First, a pop quiz:
Who Am I?
Jackson even had a hard time guessing! He guessed right, but then asked, “Right? At least, I think so.” He can never tell them apart when they are wet in the bathtub, which I think is hysterical! Greg and I can see how they look alike at times, but even we are baffled at the endless “are they twins?” questions from strangers. Thank goodness they aren’t; I shudder to think of the hard work real twin mommies have to put in. I’m lucky that my girls are 18 months a part!
ANYway, our week! Busy! Busy! Add a bit more “busy”! We just finished our second week of school, and things are going much, much smoother! We are in a routine, and the children know what is expected of them and when. It is still hard to juggle London and Brooklyn, but its getting better. So, here are some of the things we did this week!
Dress up! Lots and lots of dress up! The girls are really into this right now, and they alternate between princesses, ninjas, and super-heros. Whichever they’ve chosen for the day usually stays on ALL day, especially with London. Brooklyn usually just wears it for a few hours and is done, but not London.
Letter of the Week is going really well! Last week was Ee for Elephant. This particular activity has her matching up letter disks to their partner on the page. She LOVES this game, and is very good at it!
The Daily Five is working AWESOME for us! One of his centers is Word Work, and he gets to choose from 5 activities right now to do with his spelling words. Technically he doesn’t have spelling words since we are using All About Spelling and don’t have traditional lists to memorize. I found these lists online and have been using them.
We visited China this week in Expedition Earth! Jackson learned how to write and count to 10 in Mandarin Chinese, how to write his name, how to say “Hello!” and “Thank you”, and learned lots of interesting facts. For fun {yes, fun!}, we made up math problems in Chinese for each other! We read “A Grain of Rice”, which I highly recommend. Jackson loved it! This week is a short week because of Labor Day, and since we only run a 4 day school schedule, we only have 3 days this week. I have to catch up on Science, so we won’t visit South Korea until next week. Instead, we will just keep studying about China and read books like “The Story of Ping” and “Tikki Tikki Tembo”.
Have y’all ever heard of whisper phones? They are great! During Jackson’s Read to Self center during the Daily Five, he can use this to whisper to himself. He is whispering so he isn’t disturbing his sisters while I work with them, but the phone amplifies his voice in his ear, making it seem like he is speaking out loud! It is works great for having kids hear themselves read and creates an awareness of phonetic patterns and mistakes they may be making while decoding without realizing it.
We also play lots of games! This one is a favorite of the kids. Its Bingo by Leapfrog, and comes with several different options. You can do numbers, shapes, colors, etc. Jackson is a good sport and plays along with his sisters, helping them find the right answers.
We also took a field trip to the Children’s Museum with a few of our friends! Usually its pretty expensive, but they were running a summer special of $6 per person, so we jumped at the chance! The children LOVE this place and could spend hours there! When we move closer we may have to get a membership…its a great place to escape the heat and burn off some energy!
On Saturday I celebrated my 31st birthday! We went to Joe’s Farm Grill for lunch and spent the weekend enjoying each others company.
So, on to week 3! Only 33 more to go, lol!
A Tale of Three Cities 