My little artists

I didn't think today would be very productive, learning wise, but I was wrong. This morning was slow, but we got out and did some yard sale shopping and then came home to make Jessica a birthday card. Jessica, if you are reading this, please be surprised when you get it :) An attempted quiet time... not too successful. Emma seems to be past napping. Ugh. Then we went to the pool for a few hours. The girls love playing with the other kids. They shared their ball with a little girl and played catch for a while. Then we made some new friends. A little girls named Hope and her mother. Hope is two, and she and the girls played quite a while. On the way home we stopped at Walmart for a few things. On the way out we put some school supplies in the donation box. Alex got to put in a school box and Emma put in some markers. I made sure to explain to them that we were giving them for kids who don't have school supplies. They seemed happy about that. Once home we had a snack and then painted. I stripped them down to almost nothing, spread butcher paper in the floor and got the paints ready. They each painted two pictures. They had lots of fun, I just have to loosen up on the making a mess thing. After a much needed bath we played in their room the rest of the evening. We did simple puzzles (Alex is a whiz and Emma is improving greatly). Emma found a lacing card so I got the rest out and they each laced a string through a card. I noticed that since we last used them (a few months ago) that Alex now follows the pattern and actually laces around the shape instead of random lacing through the holes. Emma is still pretty random, but they both did well with the fine motor skill of getting the string in the hole and pulling it through. Then LOTS of reading. We pulled out a book of animals that I had put away. That book does a great job of categorizing animals (spotted, striped, large, small, frogs, birds, etc.) I tried to tell them the actual names of the animals instead of the general name of bird or fish. We do great at repetition when it comes to reading books so I'm thinking they will pick up on the specific names of animals. Then about 45 minutes of other books before brushing teeth, reading bedtime books and saying prayers. They both went to sleep very quickly tonight. A day full of fun will do that to little girls!