Song requests working out of this book from time to time. We did lesson 20 and about half of 21 before she lost interest. Her letter recognition is coming along and she can sound out words in very simple, phonetically controlled readers.

• One Small Blue Bead (recommended in the SOTW Activity Guide). This was the story of an ancient human boy who wondered if there were other tribes of humans in the world.
• The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen I'll admit that I teared up when I read this heartbreaking tale. Disney did quite a number on this story--there are only a few similarities between the Mickeyed-up movie and the original version.

Dodger has really got a good grasp on adding doubles now. It took her awhile to cement 6+6, 7+7, 8+8, and 9+9, but now she's got them memorized.

Worked on copying the words and spelling them out loud.

Song is something of a perfectionist and gets flustered fairly easily. She's pretty cute to see with her brow furrowed as she thinks and she likes to speak her thought processes. "Ok, so if there are 3 hundreds home, 1 ten home, and 5 units home that makes...3 hundred fifteen!"

Song really likes her Explode the Code workbooks. She frequently requests to do them and usually does quite a few pages before telling me she's done.

Dodger had a lot of fun creating the face of a clock using the MathUSee blocks. She used 5-unit blocks to form the circle and used a 10-block as the minute hand to set the time. She's good at skip-counting by 5s already.

Dodger has shown a lot more interest in doing language arts activities and seems to enjoy this book more than the regular Explode the Code.

We are in the process of memorizing all thirteen of the articles of faith in our religion. Dodger worked on handwriting by copying out the first one.

Song consistently requests to "do math". She enjoys it.

Song completed a substantial amount of pages today.

• We read Jump by Steve Lavis. Song and Sparkle (almost 3) especially enjoyed acting out the motions described on each page. Dodger later read the book to herself while she ate breakfast.
• Dodger and Song also enjoyed looking at Anno's Alphabet while Song "read" it.
• I looked at Anno's Counting Book with Sparkle. She enjoyed counting all the things in the pictures.

• I asked review questions about nomads and nomad farmers from the Story of the World Volume 1 (Ancients) Activity Guide. Dodger remembered everything from our reading on Monday and answered every question I asked.
• We colored pictures of the early machine, the shaduf, which farmers used to water their crops.
• We did the map activity found the SOTW Activity Guide, which was a map of the fertile crescent in the Middle East between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Dodger had more fun with the blocks and clock. She completed more practice worksheets on telling time and I quizzed her with the blocks. She got nearly every one right on the first try.

Dodger's understanding of word groups has improved.

Song is pretty cute as she sticks out her tongue while she concentrates on coloring.

Now that she's working from this book nearly every day, Song is more easily remembering letter sounds and names.

• We read Little Grunt and the Big Egg: A prehistoric fairy tale. The kids all liked that one.
• We read one of Sparkle's picks, Dora and the Egg, which was about a hen who envied everyone's cute, cuddly, and fluffy babies over her little eggs (until those eggs hatched!).
• We read about half of It's Disgusting and We Ate It. The kids are not interested in eating bugs or snakes or other exotic food items.
• We read chapter one from one of Song's picks, Tiara Club #1 Princess Charlotte and the Birthday Ball.
• Dodger and I read The 2,000-year-old Man Went to School, which was recommended in the SOTW Activity Guide. I'm not sure either of us liked it much.

Dodger was quick to pick up the concept of 6+6+1 = 6+7.

Dodger's understanding of contractions has improved.

Song is understanding the concept better.

Song is proud that she is almost done with another reading book.