The past week

Once again I'm blogging a weeks worth of school work in one sitting.
On Tuesday we made sugar cookies and decorated them with orange icing and used chocolate chips to make jack-o-lantern faces on them. Both of the girls helped do it all and then we wrapped up half the batch and took them to Lisa & the girls. Alex thought she wanted to keep them all at home, but we talked about how sharing our cookies with them is a great way to show we love them. She was OK with it then. They also each got to deliver a cookie to their therapist that afternoon. They were so proud.
On Wednesday we made paper bag pumpkins and paper towel ghosts in the spirit of Halloween week. We crinkled newspaper to fill the paper bags and then colored faces on them. The girls walked around with their ghosts making ghost sounds all day and expecting me to act frightened every time :)
Thursday after therapy we sat in the drive way and carved our pumpkin. They were each hesitant to touch the 'goop' in the pumpkin at first, but after watching me became more willing and anxious to help. Aside from being a fun Halloween activity I figured it was great sensory stuff. The girls helped to design the jack-o-lantern face (complete with triangle eyes, circle nose, smiley face with 3 teeth, eyebrows, ears and hair). They were tickled with all of that.
Of course each of the girls had therapy throughout the week.
Friday afternoon we went to the preschool for the Halloween party. They played with friends, hit the pinata, played on the playground, jumped in the bounce house, in the corn box, rode the hay ride and had treats. It was lots of fun for them.
Now, as far as academics is concerned we have been practicing tracing letters and identifying colors all last week and again today. They have also been watching The Letter Factory (thank you to Lisa for the recommendation) when we are in the van. It is a Leap Frog DVD that introduces letters and their sounds. It is amazing. Alex is really catching on and making great progress with recognition and beginning phonics. I found some great new workbooks at the Dollar Tree to practice writing skills for Alex and an Elmo workbook for Emma to work on colors. She can match colors with like colors, but still can't really name them. We are getting there though. Tonight in the bath we pulled out the bath paints. Alex remembered mixing colors the last time we used them and wanted to do that again. It seemed to register with her that mixing 2 colors makes another color and she couldn't get enough. "Red & Yellow... Orange!" She loved it. Emma loved the mess, of course :)
Tonight we read a Tiger & Pooh book to reiterate the color mixing and Emma was eager to point to colors and say, "What's this?" Then we read 'Duck For President' (a great book by the way) and I tried to explain why we are going to vote tomorrow. That will be our big school lesson for the day tomorrow. Making civil responsibilities a natural thing is a definite goal I have for them. Now, I must mention that every time I said America Alex would bust out singing... "Oh beautiful for spacious skies..." She cracks me up.