Today was another great learning day. Babe has been blowing my mind lately with how much information she has retained and continues to learn. Today I realized that it's an incredible feeling talking with a six-year-old about US History and the presidents. Especially when she knows the information! Crazy.
I started the day with seeing if Babe could read the 70 words that come in Calvert's Letters and Words book. We have never used the book throughout the curriculum, but with today being a review on sight words, I wanted to see what she could do. I cut them all out last night, and today I held them each up like a flashcard and had her read them.
She. Did. Amazing.
She read them all correctly, slightly hesitating on three words: now (which she pronounced know, at first, until she quickly corrected herself), pretty (she said a long e until she realized it was wrong), and ran (which she pronounced with a long a).
That's it. Out of 70 words, she hesitated on those three words. I had her write those three five times each, then had her pronounce them again. This time she did it in a flash.
Amazing.
We then went ahead with Math, and after we got over a rough patch, Babe was back to counting by tens starting at any number. Using the connecting blocks helps tremendously in visualizing the sets of ten changing. She has no issues once I bring those out. So she counted some coins, told me which pile had more cents, and did her worksheet. Then Math was done.
We breezed through Reading Comprehension. I asked her to recall as much as she could about yesterday's book, which she did. Then she did a worksheet based on the story. Done.
Babe has been dying to spell her name in Play-Doh like I've been letting Bubs do, so after her morning work before lunch, I brought out some to let her. Bubs finished her name, too!
After lunch, we did the Writing assignment, where I let her free-write to prepare for a report she will write tomorrow. I split a sheet of paper into threes and titled three columns: Wheels Can Be Fun, Wheels Can Help Us, and Wheels Help Us Go Places.
I then had her think of and write five different things with wheels pertaining to each category. I love when Babe free-writes because her pronunciation is usually spot on and she spells everything phonetically, or our southern accent kicks in and I'm left speechless at her spelling.
I think my favorite "what the heck" spelling of hers is "scherlerss." That's where our southern accent kicks in. haha
My favorite phonetic spelling of hers is "tacksy." That is just adorable.
I forgot to mention that while Babe was doing her school work, there is a tupperware of water freezing in the freezer. Babe knows all about water freezing into ice, then either melting or being evaporated, so I didn't go into this too much with her. But after she finished her Writing assignment, I brought out the block of ice and we observed it for the next hour, recording our observations at each assigned interval.
Babe had a lot of fun watching the ice melt. Especially because the way it froze, there was a hole in the bottom so it kind of looked like an igloo.
For an added challenge, I asked her to record the height of the block at each interval, too.
While our ice was melting, I found it a perfect opportunity to give Babe a little "quiz" about the three presidents she has learned about so far.
She answered all of the questions. She answered all of the questions correctly. I was so impressed. She was so quick with the answers, too.
For example:
"OK, who won the Civil War?"
"The North did."
"Why were they fighting?"
"Because the South wanted to keep their slaves and Abraham Lincoln said, 'NO MORE SLAVES!' Do you hear that, Abraham Lincoln? We are talking about you!"
(Our life-size illustration is still hanging up in the dining room, and both girls love to talk to him periodically throughout the day.)
"OK, how did he die?"
"Someone shooted him in the head."
"Why would someone do that?!"
"Because that man, I forgot his name, he wanted slaves, but Abraham Lincoln said, 'NO MORE SLAVES!' Oh, Abraham, you were just the goodest president, weren't you?"
I got the biggest kick out of that. That's just hysterical!
When I was asking her about Thomas Jefferson, she got so excited when I mentioned the Louisiana Purchase.
"What was that one really big thing that Thomas Jefferson bought from France?"
"More land! To make more states."
"Right! And who did he send to the land to write all about it?"
"Lewis and Clark! And you know what!? Thomas Jefferson had two grizzly bears in his front yard!"
hahahahaha. Love it.
When she finished recalling literally EVERYTHING about the presidents, I briefly introduced to her the man on the dime - FDR. I explained to her that he was our 32nd president and that he was president for 12 years, the longest of any president. So long that the next president made it a law that no one could be president for more than 8 years! I also started discussing the Great Depression with her, but made a decision to skip that, since I think it's way beyond her. Especially while she's learning about money in Math and then all of a sudden explaining to her that during that time, the coins had no value at all. ha
So I skipped the Great Depression and went right over to World War II.
"Why do you think it was called World War II?"
"Hmm. Because it was the whole world?"
"Yes! Because lots of different countries were involved!"
I explained to her the bombing of Pearl Harbor by Japan, and how Roosevelt made a decision to then bomb Japan with two atomic bombs "filled with chemicals that hurt and killed lots of people." I told her that after we bombed Japan, World War II ended.
Then I told her about how Roosevelt started a charity to help raise money for sick kids. It became known as the March of Dimes because he asked everyone in America to send him a dime! And that's why his face was put on the dime!
It was a lot of information to take in but when I had her recall it, she could. We will see how she does tomorrow.
Babe ended the day by adding her last book to her February reading log. She read "One Guinea Pig is not Enough" by Kate Duke. Again, another adorable book.
And with that, Wednesday was done! On to March!
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