Cute Kids, June 3

Elora continues to grow stronger. Today she flipped from front
to back several times when we were at Kindergym (how fitting,
to be practicing her gymnastics moves there, right?!

Elora's hand coordination has improved a lot as well. She can
spin the doohickeys on her exersaucer and in her bouncy
chair. And, this evening she had loads of fun splashing the
water in the bath tub. She isn't sitting yet as she flops forward
towards her legs without a bit of support, but it won't
be too long. She also is "standing" on her legs more and
more.

Logan continues to enjoy school time. He has finished yet another
box (of 10) short readers. The sentences he can read now are
along the lines of "The cute unicorn hunts for her lunch on the
dune in June. The cute unicorn gulps up bugs and prunes." We
still are working with the math curriculum, Right Start Math.
These days Logan is doing simple addition on the abacus.
Sometimes he does geometric shapes as well.

Logan and Delenn are both good listeners (to BOOKS not
necessarily to us!!!). Yesterday, for example, they
listened to four chapters from a book we've
been reading about a magic land called Droon (found under
a staircase in the basement of one of the boys). As they
listened to me read they drew a picture of the lake of
lava with a lava fountain coming out and an ice bridge
that led to a glove with a jewel on it. They were so
diligent as they drew, it was very cute! We've down
loaded a lot of fairy tales, Greek tales and so forth from
StoryNory.com. We've been listening to them in the car
and often Logan will want to stay in the car once we've
arrived home to finish listening to the story.

I need to add that Elora is more and more aware of
books as well. I've always held her while reading to
the other kids, but just in the past week she's much
more aware of the book, looking intently and trying
to touch the pictures and turn the pages. She hasn't
had much one-on-one reading time since the others
leap into my lap whenever I crack open a book.
Still, she probably gets much more book time than
the others did at this age just from hanging out with
her older siblings!

Delenn really enjoys games (such as dominoes, Perfection,
the snail race, etc.) She plays lots of imaginative games
with her doll house, with animals and with kitchen stuff.
She absolutely loves helping me cook in the kitchen (as
does Logan). Delenn always insists on having time on the
abacus as well. She can count out and slide about 7 beads
before getting distracted. She can count to 20 (more or
less) and knows her A,B,Cs. She knows a surprising
amount of letters (by sight) -- both upper and lower
case.

Life here is busy, eventful, but very happy and full
of activities! It's hard to explain how we fill our our days...
unless you drop by to see the huge volumes of lego
star fighters produced by the kids, the elaborate
cubby houses, drawings, and so forth. Fun stuff!