March 28th-April 3rd

Sunday- Today was beautiful so we went to the park. The kids rode their bikes and played on the playground equipment. Ava colored outside on the sidewalk with chalk while Amara and Ava procrastinated picking up their toys. After seeing Ava get a special reward, she picked up much faster. Ava read "Lilo & Stitch: Home, Stinky, Home" and finished "Poppy and Max: The River Picnic" . The girls painted little statues of ponies we purchased on sale for art activities. They mixed their own colors. We watched an earthquake movie on the National geographic website and then Earthquakes: Bill Nye.

Monday- The girls took turns playing their Jump start game (if I haven't talked about it before, it's a great game that covers all aspects of learning from math to reading to social studies). Ava read the whole book "Ruby and Max:Ruby scores a goal". Amara read 4 pages from "Little Critters: Going to the Sea Park". We had a poetry lesson, where I read 4 Shel Silversten poems from the book "Runny Babbit" and then a few poems from "Read a Rhyme, write a rhyme". We then wrote 5 poems together. One about a dog, one about a cat, one about a fish and then we did poems from each of their names. While Amara watched "Mickey Mouse Club house" and "Handy Manny" with her brother, Ava and I read "Klondike and Snow", a book about polar bears that also teaches fractions. Ava learned what a numerator and a denominator is, as well as seeing fractions in their different forms. It's a great book. We are watching "Volcanoes" Bill Nye. I realize we do lots of natural disaster stuff, but the kids love it. I don't know why, but their whole lives, they have been fascinated with nature. Everything from flowers to hurricanes to insects.

Tuesday- Today was devoted to Science!! We are having a Bill Nye "Body" marathon. First we watched "Bones and Muscles". I love the quizzes on the Bill Nye videos. It's a great recap for the stuff they don't remember. After the first video I read the book "You can't see Your Bones with Binoculars" by Harriet Ziefert. We then watched "Skin". Then we watched "Bill Nye: Brain". We did an experiment that was on the video where the kids went into their room, looked for 1 minute and then drew everything they could remember. They did pretty well. We then watched "Eyeballs". Finally the kids watched "Heart" and "Blood Circulation".

Wednesday- The girls went their their friends house to play today. It was a big step (both frightening and exciting for us) because it was the first time they were at a friends house without us present. They were in good hands though. It felt so weird without them home. The house was too quiet. lol. After they came home, we went to the park where they played with another friend. It was a great day for socializing!!! We came home and watched Mythbusters.

Thursday-There was no gymnastics today which disappointed the girls. We spent a lot of time today reviewing the information they had learned on their "jumpstart" game. Ava read a book to her siblings (5 pages from a book) about twisters.

Friday- We took the kids to Itasca State park. They built a "teepee" out of cut down branches that the forest rangers hadn't picked up yet. We walked one of the trails and discussed the moss on the trees. We went down to the headwaters and saw the height of Mississippi at it's beginning. Michael's mom came along and they had a great time with grandma. On the way home they watched a Sesame Street "It's Easy Being Green" which is about being enviornmentally friendly. IT was educational even for me.

Saturday- We are taking today off for Easter weekend. The kids did play educational games on the computer this morning but we haven't pushed anything else.