Batteries not required

This week was a week filled with simple and fun extra-circular activities. Adeline is in ballet class on Monday afternoons, so she is enjoying the poses and techniques she is learning. Emmie likes it when she comes home and shows her how to do them.

Tuesday afternoon, the school had a spielmobile (cargo van filled with outdoor toys) come to their playground area. The girls had different  riding toys to try out, plus test their eye hand coordination at tetherball. Adeline did a good job whacking the ball back to her friend on the other side of the pole. Some of the different riding carts had the kids pedaling with their hands, pedaling tricycle style with a rider on the front like a shopping basket, and a round saucer on a scooter for the kids to pull one another on. The most challenging toy was the Pedalo Classic, a balance and coordination trainer.  Click to see image of Pedalo Classic toy Adeline thought it was fun, but it took her a few tries for her to get the hang of it. Emmie had a fun time using her hands to maneuver it around the school yard. The girls also had fun playing Sjoelbak (indoor shuffleboard) and a few other games with wooden pucks and strikers.

Even though it rained early Wednesday morning, we were able to go walking in the  fields on the outside of town with our neighbors in the late afternoon. Judith and Zoe showed us where there are public apple trees, so we could pick some apples for our snack. We also passed an area where they conduct horse lessons, so all of the girls enjoyed watching the horses parade around.

Eric surprised us with an early return home on Thursday as his Paris meeting was rescheduled. I was thankful with his early return home since there was a bomb alert at the Eiffel tower earlier in the week. He did inform me he had some tasty USA food to make up for the tunafish pizza Lufthansa tried to serve him before he landed in Chicago on Monday morning.

In school, Adeline is answering math questions and enjoying the variety of teaching methods presented to her in learning the alphabet and its phonics. Although we do not think US school standards would be okay with having a picture of a filled beer mug on a worksheet, but here bier (beer) rhymes with vier (4), so it goes.

Emmie had a better week this week despite Monday's morning fall into the thistle bush on their return walk from seeing the wild baby pigs and deer. She appears to be Miss Popularity as all of the girls want to help her out and are having fun playing with her.  When we leave class, they all say, "bye-bye". She said this initially to them when  she left class the first three weeks of school, but now she says, "Tschuss".

The stores are starting to advertise and stock the shelves with Christmas treats, chocolates, and drinks. I, along with others, think it is too early to see these treats in the store, since we are just starting to enjoy the pumpkin, squash, and apple flavors of the fall season.