Second Week, Day 2

I'm trying Blogger's new way to update blogs so if it doesn't look as nice, blame them. :p

Anyway, check out this morning's message to Babe outside her bedroom! Cute.

This morning, we again jumped right into Math. It's when everyone is freshly fed and dressed and ready for the day. And ready to learn things like left and right. And by learn, I mean review.

The first thing I had her do was make sure she knew which was left and right. So I asked her to hold up her left hand, then her right. Done. But just for the fun of it, I had her trace her hands and write which was each. Done.


The way this looks actually makes her look right handed, but I traced her left hand since she felt she couldn't hold her left hand down while drawing with her right. It was cute watching her try to figure it out, though.

Next, I had her write each word, left and right, seven times and cut them out. We then walked around the house and labeled certain doors and sides of the room, like the refrigerator, the front doors, and the beds in their bedroom.








What's cool about this is, while lining up at the door later in the day to go learn and play hopscotch, I overheard Babe telling her sister, "Look, we line up at the right door, because the left one stays shut and we always go out the right one."


It's kind of cool to see this all being applied. By a five-year-old!






After she completed her math worksheet, Babe was dying for free-play so I let her go in her room for a bit. Bubs stayed at the table and, might I remind you she just turned three, asked for math homework. So, I gave her the crayons and asked her to draw a blue circle. She did, then asked if she could color it. While she was coloring it, I drew another circle, a triangle, and a square on top of her paper. I then asked her to color the circle red, the triangle yellow, and the square purple.


Voila!!!

How cool is that!?! She was VERY impressed with her work, put her name on it, then went to play with Babe and Z. She was totally proud of her day. 


After a bit of play, it was time for Reading Comprehension with "The Lion and the Mouse." Finally, a story Babe wasn't familiar with! Babe, Bubs and Z (sort of) reenacted the story using the animal puppets they have, and they had a lot of fun with that. Especially Z, who has mastered a lion's roar.


We still had a bit of time in the morning before lunch, so we quickly recited and had a bit of fun with Hickory Dickory Dock for her Phonemic Awareness lesson. I brought out the practice clock and incorporated reading the time. While Babe said the first two lines of the poem, I would spin the hands of the clock so she couldn't see. As she said, "The clock struck...", I showed her where the hands stopped and she was able to say the time every time! Then Bubs and Z would clap that number of times. After some of that, we made up a new rhyme and replaced the word "clock" with "sock."


Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the sock.
The sock was stinky
The mouse ran out
Hickory Dickory Dock!


Babe got a real good laugh out of that one.


After a pretty productive morning, I let them all relax with some Sid and WordWorld. Then it was lunch time. Then it was nap time for the little ones.


Babe did her Checkpoints, then read a book for her reading log. She remembered the theme from yesterday, so before she read the book, she recited the caterpillar poem from yesterday's Phonemic Awareness lesson. I'm loving all these applications. 

Today's science lesson was a pretty in depth one, but she got the hang of it quick. I assembled a makeshift scale and had her remind me how to balance on one foot and how to balance a plate on our thumbs. She did each, then I explained that there was another way to balance something - by using a scale (which she proceeded to believe was a Limbo game).

I hung the hanger from the kitchen fan and tied two empty yogurt cups to each side of the hanger. Instant scale. 


I had her using coins at first. I placed two quarters in each, but then added two pennies in one, as well. As she watched the heavier cup go down, I asked her what she had to do to balance them out. She grabbed two pennies and put them in the opposite cup. Actually, her exact words were, "I put these two pennies in the left cup."


I couldn't give her enough praise! Listening and watching her incorporate the math lesson into the science lesson. I was pretty awe struck!


After we used the coins to get the jyst of balance, I grabbed a bucket of shells we've been hoarding for months. I told her to pick the biggest shell she could find and put it in one of the cups. It weighed the cup down a lot! Then I asked her to figure out how many little shells it took to balance the scale out. Seven shells!


She liked this activity a lot so we did it two more times with two different big shells. She wanted to keep doing it, but we only had a bit of time before leaving for dance, and I still had to get our final discussion about "importance" in. I left it hanging in the kitchen for her to play with when she got home, if she wished.


I asked her what the word "important" meant and she said, "It means it's something you have to do right away!" So I changed the question around and asked her what it means for a person to be important. 


"Like Mommy and Daddy?"
"Yeah, how are they important?"
"Because they tell me what to do and I do it. Sometimes."
I asked her if I was important.
"Oh yes!"
"How?"
"Because we have to be quiet when you are talking on the phone."


I laughed a lot on that one and she laughed along. It was such a cute answer.


I then asked her if she was important and she said, "I guess so. I help clean the house when mom and dad ask me to." Then I asked if she thinks she is important to her little sister.


"Oh yes. I can get her to stop crying and I help her when she needs it. That's being important, right?"


Gah. So cute. I told her she was exactly right and then read "Willa the Wonderful" by Susan Milord. It's a very cute book about a pig who wants to grow up to be a fairy princess so she can help others, but realizes it might be too hard for her to be one. Then something happens at the end of the book that makes her realize she doesn't have to be a fairy princess to be important - that she can be herself! Babe caught on real quick.


Then it was time for dance. But not before singing and marching to "You're a Grand Old Flag" (quietly) to end the day!