Wednesday, February 28, 2007

-Astrid drew a picture of her and Muirgen, labeling it with their names.
-We worked on the verses the girls are supposed to memorize for Sparks club.
-They worked on their embroidery.
-They pretended to have a birthday party for their imaginary twin friends, Hela and Helit.
-They discovered that any magnet can make a picture on their magna-doodle and explored the possibilities of this for quite a while. We talked about magnetism and how the magna-doodle works. Muirgen counted and named the shapes they made with the different magnets.
-Astrid made words (mostly names of family and friends) with the letter magnets.
-Muirgen helped with laundry.
-She coloured.
-Astrid did more mazes, colour by numbers, etc. in her activity book.
-She went to ballet class.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

-The girls worked on their embroidery.
-They spent a large chunk of the day going on an imaginary camping trip.
-Muirgen helped hang, fold and put away laundry.
-Our friend, Karen, dropped by and had a lengthy conversation with the girls. They talked about which books we have read recently (Charlotte's Web, Trumpet of the Swan, The Wind in the Willows, etc.), how Astrid feels about math and reading, books Karen has been reading lately (she's been reading about sea life off the coast of California), etc. They looked for the places she was talking about on the map, and looked through a copy of National Geographic Kids together. They discussed King Tut's tomb and Astrid told Karen all she knows about the Incas. The girls really seemed to enjoy having an adult visitor who took the time to talk with them, rather than just chat with me the whole time. We all had a really lovely visit.
-After Karen left, Astrid wanted to look at the website with the virtual tour of King Tut's tomb and did so.
-The girls went to Sparks clubs in the evening.

Monday, February 26, 2007

-The girls helped hang, fold and put away laundry.
-I've been working on some embroidery lately and today the girls wanted to learn how to do it. They decided they'd each like to embroider their name on a square for their quilts. I showed them how to do it and then helped Muirgen, poking the needle through the fabric in the right spot for her to pull it through while Astrid worked away on hers with good success.


-Astrid drew more pictures of princesses, princes, evil step-mothers, magical coaches, etc. She now has quite a collection of such pictures.
-We played a game of 'Sorry' which Muirgen won.
-Muirgen looked at picture books.
-She coloured in a colouring book.
-Astrid did a bunch of colour by numbers, mazes and word searches in one of her activity books.
-She read about half of 'Hop on Pop' by Dr. Suess. This is the first time she has wanted to try reading from a book.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

-Grocery shopping.
-Astrid made a necklace out of beads and wire.
-Muirgen cut cardboard into little pieces.
-She helped me hang up laundry.
-Astrid had ballet class.
-Read a chapter of "the Wind in the Willows".

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

-Astrid built a castle out of blocks.
-She drew a series of pictures of princes, princesses and mean step-mothers.
-Muirgen helped fold and put away laundry.
-Astrid completed 5 pages in her math workbook.
-Muirgen glued pom-poms on a piece of paper, counting them each time she added another one.
-We had pancakes for lunch in honour of shrove Tuesday.
-The girls helped me continue the enormous task of cleaning out Jason's computer room so that we have space to store baby clothes, diapers, a change table, etc.
-Astrid theorized about how cheese strings are made (you know, those sticks of cheese that can be peeled into strings). She figures that they're made by melting cheese to get it stringy then pouring it into molds the shape of the sticks and then freezing them. She'd like to try this out sometime.
-I was checking my email and Astrid noticed one I had starred. She wondered what it was, so I told her it was from Bullfrog Energy (we've recently switched to green energy to power our home). She started asking me questions about bullfrogs, so we looked them up on the internet and spent the next hour and a half reading about them and looking at pictures of them. We found a site that shows photographs taken every few days chronicling the entire metamorphosis from spawn to mature frog.
-Muirgen played by herself downstairs while Astrid and I were on the computer. No idea what she was doing.
-The girls went to Sparks and Cubbies clubs tonight. They raced cars on a big track and built towers out of blocks, among other things, I'm sure, which they didn't tell me about.
-We talked about why polar bears are white.

Monday, February 19, 2007

-Astrid sorted the girls' collection of beads into different groups. She then made a bracelet with them.
-Muirgen made a caterpillar with the beads.
-Astrid made another square for her seasons quilt. Muirgen made two more. She counted all of the squares she's made so far and figured out how many more she'll have to make in order to have six for each season.
-Astrid wanted to start sewing some of the squares together so she sat on my lap and helped guide the fabric and pull out the pins as I sewed together the first four squares.
-Muirgen helped scrub the floor in my sewing room as there was quite a lot of paint and marker on it.
-Astrid danced to classical music.
-The girls sorted their play food and set up a food bank with it. Eventually it evolved into a grocery store. I was the cashier. Astrid wrote out her grocery list, sounding out many of the words herself, and they came to do some shopping.
-Muirgen told me that her second favourite kind of pasta is tortellini. She insisted that she does not have a favourite, only a second favourite.
-The girls put together a little percussion band with hand drums and chopsticks. They sang Feist songs along with their beats.
-Read a chapter of 'Wind in the Willows' to Astrid. We've been reading it only very sporadically, but she remembers the plot very well and can recall many little details from the previous chapters. I'm amazed by her comprehension of this story. The vocabulary is advanced and the writing is quite sophisticated.
-Jason read a counting book to Muirgen.

Friday, February 9, 2007

This past week's been pretty much a right-off as far as doing meaningful things with the girls. We've all been sick (Astrid really only had one night of fever and a sort of lingering cough. Muirgen and I have not fared so well). The week started off with our housemate getting in a pretty serious car accident Sunday night as she was driving home from a weekend with her family in Toronto. Jason and I were both awake til about 4am that night - not a good way to start off a week of sickness!

But anyway, a quick re-cap of a few things Astrid did (Muirg didn't do much other than lay on the couch).
-Tuesday she had 5 friends over for the afternoon. They mainly played princesses.
-Tuesday night she went to Sparks club which two of her friends from the afternoon invited her to go along to. She loved it!
-Wednesday she re-started ballet lessons.
-Thursday was PEG. We were all feeling pretty good in the morning and so went. In the afternoon, Jul and Clover were here.
-Today Astrid spent a large part of the day making Valentine's cards for her friends. We read a book of Valentine's poetry and another about the history of Valentine's day. AJ was over for a couple hours.

So it was a pretty social week for Astrid - just what she loves most!