Three. One. Two.

It was a beautiful day today, so we spent most of it outside again! We did our morning lessons outside, ate lunch outside, then played outside before naps. The fresh air was amazing!

We started with Math, where we ended Chapter 4 and Babe reviewed all her numbers 0-5. She was able to put the number cards in order 0-5 and 5-0. She was also able to spell each number correctly!

Very cool.

Something else as awesome happened during Math today. Bubs wanted to play with the number cards and bugs, like last week, so I put the number cards in order and asked her to put the right number of bugs on each one. I was helping Babe with worksheets when I hear, "I'm done!" And what do you know! This is what I saw!

Pretty cool, huh!? I was so shocked and amazed. She had the biggest smile on her face too. I asked her to show me which one had one bug on it, and she did. Then when she turned around to run back in the house, I asked her to show me which one had three bugs on it, and she showed me the right one! I gave her a high five and let her go play. So awesome!

When Babe was done with all her Math worksheets, we went into Reading Comprehension where I read her "Jonathan and His Mommy" by Irene Smalls. It's a cute story about the different kinds of steps Jonathan and his mom take while on their walk around the neighborhood. After the story, I introduced a writing web to Babe. I put "Ways to Move" in the center of the web, and had her tell me all the ways she could think of to move your body. She thought of a lot! I forgot a picture, but I told her that tomorrow we will use this web to write another book. I explained that authors sometimes use writing webs to help them write whole books. I don't think she understood it quite yet but I'm pretty sure tomorrow we will.

While we were out on the patio for lessons, our neighbors, two huge sandhill cranes that regularly graze in the yard, came waltzing into the backyard. The kids love watching them and sometimes we are lucky enough to see their little dance and hear their calls. While watching them eat up the grubs in the yard, I thought this was the perfect time to introduce Babe to a previous day's Science lesson on environmental protection.

I explained what "environment" was, and how living things help each other. I explained that some animals eat plants, some animals live in the trees, some animals live in the water, etc. I gave her a brief intro on living and non-living things in the environment and she was a bit confused on the two. So I gave her the basic definition that if it eats and drinks, then it is a living thing. She started understanding after that.

"So the big birds, they are eating bugs right now, so they are living?"

"Yep!"

"And the bugs they are eating are probably the bugs that eat the stuff from our flowers, so they are living, right?"

"Good job! You are right!"

Without wanting to confuse her anymore, I pretty much left it at that for the day and gave her the Science worksheet. She was directed to draw a picture of her surrounding environment.

With that, we were done until lunch. I went into the back office to start putting things away for the time being, and was reminded of something I knew I had to share. Babe and I look at the calendar every day of the week, where I have her tell me what number the day is, plus tell me the full date. I also have her write it down. I have had her write the date every day since day one. Today, I asked her to write in her very best handwriting, something she's been practicing for the past week or two. I was shocked at how beautiful it was! So I'm going to share the progression from week one.

These are week one's dates. I was not interested at all in "best handwriting." I was more interested in having her practice both letters, numbers, and commas.

These are last week's dates. Towards the end, you can kind of tell how she was trying to write in her best handwriting, which apparently to her means "small."

These are this week's, so far! I can't believe the difference. It just looks beyond perfect! I told her how impressed I was and how good it looked!

"I'm going to write like this from now on!"

OK then!

After lunch, and after the Littles were off to bed, I had Babe start her November reading log with "Pumpkin, Pumpkin" by Jeanne Titherington. It inspired me to have the kids grow their own pumpkins in the Spring for the Fall. Something to look forward to! How cool will that be!?

We did one last thing before Babe went for a nap, and that was starting to learn a new song for November! I first had her sing "You're a Grand Old Flag" and "Yankee Doodle", the previous months' songs, and she did! Perfectly! Didn't forget one lyric. Then I introduced November's song, "My Country 'tis of Thee." Babe was pretty tired at this point, so I only had her learn the first three lines, but even that was tough for her. I explained to her that the words seem a little "weird" because the song was written so long ago, and some of their words then were different from some of our words now. No doubt the language made it a bit difficult for her to learn, but after about twenty minutes or so, she was able to sing the lines.

I love full days like this! We got a ton done and Babe worked through each lesson like a champ. She is learning so much and it's so cool watching her grow. And Bubs doing that Math activity was icing on the cake!