End of June Update

The girls have been practicing playing their recorders. Georgia has been learning how to read music in her recorder music book and has learned three new notes. They like to have a jam session with Mark and his guitar. Recorder + guitar is an acquired taste! I don't know if I have acquired it yet...but they have fun! I've joined in with the maracas on occasion. It is quite a mix!

The girls have learned about ants, bees, and butterflies by watching the Magic School Bus: Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! Later in the week the girls collected some bugs to study. They went outside searched for some unique specimens to put in their bug jars. They also found one that looked similar to an ant, but they deduced that it was a spider after counting its legs and body parts.

Georgia has participated in Kids' Hour at the library for the past couple of weeks. The first week was about air. She made a wind sock and then showed Olivia how to make her own when we returned home. This week's topic was water. She made a bottle of colored water and cooking oil that she shakes up and then watches it separate.

The girls also had fun with balloons and kites. Georgia asked me why a balloon with a string on it floats in the air. I thought that was so cute! She thought it was the string that made the difference! We have talked about this before, but we talked about it some more and I explained to her about helium being lighter than our air, and we checked out the periodic table of elements.

The girls played with money and made a pretend store. They practiced counting the money and making change. Olivia recognized Monticello on the back of the nickel as the place we visited in May.

The girls have continued reading daily. Georgia reads silently to herself or aloud to one of us. I read to Olivia, but she helps with some words. The girls also have fun creating different crafts with materials from our "craft cart". (drawers of craft supplies on wheels) The most recent medium used was yarn.

The girls practice gymnastics just about daily. They love to try to perfect their handstands and other flips and rolls. Georgia tried kickboxing with me; Olivia joined in occasionally.

The girls tried crystal mining last night. I bought the kit from the Boonshoft Museum gift shop. They have a block of plaster that has eight crystals inside. The girls need to use their tools to slowly chip away at the block. This activity definitely encourages patience! Like a real geologist, they need to take their time and be careful not to chip or crack the crystals.

Olivia was the first to work on the plaster block.

Georgia proved she had the most patience and continued at the activity after everyone else left the table.

She found four of the crystals but they are still inside the plaster block. She now needs to work carefully around them to loosen them from the block. But this will have to be continued another day.

This morning she is working on creating a game. She is drawing it out on a piece of paper first, writing the rules and choosing what the spaces will say. She's then going to draw it onto a piece of cardboard and paint it. The idea is that the animals are at the park and need to find their way home. Along the way they encounter obstacles or bonuses. Can't wait to play it when she's done!

We recently watched Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit movie and watched how they made the rabbits in a DVD bonus feature. Olivia wants us to make our own characters with play dough today.