Tahoe

This past week we spent in Tahoe with family.  The weather wasn't great for a lot of the outside activities, but we did get to see the salmon spawning at Taylor Creek.
If you are thinking of visiting South Lake Tahoe around October, this is something you really shouldn't miss.  They have a room underground where you can see a profile of the stream and some great trails that lead you through some local vegetation and by the river.  If you time it right, they have some beautiful Indian Paintbrush blooming.  Other than salmon, you have the chance to see various ducks, birds, and possibly even some bears getting ready for winter by stocking up on fish.  She read The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, The Legend of the Bluebonnet, and The Bird That Loved a Mountain to prepare for some of the fun sights she might see.

Genevieve took her grandparents and aunts and uncles to Bijou Community Park, which is a nice small community park with some playground equipment.  She enjoyed the swings and slides.  She also played at the park in Zephyr Cove, where we saw some horses and later spent some time checking out the tide pools on the beach.  She found some great shells to add to her nature collection and the exoskeleton of a crayfish to explore under her new microscope.  Tobias explored the textures of the rocks on the beach.  We found a nice little "cave" in the rocks, which reminded her of the book We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  She'd been looking for a bear all week.

She had lots of fun each night taking out her new telescope to try to look at the stars.  She would take it out on the porch during the day to look for bears, birds, and pine cones.  She had great fun dancing in her new tutu and putting on puppet shows and puppet parades with some handmade puppets from grandma.





One of the highlights of the week was when she got to carve a pumpkin with her aunt and uncle.  She had been planning this for awhile as this was her first carving.  She had a book with four patterns to choose from and some crazy eyes to put in the pumpkin.  They traced the patterns and then used the tools provided to carve a bat.

Genevieve really enjoyed checking out a local yarn shop with Grandmum and Grandy.  She has been practicing to knit with pretend needles and loves to help pull yarn out for both grandmothers.  She had to help host Grandmum's yarn podcast too.

Tobias has loved having all these guys around to play with.  Often he is stuck at home with mom and sister, so the opportunity to play with dad, Grandy and two uncles was great.

Post Birthday Fun

This week we've read more Halloween books, since she loves them.  Little Goblins Ten is a fun counting book with lots of different monsters getting ready for Trick-or-Treat.  Los Gatos Black on Halloween is mostly in English but introduces some interesting Spanish Halloween words like esqueletos, dedos, musica, momia, and tumbas.  Genevieve loves Daniel Tiger so she got a new flip book, Happy Halloween Daniel Tiger, where he and his friends create costumes that are right for them.  We read two bat books - Bats in the Band, which is part of a series of books that follows bats through different places and donates part of the proceeds to Bat Conservation International, and Littlebat's Halloween Story, where a young bat lives in the attic of a library and really wants to join storytime.  Bedtime for Monsters is a fun book which builds suspense as the monster comes to get you - to get a goodnight kiss.

Genevieve has been enjoying some of the games and toys from her party.  We built science kits for all her friends - including magnet wands, windchimes, a nature bag, magnifying glass, bubbles, glow-in-the-dark Playdoh and bouncy balls.  She's been creating items out of the Playdoh and seeing how it glows.  We've been blowing bubbles and decorating wind chimes.  She also has been trying out her new magnifying cup.  I made some different games based on PBS Kids shows for them to play at the party that she has also been playing.  I made a maze to drive the Mars rover Boop to some water.  I created a railroad for her to try to find the missing piece of track.  We created a box to help sort her nature items.

She's also been enjoying some of her presents.  She got a wooden railroad and has enjoyed putting it together.  A friend got her a singing Elsa doll, so she has been singing Let It Go everywhere.  She's been learning how to play some board games like Chutes and Ladders and Candyland.  We have a new animal for bedtime - a Margret doll from Daniel Tiger along with some Daniel books.  She got a toy I hadn't seen before as well.  It's like a peg board with nice large colorful pegs to create pictures.

We ended the week with some time with grandparents and another friend's birthday party at a farm.

Explorer's Week and the Number 3

We are still reading Halloween books this week.  We've enjoyed Halloween Colors, 5 Little Pumpkins, The Spooky Old Tree and two mummy books.  The mummy books aren't really Halloween themed but she enjoys them - The Surprise Party and Midnight in Memphis.  The Spooky Old Tree was nice to read this week because it is about three young bears exploring a spooky tree.  We are both learning about explorers and the number three this week.  Explorers because we don't celebrate Columbus Day and the number three to get ready for Genevieve's 3rd birthday.

We began the week with an urban hike, enjoying nature trails and playgrounds along this 3 mile walk.  There was a map to follow, which Genevieve investigated later.  We've pretended to be astronauts, jungle explorers and sailors.  We also read San Francisco ABC.

We read different versions of the Three Little Pigs - the original tale, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday.  We read The Three Little Kittens and told the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  We also read the great book about being three, The Importance of Being Three.  We read an alphaprint book called 123.  We played tic-tac-toe, played with triangles and danced.  After reading the fingerprint book, we created some art with fingerprints and rolling pinecones and seed pods through paint.  We played a match three game and a 3 Little Pigs.

The Festival of Nine Nights and Rosh Hashanah

This week we've started reading Halloween books as Genevieve loves all the monsters and pumpkins. We read Spooky Pookie, The Perfect Pumpkin, Shake Dem Halloween Bones, Big Pumpkin, and The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin. Shake Dem Halloween Bones is fun, especially if you are willing to be a little silly and sing with it. It's a Halloween party for fairy tale friends with a fun beat. The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin was also fun. It's a very different read from Goodnight Moon, but by the same author.

We've also talked about some holidays that take place this week. The Festival of the Nine Nights or Navrati is from the 1-10 October this year. This holiday celebrates the motherhood aspect of god and gives thanks for the harvest. Nine different components are celebrated: love, justice, providence of basic necessities, ability to determine the difference between right and wrong, battle against evil, protection against evil, and the treasure of knowledge and mystic powers. During these nine nights of holiday, many people head to the temple to pray. They leave weapons with the image of the goddess so that she might use the weapons to continue to protect the earth. Small children are often introduced to the alphabet for the first time on this holiday.

As such, we have been practicing the alphabet a lot this week. We sang the alphabet song each day in the car and have practiced naming the starting letter of certain words.

This week began the Jewish New Year, with Rosh Hashanah beginning at sunset on October 2. The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are used to seek forgiveness from those you have wronged. Prayers tend to be longer during this time of year and a shofar, or a hollowed out ram's horn, is blown during ceremonies. This is also a time to celebrate the past. People visit water with fish in it to cast away their sins. They often eat apples dipped in honey. Yom Kippur is spent in fasting and in the synagogue.

We talked about how "I'm sorry" means we are going to try not to do it again. We played with paper trumpets and other instruments. We noticed how it is more difficult to play wind and brass instruments than it is to play percussion. We also had lots of apple fun. We fed apples and carrots to some rescue animals. We cut an apple open and noted the seeds inside the core. We used our apple halves to paint and noted apple starts with A. We also read The Apple Doll. The book ends with instructions on how to create your own apple doll. We peeled our apple and soaked it in a bowlful of lemon juice with some salt. After soaking for half an hour, we set it on our window sill to slowly dry. Genevieve also helped mom mix up an apple cake, which she has been enjoying.

Native America

This week we've celebrated Native Americans.  We read a number of non-fiction books about Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, Nez Perce, Ojibwa, Iroquois, and others.  One of the best was We Are the Many which profiled many prominent Native Americans from many different tribes and wasn't too difficult for Genevieve to tolerate the length of the stories.  Brother Eagle, Sister Sky places beautiful imagery behind the words of Chief Seattle.  We also read a number of legends.  The Tale of the Rabbit and Coyote is reminiscent of Briar Rabbit tales.  Sootface is an Ojibwa take on the Cinderella story.  The Legend of the Bluebonnet and the Legend of the Indian Paintbrush are both origin stories for flowers.  Arrow to the Sun is a brightly colored Pueblo tale.  Tasunka is a Lakota story of how they first discovered horses.  The Boy Who Lived with the Bears is a collection of Iroquois stories.  Magical Tales from Many Lands includes Feather Woman and Morning Star and Giants, Ghosts and Goblins includes the Cheyenne tale of the ghost with two faces.

We visited some farm animals and talked about how they are raised.  In the spirit of The Legend of the Bluebonnet, Genevieve collected some of her toys and clothes that she doesn't use anymore to donate to charity.  We also made some pottery, practicing coiling, and painted our finished products.  We also talked about some native foods like tomatoes and chocolate, and how cocao was used as money.  We had a dance and music party, playing all our instruments and most especially the drum.  We also enjoyed Sacagawea by Deedle Deedle Dees.


In other news, Genevieve is improving at dribbling the soccer ball.  She's taken to the Pout Pout Fish and The Surprise Party.  Tobias is standing on his own for longer periods of time.