Elmo and Bees

Oliver's vocabulary has been growing very quickly over the past couple of weeks, and he's also been using phrases and sentences far more often. Sometimes he lumps many things together in one category. For example, all insects are "bees." He has no fear of any insects. He picks them up and plays with them whether they are alive or dead. I just have to remind him not to eat them. Another example would be that he calls both Larry and Bob (VeggieTales) - "Bob" and he calls almost all of the Sesame Street characters "Elmo." The exception is Cookie Monster. He always calls him Cookie!

Nadia and Ian turned in their completed summer reading program sheets today. They had to do a variety of tasks in addition to reading books. Ian had to tell the librarian a joke, count 1-10, hop on one foot ten times, say the ABCs, tell a nursery rhyme (he did Humpty Dumpty), and tell her when his birthday is. Ian's joke was "what do trees like to drink? A: root beer". Nadia had to do a science experiment, attend a library program, etc. Paul did a kinetics experiment with her regarding the effect of temperature on how long a glow stick lasts. The other library's summer reading program is just about reading 10 hours. Nadia has completed one sheet and is working on her second. We haven't been reading as much as usual lately, but I have been having her read one book to me each morning (such as Billy and Blaze or Nate the Great or Mr. Putter and Tabby). Ian wrote his first thank you note yesterday. Although we are definitely in summer vacation mode, we are still trying to do a little bit of schoolwork now and then so they don't regress too much over the summer break!