Five. Two. Three.

Another good and smooth day today. 2012 is looking good on us. Knock on wood...

The very first thing we did today was run down to the mailbox to load it up with goodies and cards for our community helper from yesterday, the mailman. Of course in our rush to get down there I forgot my camera, but when Babe was satisfied with the set up, we ran back up the driveway to start school.

Today in Math we used the connecting cubes. I had Babe read a number sentence and then show me with the cubes what the number sentence says. And yep, she's got it down pat. She's starting to do subtraction problems in her head as fast as she can do addition problems. It's amazing. We repeated various exercises for some time to make sure that subtraction wasn't something she would forget in two weeks, but I think it's pretty engrained in her head now so I'm confident we can move on to the next chapter next week. After her worksheet, Math was complete.

For Reading Comprehension, we reviewed "Ten Little Puppies" and I added an exercise of listing the verbs in the book. Instead of listing all the verbs, I had Babe pick one verb for each puppy, so she'd have ten verbs in all. Again, she was able to pick out the verbs of each sentence flawlessly. There were a few tricks however, where what seemed to be verbs were actually nouns (He went for a drive.). Babe was sure of her answer being the word drive that I had to briefly explain to her the difference. I assume that is a grammar rule she will learn down the road.

So after Math and Reading, we ran right into our discussion on community helpers. Can you tell we are in a pretty good routine? It's working for everyone and I love it. Today's community helper was a pilot.

"I want you to tell me everything you know about pilots."

"OK, but can I use the word pirate instead? I know them as pirates."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe it. I think that is the cutest thing I've ever heard. But I had to correct her and let her know that pirates and pilots are two completely different types of people. When I told her that pilots are people who drive airplanes, I asked her what people are called when they ride on a plane.

"An audience?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't get over the cuteness today. I corrected her again and with her head full of new definitions, I decided not to enlighten her on who air traffic controllers and flight attendants are. So we went right to our craft.

I gave Babe and Bubs two popsicle sticks and asked them how they would make an airplane with them. Babe got it right away and Bubs looked at her older sister's for some help. Then I gave them some cotton balls for clouds and let them decorate their airspace.

Bubs was pretending to be an airplane. So cute. And check out Babe's finished project (the middle photo on the left). She drew a city "but really small so it's like it's far away."

Genius.

It was a dreary day so instead of outside time, the kids colored and watched PBS Kids until lunch.

After lunch, while going through the books to pick one out for Babe to add to her reading log, I took a huge risk with my choice. It was a long one, longer than she's used to, and it had lots of dialogue. I figured she'd want to quit halfway through so I brought out a bookmark just in case. We got in our reading spot on the couch and I didn't say anything about the book to give her a pre-bias about it. I handed it to her and told her to try reading this one.

The book was "Footprints in the Snow" by Mei Matsuoka. You already know I'm going to say the book was adorable BUT, Babe read the whole book. Without pausing or complaining how long it was. With every page I was in awe that she kept it up and she hardly stumbled on any word. She's still having trouble with "could" and "would", saying "called" and "walled." But eh, I'm not worried. After every few pages, to make sure she wasn't just reading words, I would ask her to tell me what was happening. Her comprehension is perfect and at the end of the book we were laughing so hard because of the plot. I praised her over and over again and I gave her five stickers for a job well done! She couldn't stop smiling. She knew she did good with that one.

Babe's brain worked hard today so for the rest of the day we relaxed. A good end to the middle of the week. WOO!