Life Lately

It's been a while since I have updated on the day to day goings-on of the children.  The past month has been busy with lots of appointments, obligations, and events.  Here is a peek into what the kids have been up to.

Little Ish

Little Ish is wrapping up his 2nd month of his Kindergarten homeschool year.  He is making a lot of progress in learning to read and I find him in corners all around the house sounding out words.  He also spends a good amount of time writing be it lists, stories, or just words he is interested in knowing how to spell.  He is currently very interested in the Where's Waldo books. One day last week he assembled his own Waldo costume and when Lily wanted to play hide-and-seek outside with him, he renamed the game as Where's Waldo.  He has taken a lot of interest in preparing food this past month so we have done a lot of different cooking and baking tasks together. This has given us a good chance to talk about all sorts of math topics in a really natural way.

In not so homeschool news, Little Ish has developed a real appreciation for Atticus's sense of humor and they spend a lot of time playing and laughing together.  He also surprises me daily with his joy in little things and his generosity with his siblings.

Liliana

Lily is quite the busy little girl.  She is always doing something and never complains of boredom. In the past month she has become really good at writing her name.  She has started to enjoy playing board games with me and Little Ish.  She particularly likes playing Trouble.  She has an affection for nonsensical rhyming games and has started to try to figure out knock-knock jokes.  She has joined her big brother in enjoying preparing foods.  Her favorite kitchen task is cracking eggs and she has quickly mastered it (we rarely end up with any shells in the bowl).  She loves to be read to and often gets into a pattern of asking me to read the same book a few times per day. This month Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco has been the most favored book.  Lily still loves music and dancing and has been on a Weird Al kick thanks to her cousins.  One of her newest pretend games involves washing things.  Last week she played "wash the kitchen floor"; she was entertained, and I ended up with a clean kitchen floor.  This week she has taken to playing Curious George Takes a Job.  Thankfully this has involved her washing windows and has not involved her mischeviously painting jungle scenes on the walls.

Atticus

Oh my sweet, Atticus!  There is so much I can say about this boy.  His vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds and he is speaking in sentences a lot of the time.  He has a few speech quirks that I find endearing.  He can make an f sound but only uses it when he says the word fish the rest of the time he replaces every f with an s or an sh.  His word for dinosaur is tiny-sword. He really enjoys language.  He tells the interrupting cow knock knock joke and loves asking "Guess what?" and answering "Chicken butt!" After months of sheer distaste for being read to, he has started to enjoy books.  He asks me to read to him by saying, "I read to you?" He is also happy to spend 30 to 45 minute time blocks sitting on the couch looking at books by himself.  Another activity he happily invests long amounts of his time in is coloring with markers.  One afternoon this past month he sat and colored for nearing 3 hours.  He loves when airplanes fly overhead (we're on a flight path) and he insists that airplanes say "Choop-choop!"  He spends a lot of time throwing frisbees and frisbee like objects.  He likes playing basketball and has taken to shooting all sorts of things into the kitchen trash;I have rescued several shoes this month.  He is a sweet, happy, affectionate little guy.  He has a great sense of humor and knows how to make everyone in the family laugh heartily.