School of Tat2: Third Day!!!

Hello! Today I'm going to just jump right in!

The Babe and I started the day by going over her homework - a Calvert-assigned math worksheet and my added rhyming lesson. I had her write one to three words that rhymed with each family member. She did a pretty good job! And each assignment earned her a reward sticker. So I let her marvel at them for a few minutes.

We then jumped right into math, which was learning inside and outside.

"You mean how we are inside the house and the trees are outside the house?"

Why yes. That's exactly what today's whole math lesson is on. And because of that response, I might start doubling up the math lessons per day. I knew Babe would know this all, but I thought she'd at least let me explain it a bit! It's pretty hard to elaborate on a lesson when the student already knows it, but I decided to follow through with my math activity.

I'm glad I did, because everyone had a blast.

I told Babe to go get her hula hoops and I set them next to each other on the floor in the playroom. We all then stood about ten feet from them and I told everyone to try to get their ball in a hula hoop. Everyone threw their ball at the same time, and only Bubs's made it in! I don't think I've heard so much laughter at once. It was cute. After doing that a few times, I told them all to try to get their ball outside the hoop. Balls were flying everywhere. Babe even told me whose ball landed furthest and nearest the hoops, and that was a lesson from yesterday! Too cool. I made the game more fun and held the hoops while they threw it in ("kind of like basketball, right?!") and kicked it in ("Hey, this is like soccer!"). So math turned into gym for a bit today.

Math and Gym. Complete.

I sent the little ones to play and led Babe right into Reading, which was a review of the four stories she's already read since starting (her mom started the reading comp. lessons before her official first day of Kindergarten). We reviewed the details of each story and I had her draw her favorite scene or character from each one. I totally forgot to take a picture of it. But I'll list what she drew.

"Goldilocks and the Three Bears": baby bear ("Because he's just so cute.")

"The Three Billy Goats Gruff": flowers ("Because the goats were trying to cross the bridge to eat them and I bet they were pretty.")

"The Tale of the Three Little Pigs": the brick house ("I think it's funny that the wolf couldn't blow it down and that God protected the pigs.")

"Henny Penny": Ducky Lucky ("He was funny.")

Reading Comprehension. Complete.

We took a break from school and headed to the local library for the little ones' class. This was the first time I was in the classroom while Babe was on her own (in the room right next to the classroom, all still in the children's area), but we packed her backpack full of stuff to do and she did well. I let the librarian know that Babe would be there and she graciously kept an eye on her from afar (Babe and Bubs practically run that place - we've been very frequent visitors since before Babe could talk and they all love them there). We were at the library for nearly two hours!!! Gah! I don't think that's ever happened before.

After lunch, and after I put Z down for a nap, I let Bubs participate in the Phonemic Awareness lesson with London Bridge is Falling Down. I was pretty surprised Babe didn't know it, but she picked it up after I sang it twice. I then taught them both how to play the game, and oh man was that fun. I think I could consider this a second gym class of the day, because somehow, it ended up becoming a full-contact sport. When Bubs and I were the bridge, Babe would run around us as fast as she could, and when she tried to avoid it falling, we'd chase her and lock her in. Then everyone ended up on top of each other. The same thing would happen when Babe and I were the bridge - Bubs would run around, even crawl, to try to avoid the falling bridge. That ended up being a good 15 minutes of exercise.

Phonemic Awareness. Complete.

Second gym class. Complete.

I sent Bubs to bed and had Babe complete her Checkpoints. She stayed on the computer and completed her lesson on mouse control - selecting, dragging, and double clicking. When she was done with that, there was a little certificate to print out, fully signed by Oliver the Owl, her instructor! Too cute! And of course, I forgot to get a picture of that, too. Oops.

There's a slight rumor that at the end of the year, Calvert is going to need a list of books that Babe read all on her own. So today, we started a reading log. The first book on that reading log is a book I checked out from the library today. A book I knew she'd get a big kick out of.

"Don't Be a Chicken!" by Melissa Lagonegro. As soon as I put the book in Babe's hands, her eyes got wide and she smiled. She recognized it right away as a story based on the movie that I incorporated into her lesson yesterday.

"Little Chicken! I love the books you pick out for me to read!"

So we went through the book and she only struggled with two words: "warns" and "laughed". Not bad! After I went through it with her, I did my usual thing of moving to the whole other side of the couch so she could read it to me without my help. And she did! And so, we added it to her reading log.

The last lesson of the day was Science, which dealt with balance. Well, Babe is a dancer so she knows balance pretty well, so I showed her that it doesn't just mean balancing on one foot. I showed her that we can balance things on other things, like a plate on your head, or a cup on your hand, etc.

I made a tightrope in the kitchen and had her grab her favorite stuffed animals. Then I told her to try to balance them on the tightrope.

She couldn't get them all on the tightrope, and neither could I.

"I think because these can fold."

Well that made perfect sense to me. So I had her try balancing a paper plate on the tightrope while I tended to a crying Z. When I returned, I had to laugh.

Technically, she did it! But with a little help from the chair...

But I'll take what I can get. She was thoroughly impressed with her work. And I was impressed with her trickery.

I decided to challenge her a bit more before the end of the day. I showed her how I could balance a plate on my thumb and asked her to try. I knew I was pushing her a little too much - by this time it was 4 PM and she did a lot today, so I just remembered to stay cool and calm if and when she bursted into tears of frustration.

She couldn't get the paper plate to balance and I saw the tears welling up in her eyes. Before she got too angry at herself, I asked her to go get one of her tea set plates to try. Within seconds, she had it.