Kindergarten: Weeks 37 & 38

Gemma is now the owner of "Rose the Tadpole."

At Christmas, Gemma was given a frog habitat. The coupon that came with the habitat could be redeemed for a tadpole, but it was uncertain how long it would take for the tadpole to arrive. Because we go out of town often, I didn't want to order a tadpole that would arrive at an unspecified date. While looking into other tadpole options, I realized that at some point, if all went well, our tadpole would be a frog, and I didn't want to have to care for a frog.

I found a local aquarium shop that had leopard frog tadpoles (from Florida) and said that I could return the frog to the store after it metamorphosed.

The employees at the shop were very knowledgeable and explained to me that I needed algae wafers, water conditioner, and a submersible pump to oxygenate the water. Who knew raising a tadpole was so complicated? I also needed a little net ($1.99) to fish the tadpole out of its habitat once a week, to clean the habitat (with a paper towel).

If all goes well, Rose the Tadpole will metamorphose into Rose the Frog within three months.

Lots of our bulbs sprouted! We also have a pot of nasturtiums and a pot of lettuce.

Every day, a new rose blooms. 

We are reading two books right now - The Trumpet of the Swan and Avi's Poppy.

We spent a Saturday making erasers.

Gemma finished another round of swim lessons. She's still a Minnow, but she figured out how to do an underwater handstand.

We discovered two little mushrooms growing in a Venus fly trap pot...

...and one Venus fly trap is flowering!

So is the octopus plant!

Gemma turned SIX!

Happy birthday, my sweet girl!

Naaman Washing in the Jordan River

Kindergarten: Week 36

One of the big things that happened this week is that we got to the Chapter 18 "Your Turn to Play" in Life of Fred: Jellybeans. This is the last "Your Turn to Play" in the book. We'll be done with Jellybeans in the next few days. Wow.

I taught our after-school co-op's lesson about leaves, and we went on a leaf scavenger hunt.

Daddy took Gemma kite flying on a windy day at the beach.

Gemma learned 5 Position Waltz on piano.

One evening, I let her do "Coding with Anna and Elsa."

We're still reading The Trumpet of the Swan. Gemma read ahead. I think she finished the book because she keeps telling me what Louis is going to do, but she said she only read "a little bit" I think so as not to hurt my feelings. She read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on her own, as well as a couple of Magic Tree House books. This kid...

She begged me to read a children's version of The Tempest, and - in the middle - was really concerned about what was going to happen with Miranda and Ferdinand. She loved it. 

She went to dance class one evening, and swimming another evening.

Superbloom! (Kindergarten Week 30)

We took a drive to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to see the wildflowers. Because of all the rain we've gotten this winter, this year is a "superbloom."

Here are some of the flowers we saw...

...beavertail cactus...

...desert dandelions, desert sunflowers, sand verbena flowers, and dune evening primroses...

...parish poppies (yellow, upper left), monkeyflower (upper right), Arizona lupine (lower right), and chuparosa...

My husband, Pete, is showing Gemma a spider attacking a caterpillar. The large plant (right) is an ocotillo. We saw lots of ocotillos in bloom with flowers like candle flames.

Kindergarten Weeks 30 & 31

Gemma has been learning to play two songs on the piano - Fur Ludwig (an easy version of Fur Elise) and Amigos (which gives her practice at moving from C position to G position).

We're enjoying our current read aloud: The Trumpet of the Swan.

Gemma's dance class learned more of their tap routine for the June recital.

Gemma learned how to use a glue gun, and Daddy surprised her with one of her very own. ("It's just what I've always wanted! Best present ever!")

Here is a picture of Gemma doing a page of Mathematical Reasoning for fun before bed. In Life of Fred: Jellybeans, Gemma is on chapter 11.

Our theme for Little Explorers this month was insects. One lesson was about bees, and the kids made beeswax candles. Another lesson was titled Insects vs. Spiders, and the kids (and moms) learned some of the differences between the two animals.

I came home from work one day to find this...

We went to swim lessons.

We went on a field trip to the desert to see the superbloom (Week 30), and stopped into an ice cream shop to cool off.

Then we drove home through the town of Julian, which has daffodils everywhere...

...and a camel dairy! (There was a sign advertising camel chocolate milk. Did you know there was such a thing?) I think that one of those camels may be the camel Gemma and I rode in October.

At one point, I caught Gemma wearing this while doing a floor puzzle...

Kindergarten Weeks 28 & 29

Here are a few things we've done the past two weeks...

Gemma did two art projects at CC. One was Degas-inspired, and the other was Morisot-inspired.

We finished reading Ronia: The Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren. It was wonderful.

Gemma learned more of her routine for her dance recital in June.

She played songs in Alfred Piano Prep Level D, as well as old favorites.

Here she is practicing the monkey bars after church...

...and climbing a tree.

We built marshmallow and pretzel "insects," with 3 body parts (head, thorax, abdomen), and 6 legs (on the thorax).

And swim lessons started up again!

Kindergarten Weeks 26 & 27

It has been so rainy the past few weeks!

Reading: It looks like this will be the year that Gemma reads the entire Magic Tree House series. Our current read aloud is Ronja: The Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren; we're halfway through it, and we're both enjoying it immensely. We just finished reading The Phantom Tollbooth. Gemma read about half of it on her own, which amazes me because it's a W (end of 5th grade) reading level. She loved the book and was excited to tell me all about the parts she read while I was at work. If you asked her which book she likes better (Ronja or Tollbooth), I think she would tell you Tollbooth. She loves the absurdity and the adventure.

Math: We are slowly moving through Life of Fred: Jellybeans. We've been learning about unions, intersections, prime numbers, and now decimals!

Gemma had a tiny part in a LACHSA student film. She was in one scene, playing the part of a little girl learning to dance at a cotillion.

At CC, they did Monet-inspired paintings.

At Tinker Group, Gemma learned to use a hammer and nails to make me a string-art Valentine.

She learned to play two new songs - The Magic Man and Yippee Ti Yi Yo.

And we took a field trip to the Getty Villa...

Kindergarten Week 25

It was a very rainy week.

Daddy and Gemma went on a field trip to the Peterson Auto Museum.

We read a couple of chapters of The Phantom Tollbooth and a couple of chapters of Astrid Lindgren's Ronia: The Robber's Daughter. They're both excellent!

She painted a landscape at CC.

It was on the refrigerator, and a watercolor hanging above it got wet and two drops of blue paint dripped onto this painting. And then there's the story of the woman with the black vertical lines on her face... When I asked Gemma about that, she answered, "Oh, she's a tiger woman." That explains the orange skin.

She learned the last song in her Alfred Piano Level Prep C book, "Indians," which means I had to order the Prep D book...and the Sacred Solos book...and, just for fun, the Level 1A patriotic book.

For math, she learned to cast out nines in Life of Fred: Jellybeans.

And here are a couple of pictures from dance class...

Kindergarten Week 24

Sunday around sunset there was an extreme low tide (-0.6 feet). The low tide exposed a sandbar, and though we got down to the water about an hour after we should have, we still found a couple of treasures.

This is a picture of the sandbar from the shore.

And these two are pictures toward the shore from the sandbar.

I found a sea star! I've never found a sea star here. Sea stars in the aquarium are huge, but this one was tiny! I, of course, returned it to the water.

I also found (and put back) a live sand dollar.

I brought home this dead one, tiny and intact.

Two last pictures from the evening -sandpipers and sunset.

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Gemma has not only an imaginary friend, but an entire imaginary family. The other day, she said she was using her imaginary key to lock the bedroom door, and I said, "You know the good thing about imaginary keys? You can't lose them." She matter-of-factly replied, "Oh yes you can." I stand corrected.

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When I try to get rid of something, Gemma argues that it can't be parted with because it's a "seep-cake."

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She's got the beginning of her tap routine nailed.

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At our after school co-op, the kids made an apron of their insides. I was impressed with Gemma's skills with scissors.

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Read Alouds: We just finished Jackanory: The Lazy Leprechaun, and started The Phantom Tollbooth.

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As I type this, I'm sitting on my back porch, looking at Gemma's bucket of treasures from last Sunday, the scent of corn dogs from the pier wafting on a breeze.