinching claws like a scorpion or growl like a bobcat.

I really want to be better about doing our journal this month.  We've gotten a little lax with it the last couple of months and it really is such a great way to practice a variety of skills.  I am thinking about starting Charlotte Mason-style nature journals with the girls and these little ones are a good first step. We did the cover page (the older girls wanted instructions on how to draw a cowboy hat while Littlest scribbled on with abandon), the Brown page (they drew coyotes and spiders that live in a brown desert) and the H page (only the tracing part, we will go back and do the rest of it another day).

Littlest and our friend made the adorable cowboy hat crafts (I declined to use paint today because I was just too tired to pull it all out and they were just as happy with crayons) and ran around the room pretending to be cowgirls while Miss M put herself in a little timeout for a while.  Littlest grabbed a couple Lego horses and was galloping around whinnying.  It was adorable.

Lastly, we attempted the Cowboy Hat Colors game.  I must admit, I found this one a little confusing.  Maybe I'm still recovering from a week of less-than perfect sleep and 41,000 steps in three days.  The instructions were pretty clear but the cowkids were wearing so many colors, I wasn't sure how we were supposed to match the single color hats to them so I changed things up and we only used the hats.  I had each color turn over one hat to begin with and that was the color they were looking for.  If they turned over someone else's hat, they gave it to the person looking for it and got another turn.  When they got a match, they were able to turn over another target hat.  Littlest actually ended up winning, which she liked but her sister did not.

We ended with snack and Disney's Pecos Bill cartoons.  I have a few more activities we may do after nap and tomorrow before starting in with our current week's units on Wednesday.

Sick Days with MGT

Miss M developed a bad cough last week and Littlest has since fallen into the ranks of the ill with her.  This week consisted of a lot of cuddling and jammie-wearing and not a lot of traditional "school" as we normally do it.  However, we still needed things to do because apparently you can't keep two toddlers in bed while they are sick (at least mine refuse to stay there).  Thankfully we had our Mother Goose Time curriculum so I didn't have to rely entirely on Daniel Tiger, Diego and Little Baby Bum. I picked a few of the activities and we added them in sporadically throughout the week.

The frog craft was fun for both of them.  I had them sponge the paint on with cotton balls.  When it was dry, they put the eyes on while I curled the tongues.  Miss M refused to use is as a headband and instead had me punch holes in the side and add ribbon for a mask even though I explained that it didn't have eye holes so she wouldn't be able to see.  She worked around the issue by wearing it like a visor as she hopped around looking for bugs to eat.

The stretching spinner game has been a hit all week long.  Their favorite stretch is the one where they rock on their tummies.  They have a hard time balancing on one foot but can do it if I hold their hands.  We go through all of them two times, holding the stretches for 6-10 seconds while we count out loud.  Littlest is trying to mimic us as we count, which is super cute. 

"Reading" the book by
naming the letters in the title.

We read our book of the month, "How Are You Peeling?" by Saxton Freeman and Joost Elffers.  It's actually a Caldecott winning book boy Scholastic.  Littlest wasn't as interested in it but Miss M loved looking at the pictures and deciding how the vegetables were feeling and coming up with scenarios to explain their emotions.  I was really impressed with how well she was able to determine which emotion most of them were illustrating and she could give me examples of times when she has felt that way.  I think it is vital to give children the vocabulary they need to express how they are feeling and why; it greatly helps to reduce frustration and gives them a better outlet than throwing a fit (although we still have plenty of those here).

One of the units this week was kicking but I couldn't get them to actually do any of the written activities.  So, I used the general theme as inspiration to get out our pop-up soccer goal and balls they got for Christmas have a kicking contest, which they loved.  This activity kept them entertained for about 10 minutes without irritating their coughs too badly.  You could use a large box (if you order from Amazon with any regularity, I'll bet you have one around) instead of the goal or just put down a tape line for them to get the ball over.  Littlest is in more of a rolling phase than a kicking phase but she liked to watch her sister.  I am trying to teach her to kick with the side of her foot rather than her toes, especially since we don't wear shoes in the house so they aren't protected, but for now I've been overruled by the threenager.  I guess this is one of those times you let them learn by experience, right?

Her look of glee belies the nasty cough
and fever she's been battling all week.

One evening before Daddy came home, we had some fun jumping over a ribbon.  Littlest tries her best, crouching down and giving the cutest grunt as she heaves herself upwards but she still hasn't quite managed to get both feet off the floor at the same time.  Her sister does her best to model proper form.  They jumped forwards and backwards and used the ribbon for a balance beam and eventually a road for their cars as they naturally transitioned into other interests.


We finally got out our geoboards, which I had been nervous to do since Littlest still likes to put things in her mouth.  Both girls were fascinated with making shapes on it although each needed some help in stretching the tighter bands.  I can see this being a great way to develop fine motor skills.  With Miss M, we concentrated on making a variety of shapes and with Littlest we worked on color recognition as I named the color of the bands she chose to use.

I personally loved the throw and catch craft/game.  I set out a variety of markers, crayons and stickers and let the girls decorate their cups while I tied the pompom to the string.  To insert the craft stick, I used scissors to punch a narrow hole that allowed the stick to poke through but kept it pretty tight so it doesn't fall out easily.  I taped the other end of the yarn to the stick inside the cup and it worked quite well.  I have fun seeing how many times I can catch the pompom.  Both girls were excited to try but quickly grew frustrated since they aren't quite coordinated enough yet to make the game work.  Littlest wandered off to play in her kitchen and Miss M invented a new game using additional pompoms from our craft stash.  She rolled them to me following a color pattern she made up (red, blue, green, red, blue green) and then dictated how I was to roll them back to her (blue, blue, green, green, red, red).  She liked it until Littlest showed interest and then we were done.   I tried to interest them in playing golf with them using paper cups tipped on their sides and large mixing spoons but the moment had passed.

I tried to sneak in a little more school with the ball patterning strip but Miss M refused to do it as written because the strip with the pattern wasn't long enough to fit the second repeat and she could not be persuaded that it was ok to put the cards on the table next to it.  A new game was required so we flipped the cards over so she could pick one and sort them into piles on top of the correct ball on the strip.  At the end we counted them and determined which we had the most and least of.

Fingers are crossed that better health is on the way since we are headed out on family vacation at the end of next week.  I am also hoping to have a chance to do more the fun activities in our final week of Food and Fitness.

Valentine Fun

I love the holiday party packs that MGT includes.  They make it easy for me to do something fun with the girls and they always love it.  Since we only do school with our friend on Mondays and Wednesdays, we had our party a few days early.

The girls really enjoyed the adapted Indian fairy tale as I was telling it but had even more fun using the story pieces on our world map to tell their own story.  I was about to move them on to the next activity since we have a finite amount of time together but caught myself and let them play themselves out.  They assigned parts (prince and princess) and areas of the globe (by color) then took turns finding the gifts and sharing them with each other.

Next we made the love bug headbands.  I am trying really hard to let them decorate and do their crafts their way, rather than "helping" extensively so they look "cute".  As much as I love Pinterest, I think it has been detrimental in many ways, one of which is making moms think their children have to crank out the most photogenic, adorable crafts that can be proudly shared on social media.  These are scribbled on using various writing tools, stickers are haphazardly placed with no rhyme or reason and the girls couldn't care less.  They were so proud of themselves and wore them for the remainder of the class.  It's a good lesson for me to learn.

I adapted the heart number game a little.  I created a blank board of hearts and cut out numbered ones that we hid around the room.  They are pretty solid on identification so we worked on numerical order instead.  Miss M liked it a lot so I'll be keeping it out.  I may make another board with the numbers for Littlest to use as a matching game.

She's touching her toes.

The Heart Healthy Game was also fun and will be making repeated appearances this month.  I enjoyed watching them trying to jump (Littlest still doesn't really leave the floor but she sure tries hard) and teaching them out to do jumping jacks.  Miss M couldn't quite understand the reasoning behind running in place when you could go somewhere so she chose to run around the game board six times instead.


We played the heart puzzle game before making Valentine cards for our beloved daddies and indulging in a snack time of chocolate zucchini muffins, applesauce and M & Ms while listening to some pretty fun Valentine songs on YouTube (including the one we sang at circle time, a five little hearts finger play).  It was a really fun way to spend the morning.

Lions!

The girls really enjoyed our class today, it was quite refreshing after last week.  We did Circle Time as usual, then practiced our song of the day; well, I sang and they acted out the lovely, lazy lion sleeping and then waking to roar.  We did this several times because they couldn't get enough roaring.  Littlest got in on it the last couple of rounds.

We also reviewed the shapes we've learned so far this year.  Rather than cutting out new shapes, I used the ones that I've been posting on the wall each month.  I had three stuffed lions so I gave one to each girl, scattered the shapes around the floor and then told them which shape their lion wanted to eat.  This would be a fun game to make a spinner, cards or cube for so they can choose their "food" shapes themselves.  The older two didn't have much difficulty (after a reminder about what a rectangle was) and I was shocked that Littlest identified circle, star and triangle completely on her own.  I can see us playing this one with other stuffed animals and when Miss M is at playgroup.

The lion masks were fun but took quite a long time for the girls to put together.  We talked about emotions and they had fun making appropriate faces for me to photograph.  They chose not to cut a circle out of their plates and instead settled on an emotion to draw on their lion's face.  Miss M chose happy, our friend wanted to draw sad and they decided that Littlest's lion was surprised.  Miss M's cutting skills have come a huge way since we started using the Mother Goose Time curriculum in March 2015.  Littlest was determined to cut like the big girls but flatly (and loudly) refused to let me help her position the scissors on her hand, which led to further frustration because her way wasn't working.  She's a very independent and stubborn child but also very observant; I would point out how the others were holding their scissors and she did a decent job trying to imitate.  I'm sure in time she'll pick up this skill (or maybe decide to let me help).

I liked the interactive nature of the story retelling of the meerkat Mo and the discussion questions at the end.  The girls all paid attention and could answer the questions when I asked them.  I also liked the story because it was a good segue into a conversation about liking ourselves just the way we are instead of looking at other people and lamenting our differences.

I changed up the Bee Patient/number game because we were running out of time and they wanted to eat snack, too.  I laid out all the zebra cards, numbers down, and handed each child a lion card.  They took one turn looking for the matching number on a zebra card and then had to practice waiting patiently for their next turn.  When they got a match, I gave them a new card.  It actually worked pretty well; I think having a snack to distract them between turns helped.

That was our morning; all in all, I am pleased with how it went and looking forward to another day with MGT.

An InLinkz Link-up

Stars and Candles

Merry Christmas Eve!  We are in the depths of preparing for the celebrations that start tonight for us and continue into tomorrow but I thought I'd put up a little review of what we did Monday for school.

I cut out strips of colored paper to act as "candles" and numbered them 1-8, then divided them up between the girls and let them ut them in order.  They needed a little reminding to go left to right but other than that, they did great.  I put this activity in the folder with the rest of the daily materials so we can do it again next time we go through this theme.

I cut out eight more strips of colored "candles" and they used them to make letters.  M was a little difficult to figure out at first but they eventually got it.  Along with doing X, V and M (our letters this month), we also did W, T and L.  L caused some confusion as to which direction it should face and Miss M could not be convinced that I was right so we moved on and will tackle that later.  Littlest had a great idea and used the letter flags as a model, laying the strips on top to create her copy.

We made the star wands, which were an instant hit with their yellow cellophane centers.  I had them decorate with markers and  then we traced around it and added glittery green sand that was left over from a previous project (I have quite the craft collection now, primarily utilizing materials left over from our Mother Goose Time crafts).  Miss M called it her starifying glass and used it to search for items around the house.

Since we had a leftover star from the middle of the wands, I quickly created a more Christmas-y craft utilizing the wonderful materials available freely on the internet.  I found a poem called "A Christmas Star" by Tom Krause on Allpoetry.com and a free coloring picture of a manger scene and used Photoshop to put them in one document. The girls colored the picture and added their star to the page to act as the star that led the shepherds and wise men to the baby Jesus.  I thought it turned out pretty cute.  I'd post a copy but I'm not sure about copyright laws.

The girls enjoyed playing "Jack Be Nimble" and building a block candle higher and higher to try jumping over.  It gave them good counting practice and they had the poem memorized by the last time they "jumped" (mostly they just lifted their legs and walked over it).  It would be a good game for making predictions ("I think I can jump over 6 blocks without knocking it over, how many do you think you can jump over?").

Our last activity was using the glow in the dark star counters.  They liked matching them up to the card by size to copy the pattern printed there.  We sorted them by size (large, medium and small), counted how many were in each group, then counted them all together.  The only place dark enough for them to see them glow was my under the stairs closet and they weren't too keen on staying in there very long.

I plan on doing some more school this week and will let you know what fun we have after the presents have been opened and the kitchen is finally cleaned up.  Have a wonderful Christmas!

An InLinkz Link-up

M is for Mouse

For our last day of school this week, we did the Mouse unit.  I taped off an M on the floor and put all our phonics cards along the path, while Miss M told me all the things she could think of that start with the letter M.  She came up with her name, Minnie, Mommy, muffin and mice.  They took turns creeping along the letter like a little mouse until they came to a card that started with M and then put it on our circle time board.  They liked the game so we did it again, using the other phonics cards.  When they came to a card on the path, they stopped and named all the letters in the word before saying the whole word and putting it back in our bag.  They are doing great with their letter identification so I am going to need to come up with a few more ideas to challenge them.

We pulled out the "I Can Read" book of the month and practiced reading words in the -at family.  They both enjoyed pointing to the words and telling the story to me (with cues and help) and we read through it a few times before moving to another activity.  I didn't use the sight word pointers because we were concentrating on the word family instead this time.  It was a little easier for them read words that had a pattern.

The mouse math game was fun for them.  I sat them on either side of the table with the equation in the middle, then had them count the number of mice that was closest to them, then we counted them all together.  I think it helped them understand the concept of adding two separate groups together.

We played the Cat and Mouse game.  They are getting really good at identifying the number of dots on the dice just from the pattern they make instead of having to count all of them but still need to work on directionality when playing a board game.

Our last activity was one I made up.  They love to do crafts to I cut out a little mouse head shape, ears and a triangle for the mouth.  I let them put their mice together and taped the triangle on the back of the head so the mouth could be opened, then we cut up some yellow card stock to act as cheese cubes.  They could roll the die and feed their mouse that number of cheese cubes.  It could easily be used for addition and subtraction as well.

Christmas is next week but I am still planning on doing some of our fun activities with visiting family members so check back if you're interested in more of our exploits.

An InLinkz Link-up

Santa's Workshop

Miss M's birthday was on Wednesday and we always spend birthdays together as a family so we celebrated with her school friends on Monday.  Mother Goose Time often sends special "extra" unit in months that have a particular holiday, like the Pumpkin Party we did with our cousins in October.  December's bonus kit was "Santa's Workshop" and it made for the perfect toddler party.

I started by laminating everything to make it extra durable and because I really love my laminator.  I assembled all my craft materials ahead of time so I wouldn't be running back and forth for them since it was just me with four kids under four.

We started with our normal circle time, then sang the new Santa song provided in the party materials.  After that, I read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" while they added the story pieces provided to our flannel board.  It was a little long for them but I like the idea that they are being introduced to classic literature.

This is Miss M "freezing".

Next, we played "Reindeer Training" after first reviewing the different types of movements on the spinner.  I laid out a kind of crazy path on the rug using tape but I probably would have been better just to leave them to their own paths because they were deliberately trying to run into each other by going opposite directions.  I think they would have done a little more avoiding (and therefore a little less crying on Littlest's part, who kept getting knocked over) if they had been free to roam.  The game ended a little prematurely when they couldn't heed the warning to leave Littlest alone.

Next, we made Santa spoon puppets.  I cut out hat shapes for them but they did all the rest.  Miss M immediately began using a deep voicing and saying "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas! I'm Santa!" as soon as she finished hers.  It was adorable.  I was particularly impressed with Littlest's puppet; she put all the parts on by herself.  She turns 18 months today and has really, really good fine motor skills for her age.  I'm pretty sure that's why the majority of her expressive language consists of "eh", "dad", "mama", "cacaca" (that's kitty), "mmmm" (that's her sister), pointing and signing; she's too busy developing other skills to bother with talking.

We forgot the arms at first and added
them a little later.

I modified the snowman painting craft because I knew Miss M wouldn't like the shaving cream texture (and I'm pretty sure my husband is almost out...) so instead I let them choose what color of paper they wanted to use and drew three circles on it, emphasizing large, medium and small.  I poured white paint onto paper plates and gave them cotton balls to use to sponge the paint onto their circles.  They cut their own hats out of construction paper, and we used a variety of leftover craft materials from other projects such as split peas, jewels and confetti for the details.  I also cut a brown chenille stem into eight pieces to use for arms.  I think they came out beautifully.

While the snowman dried, we played Santa's Beard and practiced number recognition while we were at it.  It was a fun game and I think next time I bring it out, I will add in the use of tweezers or tongs to pick up the cotton balls so they can work on building a little more hand strength.

I didn't do the snack listed in the party instructions simply because Miss M had requested donuts and it was her birthday party but I think the snack idea was really cute and can see us doing it another time.

I didn't have time to make play dough for the Christmas tree activity during the party but we did it just the three of us the next day.  It was actually the first time I had ever made "cooked" play dough and it was much easier than I thought; it was also a lot softer and better to use than other, no cook recipes I've tried.  I left the room for 10 seconds to grab a package at the door and I came back to find Littlest grimacing and trying to spit; apparently it wasn't super tasty.  They both loved pushing beads into the dough to decorate their trees.  Miss M wanted to cut out her own shapes.  She has really little hands and it was hard for her to flatten out the dough with them (we didn't have a good rolling pin, although I have since corrected the problem) and was so proud of herself for doing it on her own.  It was a great semi-supervised activity for them to do while I got things ready for dinner and will definitely be making another appearance soon.

So, if you're looking for a great party that's already been planned for you on top of super fun preschool learning opportunities, you might want to give Mother Goose Time a try.  :)

Rum, Pum, Pum, Pum

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday with family in Washington state and got home on Wednesday.  I was excited to open up our MGT December curriculum box, which arrived almost as we were walking out the door the week before.  I was not disappointed.

The theme for this month is "Sights and Sounds of Winter".  I love the Christmas season, with all the music, decorations and of course the smell of baking goodies and these units are going to be a great accompaniment to all the fun I hope we have in the next few weeks.

The first unit of the month was Drums.  One of the girls' favorite shoes right now is "Little Einsteins" and at a few places in the show they are always asked to pat to the beat.  Littlest is especially adorable when she does this, so this unit was a big hit.  Miss M decided to play Teacher Mommy again and we actually had almost half an hour of circle time as we reviewed the calendar and weather and introduced the concept of the day, the color white.  We put the white color blob on the painters palette, reviewed the other colors that were already there and then they decided to take some time with the pretend paint brushes to go around the room and "paint" things.  Miss M knows all her colors but enjoyed naming them for Littlest.  We also spent fully five minutes singing the circle time song, subbing in different body parts and items in the room for the word "drum".  The girls took turns naming (or pointing, in the case of Littlest) things and I did most of the singing while they laughed at me.  It was a great vocabulary lesson.

We practiced patting out the syllables in our names as well as identifying their names.  I wrote them on the name tags and would hold one up for us to pat.  We also did all the names of our grandparents and pets before moving on to the craft.

I love the Native American drum craft.  The girls colored the paper plates and chose their beads and I hot glued everything together.  I ended up doing a second round of hot glue after the sticks broke loose on both of them, filling the space with as much glue as I could.  They seem a lot more stable and have been great fun to play.  We watched a Native American drum video on YouTube during craft.

She wouldn't hold it still long
enough for me to get a
clear picture.

I was hoping to lure Miss M into playing the rhythm game but after we finished the craft she was just ready for snack and free play.  Maybe another day.  I am excited to make some more instruments and have our only little family band.

An InLinkz Link-up

Our Week with Mother Goose

Here is a recap of some of our favorite activities from our Mother Goose Time lessons this week.

Miss M decided to be "Mommy Teacher" for a day, relegating me to the floor while she taught from the stool (to be fair, she did offer to let me sit in her blue chair but unfortunately Mommy's hips don't quite fit).  She went through the calendar and weather items, introduced our new letter and led us in song ("Twinkle Twinkle Little Star").  I spread out the day of the week clouds and had her identify the correct day by the initial sound.  It was adorable and reminded me of when I was little and my favorite game was playing teacher.

The foam shape tangrams are always fun to play with although for someone like me who is not great with visual-spatial skills, a key would be kind of helpful.  Miss M was actually pretty good at figuring it out on her own (she gets that from her daddy).

Making elephant masks was fun, although I was surprised they quit after only a relatively few squares of tissue paper.  Gluing is one of their favorite things but they were anxious to be done and play with them.  I cut out the eye and nose holes and the girls ran around the room bellowing like elephants for quite a few minutes.  Littlest will point at hers on the counter (I have an area where I display their crafts for the month) and start making elephant sounds to indicate that she would like to play with it some more.

The older girls really enjoyed the race track game.  I modified it a little by adding a deck of alphabet cards from our July theme.  Before their turn, they had to draw a card, name the picture, identify the initial sound and then try and name the letter that makes the sound (I only had them do so much because they both know their letters and sounds quite well).  If they couldn't remember on their own, they could turn it over and name the letter directly.  Then they got to roll their die, count the dots and move around the board.  Going around three times was a little much for them so we stopped after two times but it still gave them lots of practice in letter/sound identification and counting.

Both girls have had a round (or two) with a stomach bug this week so we didn't press a lot of school.  Our fruit beads from last month have been played with a lot and will be making a trip to Washington with us, as well many of the games from this month.  My nephew is excited to play with them and have some MGT at his house.

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