Friday, May 15, 2015

Last theater class -- they weren't preparing for a show, so they just played the movement, self-control, and direction-following games they've been playing. Lucy got a certificate which she is very proud of, and struggled not to cry because she will miss it. They kept saying there will be another class "next fall", and all this time she thought they meant the fall of 2016, so she was very glad to learn about calendar years vs. school years in the car on the way home. :-)

Oh and she played basketball before theater class because that's what they do because it's held in a gym.

She's been working on a Lego hotel, so at the moment she's working on the water slide for the pool.

Amazon shipment day! We got a new container for her Legos, a set of 64 (SIXTY-FOUR) different colors of markers (which I want to keep for myself but I'm resisting), and a bluetooth keyboard for her tablet. I need to find a good typing game for her... Oh, and the box it all came in is huge and if I get my way it will be turned into a TARDIS, but at the moment she's just using it as an awesome fort.

The keyboard set her off on playing several of her tablet apps, and she eventually wound up on the PBS kids website, playing Peg + Cat and Dinosaur Train games.

Watched Kiki's Delivery Service.

Then decided that we need to start our own delivery service.

I installed a (pirate themed!) learn-to-count-money app on her tablet, and she immediately took it and started playing it.

Drew a picture of an "alicorn" because we looked it up because one of the girls in one of the plays last night was playing one.

Week of October 20, 2014

Play date with church friends.

Copying the titles of songs from the Phineas and Ferb soundtrack on paper and the chalkboard.

She spied a poster behind a counter at our grocery store above a fire extinguisher that said "P.A.S.S." and she wanted to know what that meant. Once I figured out what she was talking about, she got spelling, mnemonics, acronyms, and fire safety all at once! (It stands for pull the pin, aim, squeeze the trigger, and sweep it back and forth.) And we talked about when something can be solved with a fire extinguisher and when you need to just get out and call the fire department.

We read a book about time zones on Monday or Tuesday. Then on Sunday she heard one of our fellow parishioners talking about how she used to live in Hawaii and Lucy jumped right in with questions about which time zone Hawaii is in and how many hours difference it is and when exactly she changed her clocks when she moved here.

Made a conveyer belt (her words) for her cash register out of a whole bunch of colored tape.

Library. Dora game and that story typing game. She figured out how to color the backgrounds of the pages and draw shapes.

Turned our coat closet into an elevator with the addition of a piece of paper with two arrow buttons on it.

We read a book about keeping lizards as pets.

She's started making plans again for the hotel she's going to open in our house. This is a picture of all the amenities that room service can provide upon request:

[Bibles, soap, pads of paper, pens, bottles of water, candy, newspapers, iPods, .... and I kinda lost track of what was happening after that]

Lots of Phineas and Ferb (show and soundtrack).

We've been taking walks (well, she mostly rides in the wagon) around the neighborhood and to the post office some days.

Last skating lesson of the session and she passed her test! And we signed her up for the next session at her request. At this point she seems to be gunning for hockey player in a year or two.

Sunday school: talked about about the greatest commandment and another is like unto it. And she remembered what they talked about last week! "They were trying to trick Jesus by asking him a question about a coin with their leader on it." I'm just amazed that she was paying attention.

We took a walk in the forest-y part of a park today, and I started explaining about the Doctor Who episode last night (which she did not see), but it turned into a discussion about the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle.

Then we walked to a trunk or treat at a church down the street from us (she dressed up as a fairy princess). Then we played at the park for a bit. Oh, and we saw some raccoons! Just hanging around a tree in a neighbor's front yard in the middle of the day just as cool as they could be. A different neighbor had some major tree work done a couple days ago -- I think maybe they were displaced. They were cool to see, though.

[She drew the plant on the piece of paper, see? (This is at a friend's house.)]

[House lizard flag]

Week of October 6, 2014

This week's theme was apparently "make stuff with my hands". She's been super into building outside -- this includes heaving heavy things like bricks up into her play fort, wrapping an old hose around all sorts of stuff up there, and hammering nails into scraps of wood (some of which we found in a curb pile on our way walking back from the post office one day this week). She's also been using her scissors a lot to cut out shapes to construct things. She made a house lizard shirt and tried to make a Vanessa costume for her teddy bear Jane (but the project was thwarted by the Scotch tape not sticking well enough to the piece of thick plastic sheeting she was using).  Also capes for Duplo animals:



And pathways and sidewalks made from all sorts of blocks, including, at times, dominos:

Speaking of house lizards, it turns out Jane is going to be the priest of their church. And Lucy is going to be their "Lord", so their church will mostly be "Lucy-themed". (These are her words, obviously.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

We went to a big book sale and bought a bunch of great stuff, including two books on lizards/reptiles. She spent a good portion of the trip sitting in her stroller reading a large easy reader volume about DC superheroes. Possibly she read the whole thing. When she was done with that, she spent some time looking at the map they gave us at the door.  She read that we should leave the map for other people to use when we were done, and suggested this to me. I told her we didn't need to, but then she pointed out that it said it on the map. And then when we got home she said if our reusable shopping bag broke, we could take it back to Harris Teeter and they'd give us a new one. I told her I didn't think that's how that worked, but she pointed to the bottom of the bag where it said exactly that!  Mommy needs to do more reading, apparently.

At the library she found this fire safety sheet that had a fire extinguisher, a smoke alarm, and exit signs on it. She decided since we have the first two things in our house, but no exit signs, she would make some. Which she did, with stickers and no help from me.

This Lego Friend went shopping for some "cool new outfits".

We're planning a trip to Disney World, so one afternoon this week we decorated out Magic Bands. Temporary tattoos and nail polish. (She made style and design decisions and I executed them.)

At church today they went through the first 5 of the Ten Commandments and she drew this. "God", "1 God", a smile ("for nice things, etcetera, etcetera"), a cross ("take a day of rest the day you go to church"), a heart and me and Norman ("love your mom and dad!"). Nailed it.

She's spent the last two days pouring over this really cool book we got at last year's book sale.

Bedtime reading matter has included Phineas and Ferb books and The Boxcar Children (again). 

And she's been using the tablet to watch Phineas and Ferb, of course. And to go to the local shopping mall's website. She just loves doing that for some reason. She also spends a lot of time looking at the mall maps that she picks up pretty much every time she's there so now she has like 3 of them.

And skating lessons are still going well.

And we went to the library and she played that story writing game again (her favorite). And she was writing all these stories just using the "stickers" (little icons) that they have. But then the game decided that she had used up her allotment of stickers, so she clicked on the sticker she wanted, and the name of the thing shows up beneath it, so she just typed the name of it instead!

Thursday and Friday, September 18 & 19, 2014

It's not really an exaggeration to say that she spent all of yesterday watching Phineas and Ferb. She stopped to eat lunch and dinner. And then we went to the Girl Scout meeting. There she colored and drew and practiced the Girl Scout Promise and learned about how we're all different but the same. Also these:

Today, more Phineas and Ferb. (She watched her first episode on Wednesday, and was immediately smitten, as I guessed she would be.) She watches it on her tablet, which is actually pretty great. It's quieter for me, and she can move around and change positions more. Every now and then, she'll pause it and emerge to very excitedly and animatedly tell me something about the show, or expand on it by guessing about how the world is based on what she just saw.

Today she also:

used Google translate to type things and have the computer say them.

wrote out a supposed ingredient list for the unknown dessert she's supposedly making next week. (She asked if she could cook dinner, and I told her sure, it'd just need to be next week because we haven't bought ingredients for it, so she should figure out what she wants to make and we'll buy the stuff. I don't think she was expecting this answer because it quickly deescalated to dessert, and then to an imaginary dessert...) She also gave definitions for some of these made up words. The first one is like a half peach, half apple, with a bunch of tomato leaves on the top, and "broccoli fluff" on the bottom.

did some more Disney World planning. It's kind of consuming all of our brains at the moment.

put together an Agent P costume and wore it all day. (Part of the Disney World talk has been about costumes [for her] and DisneyBounding [for the grownups].)

went on a walk with me in the red wagon. I'm training for Disney World, see.

And we read/browsed/chatted about a book about how to dress up like a fairy.

She's also been asking a lot of weirdly deep questions today, like about how we can tell that this is real life right now, like maybe we're in a story, or do things happen in real life the way they happen to us?  She's blowin' my mind, man.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Tablet: Cat in the Hat show; Phineas and Ferb app.

Messing with the Wii Miis and settings again. Just poking around really. She typed out some more messages with my spelling help.

I made a bunch of water balloons. Norman and she and I had a water balloon party in the backyard. I hung some from strings from the monkey bars, so she got some swatting/batting practice in.  Then she spent quite a bit more time out there splashing in her little turtle pool, riding her bike, and who knows what all else.

At one point she was playing on her street map rug with some Duplo people... It seemed there was an earthquake (i.e., she picked up part of the rug and everyone said, "Aaaahhhh!")

Word Girl on the tablet.

I read her Family and Friends before bed.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

She started the morning by showing me a pictogram invitation to Jane's surprise birthday party that she had drawn. I love her pictograms.

Then she had me help her write a note to lure lizards to us. She signed it "Lucy" instead of "human" so that, according to her, they wouldn't know if it was a human, another house lizard, or a squirrel or what, so they wouldn't be so scared. I spelled and she wrote "dear house lizards" and "from", and I wrote out a longer sentence. Something about an upper lower shelf in a bookstore? I don't even know, and I don't know where the note went.

Dolls.

Tablet: Phineas and Ferb secret agent game; simple machines/Rube Goldberg invention game; VeggieTales on Netflix.

Library. She played that typing game again. I mean, it's a program where you can make a storybook, but she uses it to just type a whole bunch randomly. Today she was messing around with the font and color after she typed it.

More VeggieTales on the tablet.

Legos.

Norman came home and they played Mario Galaxy. More discussion of outer space phenomena, including orbits.

I read her Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do. Then we had a chat about what jobs kids can and can't do, and the age of majority, and what "hobby" means. And then she learned the phrase "Rube Goldberg" when she mentioned the tablet game to Norman.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The big thing today was going ice skating. She asked on Friday if she could take lessons. I told her we should go sometime to see if she liked it enough to sign up for lessons in August. (I take lessons, which is why she talks about taking lessons sometimes.) She had much more stamina and determination than she did the last time I tried to get her to skate over a year ago. We also got her a little PVC pipe walker thingy -- that helped a lot. Her spirits kept up and she kept at it even though she couldn't go very fast. This is seriously a major improvement -- not sure if that's apparent!

She's really into puns lately, and explaining why they're funny. On the way out of the ice rink, there's a sign that says "Have an ice day!" (::groan::) She read it and was like, "Have an ice day! Haha! It's like have a nice day, but it's have an ice day instead!" She did this the other day with something on Jake and the Neverland Pirates, too. Something about a bird's birthday (bird-day)?

What else what else?  I think she did in fact work on the house lizard house outside a little more.

She played Mario Kart with Norman.

She sat with Norman and read through that Batman book from last night again to herself.

She spent some time on her computer on a coding website, which is actually really cool. I found it for her after she asked me one day about making her own website. (I suggested a blog -- turned out she meant from scratch.)

She seems to spend a lot of time sorting her beads? Every now and then she'll make something with them, but mostly she sorts them into categories and sees where certain kinds of beads will fit on other toys she has.

And her favorite hobby at the moment seems to be talking about Disney World every waking moment. This is my fault for letting it slip so far in advance of our trip (months and months) that we will be going there this fall. And then giving her the Disney World vacation planning DVD to watch to her heart's content. Oops. There was also a point today where she decided to be a travel agent. I was supposed to tell her what kind of stuff I like, and she would suggest a vacation. (I lobbed her the easy "I like Disney movies and camping." She was all over that.)

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Lucy's 5th birthday is in three days!  The weather has been gorgeous here for the last couple weeks, so she has been spending hours on end in the backyard. She makes fake food with water, dirt, and leaves; she contrives plans to trap and/or befriend bugs, birds, and lizards; she digs holes; she rides her bikes; and she just generally runs around doing goodness knows what. 

Today we went to the library and picked up the latest Disney Fairies movie, The Pirate Fairy. (Actually not to bad, as far as Disney Fairies movies go.) She watched it, loved it, and then apparently (when I wasn't looking), built this contraption similar to the one the fairy uses in the movie to make different kinds of pixie dust. That's a water wheel with tape, glue, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, and leaves. 

 

She also wanted to get on her computer after she watched the movie to look up more stuff about it. When she's using the computer, she'll consistently ask me, "What's the next letter in [whatever word she's going to search]," because she knows the first letter for pretty much anything she wants to spell. Cool.

And she made me this thank you card to thank me for... helping her catch house lizards? Not quite sure [but that's definitely a house lizard and a trap].

 

I read her a Tangled book that she got in the mail today for her birthday, but she had already read it to herself immediately upon opening the package! 

 

[Note the unopened bubble wrap thing and the card that had to wait]

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...

Wednesday - Friday, June 5-7, 2013

Sickness! Lucy and Norman both have colds.  She still has near-boundless energy, though, of course.

Lots of Duplo play.  I think at the moment her Sesame Street camper RV is full of Duplo zoo animals.  Not sure what the story is there.

Dress up.

Lots of dictation.  Norman and I have written many long, rambling notes and signs for her the last three days.

Spent a large chunk of time this morning using her dry erase workbooks.  She did some letter tracing, but mostly spent a lot of time doing very detailed work on a party (balloons, streamers, cakes, and bowls of candy) to make me feel better (Norman and I were having an emotional conversation).

Then she decided (I think) to organize her closet?  She had some grand scheme that involved the dresses in her closet, the hangers, and making signs. And switching the hangers.  She recruited me to help, and I'm still not sure what was going on.  It was very serious, though.

Spent a little time at GrandMary's before I got to the ice rink on Wednesday and realized it was hockey camp week and I couldn't skate.

She's been making up lots of rhyming couplets.  Here's one I put on Facebook:

TV: Curious George, Brave. She also watched part of a documentary on the history of NYC with me, though not nearly as intently as I, of course.

Books: Doctor Meow, Jessica's X-Ray, the Chinese restaurant menu that came in the mail (she insisted on that one before quiet time today).  Then after I read her that, she "read" me a bunch of very detailed science from her biology workbook.  She was reading percent signs as "degrees". That was fun.

No library, no Megan's, because of the sickness.

But tonight after dinner I put together a bubble snake maker!  So fun!  All three of us thought it was great!  And it's super easy.

LUCYOLPUYY 
[Lucy typed that. She saw me typing up this blog post and wanted to type too.] 

And then I read her a book from the 1960s about signs that she picked out of her library. Whew.

Pic dump ['cause I'm past caring right now]:

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Legos (lots of race cars going on).

Glitter glue.

Curious George on Netflix.

Read that Pooh book to herself.

Grocery store newspaper circulars + scotch tape. 

The two of us went to Mazzio's for lunch. She brought her "satchel" with her new Cars pens, scissors, and paper.

Watched Despicable Me.

More Legos.

She set up this game in the bedroom where she had a bucket (fire), surrounded by plastic "sticks", and she was using Norman's pointy umbrella to roast imaginary marshmallows over the fire.  Then one of her dolls decided some of her clothes were too small, so she threw the doll clothes in the fire.  Again, ???? Her brain...

Computer games: mostly coloring, puzzles, and animals, I think. Oh, and some typing.

I read her the Brave Golden Book.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Science kit first thing. We took out the penny that we left in the vinegar overnight. Overnight is too long, in case anyone is wondering. It was past shiny and on to... abrased.

Talk of how she wants to build a real tiny house with real kid-sized furniture in the backyard.

Also she wants a horse. After I cleared up why we can't keep one in our backyard, she started talking about us having our own farm. And cows. And milking cows. And taking the milk to Braums. LOL.

Between the Lions CD.

Grocery stores. Our checker at Target was named Jessie, so I asked Lucy if she could read her name tag. She could, and the three of us talked about it. Then the checker asked if Lucy her name and if she can spell it. Lucy proceeded to explain how she *writes* her name, including how she sometimes messes up the C by accidentally making another U instead.

Computer games: typing, coloring, animals, geography, etc, etc. 

"Helped" me make bread (mostly by playing with the dirty dishes I made).

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, plus the bonus feature about neighborhood heroes.

I was painting my nails, so of course she wanted the same. Black with gold glitter on top!

Got herself some water and played with her science kit.

Between the Lions CD again.

I read her another chapter from the Pooh book.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

The Price is Right: surprisingly educational. Numbers, dices, and counting by 5s.

Pretended to read from some EB White books.

Watched that Sesame Street teeth thing again -- twice in Spanish, once in English.

Dressed up as Batman.

Watched a Sesame Street episode about Big Bird wishing all the grownups were kids so they would play with him.  Elmo's World was about firefighters.  Got out her stuff and dressed up like a firefighter.

Watched part of another Sesame Street ep about Baby Bear writing a story about bears in space.

On the laptop: Spanish vocab, forest animals, farm animals, alphabet (beginning letters of animal names), typing, United States names, coloring, etc... (We use this website.)

Back to dressing up like a firefighter.  Then a fairy ballerina.

Back to the computer.

Duplo train during dinner.

Norman read her Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes by Beatrix Potter. Twice.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Grocery stores.  Told one cashier her birthday. Definitely knows it.

Legos.

Sesame Street animal songs.

Old School Sesame Street (2 episodes).

Computer (colors, Spanish vocab, forest and ocean animals, coloring pages, and typing). (This site.)

I read her Snowball Fight by Jimmy Fallon (amazing the random stuff we find at the library).

Sunday, March 24, 2013

By the time I was fully awake this morning, Lucy had fed herself a banana, written her name on the chalkboard, and retrieved and donned her chosen church dress.

Later she put on her own socks and shoes after mentioning off-hand that she wasn't wearing tights because she didn't know how to put them on.

Tried to turn Netflix on by herself to watch Sesame Street. I showed her how to do it. Watched the one about the herbivorous dinosaur twice.

Church.  She insisted on introducing herself to the fellow parishioner Norman was conversing with. At the man's request, she told him when her birthday is, and they had a brief discussion about how baby teeth eventually fall out.

Home. Lunch with Aunt Dotty. Lucy, true to her promise from before we left for church, got married to Walter (from The Muppets). Was super excited about salad and ate a bunch of it.

Watched The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (movie).

Watched me learn how to make palm crosses from YouTube, and tried to make her own by tearing the palm leaves lengthwise, cutting them with her scissors, and taping them together.

Played woodland animal and Spanish vocab games on the internet. Did some typing, and was delighted at the crazy font I picked for her.

I read her The Duckling Gets a Cookie before bed. We will probably be saying "HUBBA-WHAA??" when we're confused for at least several days.