VBS

The girls had a great time at Vacation Bible School, and thank goodness it is over.
The girls *loved* their time there. They loved the food, the activities, the fellowship, the songs, etc. But by the end of the day they were exhaused, often falling asleep in the car on the way home.

Glitter gets the camera again

Glitter got the camera again. We were at a wedding reception. Resting on each table was a disposable camera for the guests to take pictures. Imagining Glitter running through the entire roll of film in five minutes, I quickly decided to let her use my camera if she was very, very, very, very, very, ... very careful.

I asked Glitter how careful she had to be. "One hundred ninty carefuls!" she proudly exclaimed. (Sometimes I wonder where she gets her numbers from.) Then I let her have the camera.

So here's some of the photos she took, minus the pictures of the floor, the ceiling, and fingers.

highlanders watertower

Driving the girls to Vacation Bible School this week, I've gotten a bit nostalgic. I used to make this drive every Wednesday to our church playgroup. Most times we'd get caught at the light at this intersection and I'd point out the water tower to the kids, first Sparkle, and then later Glitter. I spelled out the letters. I explained that the phonogram "igh" says "I." I sounded out the syllables and blended the sounds to make the word. I always wondered if the kids had any idea what I was talking about, but I did it anyway as part of teaching them reading readiness.



(We still go to church, but it's not the same since Wander drives.)

The Girls Do Laundry

Here's some pictures of Sparkle and Glitter doing their laundry. They have come up with their own routine for operating the machines. Usually Sparkle is the "puller" who pulls the clean, wet clothes out of the washing machine and sets them on the door of the dryer. Then, Glitter is the "pusher" who pushes the wet clothes all the way into the dryer.

However, this day, Glitter decided that she wanted to be the "puller." If you look carefully in the second picture, you can see how she has almost climbed into the washing machine to reach the laundry, and her little feet dangle below.



After we had an incident when Sparkle tried to help Glitter reach further into the machine, and Glitter almost fell in, I convinced the girls to return to their traditional jobs based on height.

Sparkle's Birthday

We had a tiny celebration for Sparkle's birthday. No big party. Just pizza and cake at the neighborhood pool.

144, 18, 8

I was a bit silly over math last week.
I was at a meeting for a new homeschooling co-op.
The new co-op meets for 18 weeks a year.
Over the course of the year the kids memorize a 144 point timeline.

The question came up, how many timeline cards do the kids memorize each meeting?

I didn't do the math. Sigh. The numbers didn't automatically line up for me, and I didn't want to plug and chug.

So, at first I decided to just flip to a page in the manual and count the number of timeline cards for that week. Eight cards. Flip to another week. Eight cards. Okay, it's eight cards per week. At least usually.

But that didn't feel right, because another co-op meets for 24 weeks per year, memorizes a 160 point timeline, and does eight cards per week.

So I got out the calculator and did the math. 144 cards divided by 18 weeks equals 8 cards per week. Okay, so now I trusted the result. Plus, I remembered that the other co-op doesn't take all 24 weeks to memorize the 160 point timeline.

However, the numbers matched up so nicely that I was irked that I didn't figure out out mentally.

I did remember that 144 is 12 squared. But that was where I stopped. I should have worked it out further. After all, Sparkle and I had just done the Sieve of Eratosthenes for her math lesson. (I created a bunch of pattern templates for multiplication and we had fun using them, culminating with the sieve!) Thinking about prime factorization should have come naturally.

Anyway, here goes my ultimate thought process.

144 = 12 squared
144 = 12 x 12
144 = (4 x 3) x (4 x 3)
144 = two 4's and two 3's

18 = 9 x 2
Ah, ha, the two 3's from the 144 match up with the 9 in the 18.
I can split one of the 4's in the 144 to get a 2 to match with the 2 in 18.
That leaves the other 4 and the leftover 2 in the 144, and they make 8. So, 8 cards per week.

144 cards = 3 x 3 x 4 x 4 cards
18 weeks = 9 x 2 weeks

144 cards = 9 x 2 x 2 x 4 cards
18 weeks = 9 x 2 weeks

144 cards = 9 x 2 x 8 cards
18 weeks = 9 x 2 weeks

So, 144 cards in 18 weeks means 8 cards each week.

It also works if you think of it this way.
144 = two 4's and two 3's
18 = 3 x 6

The 3 in 18 matches with one of the 3's in 144.
The 6 in 18 matches with the other 3 and a 2 from one of the 4's in 144.
That leaves 2 x 4 in the 144, which is 8.

I suppose my way of thinking through was rather cumbersome and inefficient.
I mostly did it because when I saw that nice round number 8 confirmed, I just knew that the numbers had to fit together elegantly. I wanted to make sense of it. So, I went through my convoluted thought process that my math smart brothers would probably find ridiculous.

I'm satisfied.

Oh, and I signed up for the co-op.
The timeline cards are *gorgeous*!

Monday pics

The girls were really cute at morning meeting on Monday.



Then Monday afternoon we went to the library. We pre-registered for the Summer Reading Program the previous week, but couldn't officially log books until the previous Friday. Then the girls did a marathon to read 10 books each before our Monday library visit. I explained to them that the sooner they read their books, the better choice of free books. Sparkle ended up reading a bunch of easy reader books far below her reading level; she's learning how to work the system.

Here are the girls enjoying playing with clay, the scheduled activity for the library. I wasn't expecting it to be so busy. We were a bit late and almost didn't get tickets. (The crowds and tickets are the main reason why we won't be doing the summer reading program at the rich library this summer.)


Afterwards the girls picked out their free books and started reading them in the car. Both girls completed wrote their own titles on their logs this year, which is a first. Since the girls did all the work themselves (reading the books, filling out the registration forms, logging the titles) I let them pick out their own books.


Once we got home, Glitter was so excited to write her name all over the "This book belongs to " page. She even got to use *pen*!!!!

Glitter at night

It's Wander's turn to put the girls to bed.
Here he is reading to Glitter from a children's book of bible stories.
It's Glitter's favorite story in the book: "Jesus wears God's Kingly Crown."