S and T

 The week of October 1, Johanna learned two more letters.  S and T.  As always, we started every school day with circle time, French lesson, penny whistle lesson, and various activities depending on the day.  Everyday she continued to practice writing the letters she had already learned, and we also reviewed the sounds they all make and tried to think of words that started with the different letters.  

The girls enjoyed the walk on Monday, and collected all kinds of nature goodies for their buckets.

 

Once we got into the school room, we went through our daily routine of beginning the school day. Right after, I told Julia a new gnome story.  This week, Super Sam becomes friends with Hobart, the dragon, and discovers he loves apples. After I told the story, the girls help me set up the scene from the story with toys.

I also introduced Johanna to the letter S.  She practiced writing it, and then I told her the fairy tale, The Six Swans.

  

Once I was finished telling Johanna the story, we drew pictures in our lesson books.

Mom's Drawing

 Johanna's Drawing

Johanna wrote these letters in her lesson book with a block crayon.  It is still challenging for her to make nice smooth edges.

On Tuesday, Johanna re-told me the story of The Six Swans, and then I wrote a summary of it in her lesson book.

On Wednesday, I introduced Johanna to the letter T, and then told her the fairy tale, The Three Little Men in the Woods.

Afterward, we drew pictures from the story in our lesson books.

Mom's Drawing

Johanna's Drawing

On Thursday, Johanna re-told the story ,and I wrote a summary in her lesson book.

 

She also practiced her form drawing in various ways, such as making the form with glass beads, throughout the week, and then drew it in her form drawing book on Thursday.

Two more new letters next week!

Missing Teeth

Johanna lost a tooth last weekend, and started the week like this:

She ended the week like this:

 

See anything different?  How cute is she??

She also wiggled loose a third tooth on the bottom on Sunday.  Three teeth lost in a week!  The Tooth Fairy has been very busy! 

 

Orlando Vacation - Day 4

We started off Tuesday, September 4th, at Disney World's Animal Kingdom park.  We arrived there when it opened, and stayed until the early afternoon. 

This nice lady was right inside the main gate ready to welcome the kids with big, fuzzy spiders. Oooh....

We started off in the "Asia" section of the park, where we rode the Expedition Everest roller coaster.  This is one of the most popular rides in the Animal Kingdom park.  The lines were really short again this day (yay!), so Grant and Cory rode it a few times.  Johanna and I only rode it once.  Unfortunately, little Julia was the only one who was not tall enough for this ride. The idea of it was to be careening through the Himalayan mountains on a speeding train while avoiding the clutches of the Abominable Snowman. It was a really fun ride, and all the kids ended up with little stuffed Yeti's from the gift shop.

 

 
Next, we headed to the DinoLand USA section of the Park.  Here we rode DINOSAUR. In it we boarded a time rover which took us back to the time of the dinosaurs to try and save a dinosaur from extinction.  We had to get out fast to avoid a meteor shower, of course, and also came face-to-face with a T-Rex.  There were a few scary dinosaurs, but overall it was fun for everyone.
 

 
There was also a section of little amusement park rides the kids could enjoy.

 We also watched Finding Nemo The Musical.  It was a 30-minute Broadway-style musical stage show.  The actors held large puppets to make all the characters from the movie come alive.  We enjoyed the show, and also enjoyed the air-conditioning!

We made our way into the "Africa" section of the park, and went on a Kilimanjaro Safari.  For this we rode in open-air vehicles, and got to see exotic animals.

The Tree of Life is the centerpiece of the Animal Kingdom Park.  Below you can see the kids in front of it holding their little Yeti's, or Yeti Kids, as they liked to call them.

 
We finished up in Animal Kingdom, and headed over to one of Disney World's water parks called Blizzard Beach.  We had a great time here.  There was a huge wave pool, as well as water slides, a chairlift, a family rafting slide, a lazy river which went all the way around the park, and a children's play area.

  

We stayed at Blizzard Beach until it closed, and then we headed to an area called Downtown Disney which had shopping and dining.  We ate dinner here at a restaurant called T-REX.  The kids loved eating here! The decor was all dinos - similar to the Rainforest Cafe, but with dinosaurs.  Below is a picture of an "ice cave" in the middle of the restaurant which would change colors.  It was red at the time because we found ourselves in yet another meteor shower.

These tentacles were over the bar area, which was close to where we sat in the "ocean" section of the restaurant.  

 
After dinner we went to Disney's Magic Kingdom park to watch the fireworks over Cinderella's castle.  That is not as easy as it sounds since Magic Kingdom does not have it's own parking lot. To get there you have to take a ferry, a shuttle, or the monorail.  We parked at the transportation center, and took the monorail.  We made sure to claim our spots about an hour beforehand. The fireworks, which were set to Disney songs and narrated by Jiminy Cricket, were awesome! 

 

Here Dad and the girls were trying to get comfortable to watch the fireworks.  Johanna was standing on a little iron fence that was behind Cory.  I think she was still trying to get her footing.  Notice the little yeti's still in hand. :)

  

We managed to get out of the park and back on the monorail pretty quickly.  We drove back to our resort, and got all the kids tucked into bed around 10:30pm.  It was a long, but memorable day!

Michaelmas Week

During the last week of September, we took a break from learning letters to celebrate Michaelmas.  The girls and I continued to start our mornings with a walk, circle time, French lesson, and penny whistle lesson.  I made sure Johanna took some time to practice writing the letters she had already learned. I also told Julia a new "Super Sam" story for the week. In this story he meets a dragon(a nice one) who lost his parents, and made his way into the forest.

On Monday, I told the girls a story for Michaelmas out of this book:   

Afterward, the girls drew their own pictures of a princess being rescued from a dragon.

Johanna's Drawing

Julia's Drawing

On Tuesday,  the girls modeled dragons out of clay.  They enjoyed doing this so much that they decided to make dragon eggs, nests, and knights. They even colored a cardboard "scene" they could sit them on, and even better, they were easily portable.

Johanna's Sculptures

Julia's Sculptures

On Wednesday, I read them a story about Saint George from this book:

Saint George is considered to be the earthly counterpart to Saint Michael.

After I told them the story, we painted pictures of Saint Michael and the dragon.  We painted using the wet-on-wet watercolor technique. It is a challenge for the girls to control the paint using this technique.  At this point, they are not expected to make any kind of detailed paintings. Even I still have a hard time!

Mom's Painting

Johanna's Painting

Julia's Painting

Finally, on Thursday, we made our dragon bread.  The kids always enjoy doing this!