Tuesday and Wednesday, July 21 & 22, 2015

I got out of the shower to find this had happened:

I was so seriously impressed, because it must have taken her forever to lay all those pennies out (182 of them, as it turned out), and she stuck with it!

She wanted to know how many there were, but didn't think she could count all of them (overwhelming, of course!), so I suggested that she divide them into groups of ten pennies each, and then count how many groups of ten there were. She needed some help with this, so I gathered some toothpicks, and we used those to divide them up.

Then we counted the groups, and she used the calculator on her tablet to find out how many there were (18 x 10 + 2). Then we worked on the other coins too. (At which point, she was counting her dimes, and it turns out she can count be tens to 100! I didn't know about this.)

(And then of course she threw a fit when she had to pick all the pennies up, but let's focus on the positives, eh?)

Also she volunteered that she can spell "sí" (Spanish for yes), and did so. So I asked if she could spell the other kinds ("see" and "sea") if she closed her eyes and looked at the words in her head, and she could! This is a big deal -- she's known the first letter of most words for a long time, but spelling beyond that has not come very naturally to her so far.

We went to a one-man puppet show at the library. He played his banjo and sang and told the story with the puppets. Then at the end her showed us how all the puppets work and told us he made them all himself. Lucy loved it -- she was cracking up and interacting with the show the whole time.

She also played in the sprinkler (this always involves filling with water the giant hole that she periodically digs a little deeper).

Let's see... watching Princess and the Frog, the Christmas episode of Kid History, Curious George, some random Mickey Mouse Christmas movie...

Oh, this morning she asked to look through the tub of grown up costumes, which I hauled out of the garage for her to dig through. That resulted in some great stories about things that happened before she was born and/or aware.

And always Legos. Always.

Saturday, September 13, 2014

We watched this video (hilarious), and then this, this, and this (ASL music videos).

Super Mario Galaxy.

Skating lessons. She did eventually figure out how to stand back up on her own. After I had to use every ounce of my self control to not go across the rink and help her.

Played her drawing game on her tablet (both at the rink and at home).

More Super Mario Galaxy, with Norman this time.

Spent some time outside, doing goodness knows what. Although at one point she was doing house lizard traps because I gave her a giant box for it.

There was some sign language. Mostly me trying to remember terms for family members. This website is very helpful.

I read her this book about Rosa Parks before bed. Highly recommended -- easy to read, interesting, straightforward, inspirational. Apparently it's in a series, so I'll be looking for the other ones!

Wednesday and Thursday, September 10 & 11, 2014

Ehhhh it's Thursday. Oops.

Well, today she played outside a lot. Lots of fake food cooking and mixing. Crazy swinging. House lizard traps.

She spent a long time playing with her action figures. I heard a song she made up, some of the lyrics of which were, "Give thanks to Elsa!"

She played a geography game on her tablet.

She played Super Mario Galaxy, both by herself and with Norman. Both today and yesterday she spent kind of really long periods just reading the storybook that's contained within the game. And also the user manual.

I read her a book about Australia before bed. She was very interested in the info on the Great Barrier Reef, I think because they mention it in the game she was playing on the tablet.


Yesterday we went to the library. She played that story typing game again, except this time she figured out how to get the computer to pronounce the things she typed. Mostly nonsense, and also some very long numbers. She was delighted!  And then she was doing a coloring page, but instead she turned it over and copied the words "Weekly Events" from the dry erase board that they have up in the children's section.

She has been VERY into puns lately. On Sunday some kid said something about how flies bug you, and she's been laughing about that all week.  When she was copying the thing at the library, she pointed out that a "k" looks like a see-saw sideways, "but an underwater one. Sea-saw. Get it?" Ugh.

She's been typing messages on the Wii again. All the time. She spends a lot of time typing numbers in order. Like, up to 19. And sometimes the alphabet too. Or sometimes she wants me to spell long sentences for her.

After dinner last night we spent some time typing things into Google translate and then having the computer read them. Sometimes in different languages so it would have an accent. Good times.

We did a little bit of a sign language book before bed yesterday.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Spent a good two hours this morning just... coloring. Coloring in Sofia the First pages quite diligently, then she made a scribble in black and started filling in the shapes with colors. Seriously. Two hours. She hardly ever just colors.

We went to the grocery stores. She tried some new foods at Costco, and then tried to get me to buy Bagel Bites by repeating the sample lady's sales pitch word for word. Also while we were out, she asked if my brother (who is a single parent) adopted his son (her cousin), since, according to her reasoning, the mother of your cousin is your aunt, but Lucy only has one aunt (Norman's sister). So we talked about that. 

Back at home she spent a good long while in the backyard (it was less hot today). She was planning a party a la Sofia the First. Then she drew/wrote some party invitations after I told her I wasn't going to send real texts about a pretend party. She also figured out how to open her hula hoop up and then put it back together, and how to swing hard enough to make the swing kind of jump violently with her on it. She was quite proud of herself for that one. 

She played the Phineas and Ferb game on the tablet.

She and Norman watched some Mario game play videos, including one where Princess Peach gets to run around fighting things, which Lucy was very happy to see.

I read her a book about Days and Times in sign language.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Church. Learned about the eucharist in Sunday School and drew some pretty cool pictures of it. She also apparently learned that all Christians are our brothers and sisters, a concept that this only child latched onto and talked about ALL DAY.

The friend of her Church Friend showed up today, and both she and the new-to-church friend got pretty possessive over Church Friend. We had to have a talk about how it's normal to feel jealous, but we still have to be nice and share because other people don't belong to us. (Seriously -- the words "HE'S MINE!" escaped her lips. It was hilarious, adorable, and heartbreaking.)

During children's chapel, they talked about the plagues of Egypt, and apparently Lucy suggested that if we had a time machine, we could just go back in time and give the slaves some flashlights for when it was so dark.

Then she played at the park with Church Friend, so that seemed to be better.

She and Norman went to Target and she spent several months' worth of her allowance on a new Lego set, which they then assembled. She took the instruction manual and her tablet and got to the Lego Friends website all by herself.

Oh yeah, and at some point today in the car she had me fingerspelling the abbreviations for months of the year. Like, "OK! Fingerspelling for.... May!" (I spell in ASL.) "Fingerspelling for.... aug! For.... sep!"

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Super Mario Galaxy.

Interrupted by needing to leave for skating lessons!! OK, probably I was more excited than she was (excited to get to skate, not excited for her to skate). But she did really well! She didn't have any emotional breakdowns, which seems pretty huge. And she even wanted to keep practicing a little during the practice time after her lesson (and usually they expect that the littlest kids [of which she is one] won't keep practicing). And then she hung out with Norman and played the Phineas and Ferb game on her tablet while they waited for me to be done with my lesson.

Apparently while Norman and I were out on our date, she and Dotty watched a bunch of YouTube videos of Disney songs in foreign languages.

More Super Mario Galaxy.

Watched some Word Girl.

Played with her dolls.

I read her another book about lizards (and told her the correct pronunciation for "anole", which I had to look up last night after I read her the other book about lizards).

And then she and Norman had a chat about what tattoo parlors are like (because Norman and I were in one today).

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

This morning she brought up Girl Scouts. I had looked into this a little but hadn't said anything to her about it. So I think we're going to a meeting on Thursday to see what's up. I am so not a joiner, but I will do pretty much anything for Lucy. If she wants to be a joiner, then we'll be joiners. We'll see.

She was working on a multi-chapter story. This consisted of writing a bunch of squiggly lines on one corner of a giant piece of construction paper and drawing a picture of what was happening in the chapter. Then she'd come show it to me, then she'd run off and write/draw the next chapter. There's a giant friendly female giant with short legs, among other things. And a dead person. She's really into drawing dead people with little x's for eyes.

She kept trying to get me to join the adult September reading program at her Lucy Library.

She found a teeny little train ornament of hers that's missing a wheel, so she drew a plan diagram of how to fix it.

For a couple minutes she was intense curious about how many days are in a year, how many hours in a day, etc, etc. And some discussion of seasons and lengths of days.

Played Super Mario Galaxy.

Said this:

She played with her dolls/Duplos/beads for a while.

I got out a new toy that I've had stashed away for a while. It's a thick cork board, wooden shapes with holes in them, long thumbtacks, and a tiny hammer. (Like this.) It comes with a paper of ideas of pictures you can make with the shapes. It's fun! She did this first:

And decided halfway through that it was definitely a train conductor panel, since everything turns, I guess. Then I did a pattern; then she did one of the pictures from the paper (she called it a diagram -- thanks, Peg + Cat!), but she added her own stuff. Then she made Luigi. 

More Super Mario Galaxy, this time with Norman.

After dinner she decided she should put a picture of something on a popsicle stick so it would look like she has something flying around following her (like Rosalina does, I guess?). She finally settled on flying house lizard. She drew it, and I helped her cut it out, and she taped it on a popsicle stick. 

We practiced some ASL from our library book before bed. (We've already renewed that thing once... I should probably buy her a copy!)

Friday, August 15, 2014

We awoke to find that Franzi had responded to Lucy's Mycroft coloring and had drawn a picture for us! This apparently spurred Lucy on to draw her own Mycroft (who she calls "Minecroft") comic, where Mycroft wishes for hands, but forgets to wish for arms.

She was very busy for a long time today playing with her wooden beads and stuff. At one point she stuck some of them onto some extra long pencil she has so that they are now marshmallows.

Which is convenient, because this afternoon when she was playing with Aunt Dotty, they built a bunch of tents in the living room for Lucy Campground. Where the tents are free to stay in, apparently.

Norman and I put a bunch of our old magnetic poetry pieces up on the fridge last night, so she had some fun playing with those today.

She had another idea about how to catch house lizards, but this time she drew a diagram of the plan. I'd show it to you, but the photo I took is crap. It involved tracing her hand onto the paper for the hand that shuts the door to the trap.

Legos.

I think she and Dotty played Mario Kart together.

She sat for a while and read a book about school sign language words to herself.

I read her Rocky and Daisy at the Park before bed, but I'm pretty sure she read this to herself earlier along with the sign language book, because she already knew how it went.

While Norman was putting her to bed, he told her about comparative advantage, and she told him about "fair sharing" (which is pretty much just division as explained by Peg + Cat). She said if she has 4 peaches and Norman had none, she could give him two, and then they would both have two and that would be fair sharing.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

MARIO KART. Playing Mario Kart, by herself, or against Norman. Getting better at Mario Kart. Figuring out how to do things in Mario Kart. Reading the Mario Kart manual to herself.

Church. Children's chapel (essentially mini-Sunday School) covered where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also. This resulted in her drawing a map of where she was going to hide treasure when we got home and what kind of things we could use for treasure.

Dotty took her to the bookstore. Apparently she picked out some Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins books to sit and read to herself. On the back of one, she saw another book that she hadn't seen, so she asked a lady if she worked there, and she did, and Lucy "knew the title and was polite and waited patiently while the lady went to do other things with the promise that she would be back (and Lucy told someone else that she was waiting for the librarian to come back)." (This according to Dotty.) 

She also at one point made a trail of stuff from the back door into the playroom. It was so if there are any house lizards that collect things, they would follow the trail of poker chips thinking they were buttons, and end up in the playroom. Apparently at a house lizard restaurant? (I feel like House Lizard Schemes need their own blog tag, but I don't want to go back through the old posts to add it.) Pictures:

[There are tables with little cups and food, and I think maybe the books in the basket form some sort of house or trap?]

I think she was also reading the sign language book to herself for awhile at some point.

I read her a book about grocery stores before bed.

While Norman was putting her to bed she asked about how it is that if you put a red thing and a white thing in the laundry together, the white thing will turn pink (this thought courtesy of one of the books she read at the bookstore today), because she thought that only worked with paint (this knowledge courtesy of Blue's Clues). Norman told her that there's a thing called dye which is kind of like paint for fabric. Apparently I'll be getting quizzed about this in the morning. :-)

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Well, we had a pretty good chance at Learn Nothing Day -- it's cleaning day, so we weren't planning on going anywhere. Surely that limits the learning potential?

In not-strictly-learny activities, Lucy watched Frozen.  Although then she also watched the music videos on the DVD, so she learned what Let It Go sounds like in Spanish.

What else? I'm actually writing this on Friday. I've already forgotten what else she did. Probably played with Legos. Oh, and she played Mario Kart with Norman and by herself. Rainbow Road. Yikes. And Dinosaur Train games on the computer.

But, I was on Tumblr, which is pretty much always detrimental to trying to Learn Nothing. And I found out about the frogmouth. Like so.

Then, in the afternoon, Lucy asked the fateful question, "How do you film something to have no sound?" It turned out she meant how do people make animated gifs. So I downloaded one and showed her each frame so she could see that when you put them all in a row really fast it looks like it's moving. And we talked about cartoons, and I showed her a flip book I made in high school. And we talked about film, and I showed her some 16mm that I had in my craft room. And we talked about cameras and watched a short YouTube video about how they work. ("Old-fashioned" ones, of course.) Dang it. We were doing so well.

We learned a little more sign language before bed, and today she actually remembered one of the ones we went over -- "learn" (because it looks like picking something up from a book and putting it in your head).

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Today we went to the library and saw a two-person play about King Arthur. Pretty impressive British accents on the actors, actually. When they talked about the round table, Lucy pointed out to me that, hey, they have one of those on Peg + Cat!! And during the Q&A after the play, some other kid was like, "Hey, those people were on Magic School Bus!" So Lucy and I got to talk about how the story is a legend, and lots of people have been telling it and talking about the characters for hundreds and hundreds of years, for so long that no one is sure if it's true or made up. And that people study to try to find out if it's true, but no one's really sure.

She had been playing a bunch of Mario Kart, but she's pretty much laid off the TV and video games for the last couple days. It goes in cycles like that.

Lots of playing with Duplos, and her beads. They kind of get mixed up together. The beads are food a lot. Actually so are the Duplos. She's been making some very abstract menu items out of plain Duplo blocks.

Before the library this morning, Norman took her to the comic book store, because it's Batman Day. She got a Batman mask and he bought her a Mickey Mouse comic or some such (which she was reading at dinner, because she wanted more summer reading points). Then when they got home, she decided she needed to dress up like Word Girl. Norman made her a star emblem for her shirt. Word Girl's sidekick is a monkey, and when he's incognito as just a regular pet monkey (?) he wears a diaper, so that's why she's got a monkey puppet in a diaper.

She went to the library this way. I'm so proud.

She's done some writing lately. She insists we spell for her.

This afternoon she spent some time with a kid's road atlas workbook thingy.

We've spent some more time with that sign language book. Making the "Y" for her name is giving her some trouble, but she managed to do it tonight.

Tomorrow is Learn Nothing Day, so I'll be sure to report back on our utter failure! :-)

Saturday, July 19, 2014

First thing when she got up (apparently), she played some Mario Kart because Norman had unlocked a thing for her last night after she went to bed.

Legos.

Got another new idea for how to trap and/or befriend the lizards in our backyard. This one involved building a lizard out of Duplos, so they would think it was a normal lizard like them, but she was stuck on how to "control the Duplos lizard without them noticing me". This Duplo lizard was so involved that it had a small bee charm on it's big red Duplo tongue. (Because they eat bugs, ya know.) She later took it outside and taped some leaves to it "so it will look even greener."

Played some more Mario Kart.

Invented a dance and a song to go with it where the lyrics are the instructions for the dance. It was quite vigorous.

Went to the park with Norman. There's this spinny thing there that is like the best cooperative play and negotiation teaching tool ever. Only two kids and get on it at once, and then they have to decide who's going to spin and how fast.

Played some Dinosaur Train games on her computer, but that was after trying to log into the Disney World website and set up dining reservations, during which this conversation happened:

More Mario Kart. So much. She's in that sweet spot where it's not too frustrating to play, but she doesn't care so much about the results, so she isn't upset that she always comes in last place.

We went through some more of that sign language book before bed.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

I woke up this morning to find that Lucy had migrated from her bed to the couch in the middle of the night, and (as a result?) was still sleeping soundly about 2.5 hours after she normally wakes up. What?

She got the urge to dust things this morning. That happens every so often. Obviously I allow it.

Played with Duplos.

She has informed me that some of those beads that she's constantly sorting are vegetables.

She spent some more time on that Hour of Code website. Played some games and watched some videos about STEM-type stuff, I think.

It was library day. Luckily this summer, our branch has been doing special programs on the day we normally go to the library anyway. Today it was "Sciencetellers". This involved a female scientist in a tie-dyed lab coat, dry ice, fire, instruction on the states of matter, and lots of corny jokes. It was awesome. :-) The lady did a card trick, which prompted Lucy to ask me on the way home how people do card tricks. I pretty much told her that the magician practices a long time to get really good at distracting you so they can hide the card where you weren't looking, and that I never know exactly how they do it, and it's really cool. When we got home, she decided she would try it, but with leaves instead of cards. (?) At one point she told me there were four leaves under a throw cushion, and when she lifted it up there were only three. Then she opened her laptop that was sitting on the coffee table and pulled out the fourth one. :-)

[Tie-dye scientist with bucket of dry ice]

She asked for the second volume of Pixar shorts on DVD from the library. She spent several hours watching the same three or four shorts over and over. Possibly she was trying to suck every detail from them. It is Pixar, after all. There's a lot there.

Unfortunately for us parental units, Lucy seems to be the most prolifically creative in the hour around and past her bed time. Tonight is was constructing this Lego motel.

[Believe it or not, it involves a pool (with three slides and a diving board), hot tub, front desk, continental breakfast area, 2 beds, a TV, a lamp, a couch, a chair, a sink, a fridge, and a closet with hangers. She was very thorough.]

At her request, we also picked up several books about sign language today. We spent the time before bed reading one of them and practicing some of the signs. [As a linguist, I must say, I am fascinated by the gender markers on family member terms!]

Friday, October 4, 2013

She spent the majority of her day watching Blue's Clues and responding by doing some of the things they were doing.

When she wasn't doing that, we visited the local firefighter museum. Which is a thing that was have. Thankfully it was only $6 for us to get in, because it was a little overwhelming for her -- sirens, smoke alarms, random motion activated firefighter statue/robot (AAACK!), and just generally having to think about sad/worrying things. Sometimes I forget that she's pretty sensitive, not just to loud noises, but emotionally. I kept emphasizing how they just want us to know what to do so we can be safe just in case something like that happens. But she doesn't like having to think about it. We left after maybe half an hour.

Then, because we were up in a shopping area that we don't usually visit, we went to a used book store and bought this CD and a Horton Hears a Who pencil. (It was going to be a Muppet Golden Book, but at the register she saw the pencil, so I told her she'd have to choose.)  Then we went to Starbucks and had coffee/juice.

I read her a short book about Memorial Day before bed. (Don't ask -- she just yanked it off the shelf at the library. Although, it's pretty great. It explains the Civil War in 4 short sentences.)

 

[Lucy said, "There's my imagination cloud, and there are the bubbles that attach me to my imagination."]

 

 

[In response to the Blue's Clues episode where they have a Mr. Salt & Mrs. Pepper Appreciation Day. (That's them in the drawing.) I spelled "to" and "from" for her, and I drew the heart.]

 

 

[In response to the Blue's Clues episode where they learn Spanish and make marionetas, she made a marioneta out of Playdoh.] 

Tuesday and Wednesday, October 1 and 2, 2013

She came with me to Bible study and listened to Laurie Berkner while the rest of us... studied.

Watched Blue's Clues.

A couple different times she was surprised to discover that a magnet she was playing with stuck to something unexpected (laundry basket. baby gate).

Duplo/action figure/furniture/plastic animals situation.

Asked why it's called a library if it has to do with books, but the word library doesn't have anything to do with books. Good question! I tried to explain about Latin and everything...

I also explained the concept of arranged marriages for political peace (thanks, Brave).

Read In the Night Kitchen again.

Wednesday: Library (Magic School Bus game again). She always swipes the books for me at the self-checkout. It's a big deal to her.

More Blue's Clues.

We baked a cake for Scaredy Squirrel's birthday tomorrow. Chocolate cake with peanut butter/maple frosting. (Yes I'm aware that peanuts are not tree nuts, but it's the thought that counts.) 

 

[Lucy blew out the candles for him.]

And then they put it on the official Scaredy Squirrel Facebook page!

 

Sunday, September 8, 2013

 

Church. Sunday School (apparently they talked about Cain and Able). That little blueish-purple thing on the side is a "Dory fish" -- there is a large tropical fish aquarium where the church meets. She also made a cotton ball sheep. Then we had to have some hard talks during the church service about stopping yourself from doing things you want to do (scream and flail) so you can help other people (your parents). Then after church playing and eating at the park, as will become normal. Unfortunately at the park she got a taste of kids being exclusionary, not wanting to share, and running away when they see you coming. She thought they were playing, but they were extremely upset with her. It looked like this: 

 Once again, more talking. She wasn't particularly upset, but I still am. Sigh.

Then she went to the bouncy castle place with Dotty. And then to get frozen yogurt.

Later after they got back, she got out her new tennis shoes (with laces) and had me show her how to tie the laces. She just did one shoe, and then after I showed her on that one, she took it back off. Aaaand.... done!  :-)

After dinner she kind of read us this book. Mostly we pronounced the word "yes" in a bunch of languages and told her whether or not we could speak them.

I read her When You've Got To Go.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Computer games off and on all day.  Mostly animal games, some typing, and some Spanish.

Played with her little dolls and furniture.  At some point she was finding storm shelters for all of them to hide in.

Helped me roll a couple peanut butter balls.

Played in the pool with Norman. And there was pool basketball.

Went with Norman to pick up some suit jackets (she really just needed to get out of the house).

Offered to help fold laundry. She folded a couple towels and some cloth napkins and put them away.  (It's taking all of my self-control not to refold the napkins.)

She learned how to play a Concentration-type game on the computer game website she uses.  She can't read the instructions, I'm pretty sure, but she clicked until she figured it out, and she's really good at it!

1960s Batman.

I read her The History of Figure Skating. Pretty interesting -- touched on canals, gender roles, physics, chemistry...

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Had some nice cooperative pretend play going on with two other girls in the church nursery today.

Stickers. Stickers everywhere. All day -- stickers. Foam stickers, flat stickers, glitter stickers.  She made long strings of letters (sometimes on Norman and me) with her letter stickers.  She held up one and wanted to know what it was -- well, one way it was an 'm', the other way it was a 'w'. Then she held it sideways and wanted to know what that was, so I told her it looked like a sigma, so then we talked about the Greek alphabet, and how some languages use different symbols than we do to write their words.

Splash pad with Norman.

Duplos.

Lots of dress up. She was dressed like a fairy princess to go to church, and she wore her cat ears with her swim suit to the splash pad.

I read her Fossils.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

A friend came by to drop something off. Lucy talked and talked, and mentioned she was going to her Grandmary's house. The lady is a mutual friend, so Lucy got to deliver a message of greeting from her to Grandmary.

Saw a trip to Bali on The Price Is Right. Lucy wanted me to show her where Bali is. Then she wanted to know what language they speak. Then she wanted to know how to say "Hello" in Indonesian. Then we looked up a bunch of other words, mostly colors. We hit the little speaker button a lot (on both Indonesian and English) to have the computer read the words to us. 

She had me show her how to write checks again.

Legos.

Grandmary's: some Mater short cartoons I haven't seen, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, baking cookies, sofa cushion fort, fake garage sale.

Saw Harry Connick, Jr. singing a made-up song for Ellen, so she decided to make up own song with her piano. And she drafted me and Norman to play percussion.  

Legos.

I read her The Great Toy Escape.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Numbers and shapes workbook pages.

Between the Lions CD.

Baby Henry!

Played outside.

Learned a new rule called "keep your hands to yourself."

Watched Cars.

We built the coin bank kit she got for her birthday. I kind of messed it up (I'm going to blame a manufacturer's defect), but it doesn't seem to bother her.  She got to hammer! (with my help)

Watched Cars bonus features.

Wanted to go outside and build something, so we took her scrap wood and nails out there.  We decided to make a sign.  We hammered it together, then she told me what to write on it, and we put it in the ground.

["FREE NEWS! Lightning & Lucy married each other for free, because they don't have to pay to marry each other"]

Then she played outside by herself for a while.  At one point she asked me to get the plastic pitcher and help her fill it with water, so she could water the plants like Red the firetruck on Cars.

Spent some time with her new bank, sorting her coins into the different sections (labeled by coin name). Asked me for help a couple times, and then was doing it herself. 

I read her Maisy's Toys (Spanish/English), and then we looked up some Spanish on Google Translate.