Sixth Month. 3rd Week. 1st Day.

Today was all about reviewing the details of George Washington's life and presidency, but first in Math, Babe was introduced to the dime. As of today, she has been introduced to all four coins and their amounts, so I had her count a dollar out in each one. And she did!

We also practiced telling time and writing time digitally from what the analog clock says. She's doing pretty good with this, too, aside from having a bit of trouble when the time is hour:minute less than ten. She always wants to write 3:9 instead of 3:09. So out came the number chart I made so she could be reminded of the "secret" number before every number, the zero. Once she was reminded, she started to understand.

After all Math was done, we reviewed George Washington. She rattled off the facts like nothing, about the Revolutionary War, about his infamous teeth, and how he "kicked England out of America. Into the ocean."

hahahaha. Cute!

I then showed her a silhouette of Washington and told her that three-hundred years ago, silhouettes were one way of taking a picture of somebody, instead of using a camera. Insert: craft time...though this craft was way more work for Babe. So I gave her a hand in the cutting.

I first traced each of the three's facial shadows onto a sheet of paper. Babe then cut out each shadow and traced the shadow onto black paper. Then she cut each of them out again!

Phew. It was hard work.

"Too bad they didn't have cameras back then! This is taking a long time!"

ha!

It was a lot of work. But she had fun with it. And once each silhouette was cut out, I handed them out so that each kid could glue their silhouette onto their choice of color paper.

Overall I think they turned out super cute. Babe was actually kind of bummed that it didn't take her parents longer to figure out who was who.

"How do you know it's me!?"

"Because it looks like you!"

haha. Oops.

After lunch, Babe did another craft that involved lots of cutting and gluing, but this one fascinated her too. I first had her cut lots of red and white stripes, but I didn't tell her what she was going to build yet. But of course she figured it out right away.

"Am I making the American flag?"

Doh. I told he she was going to make two American flags - the flag we see today, and the flag that George Washington saw when he was president.

"Oh, it's probably different because of the stars?"

WOW. Babe has known that the fifty stars on the flag represent the 50 states in the country, and she did know that when George Washington was president there were only 13 states, but I had no idea she'd put it together that quick. I told her I'd show her when all the cutting and gluing was done.

Once all the cutting and gluing was complete, I asked her if the flags looked the same.

She said they did! And she was right! I then asked her how the stars on today's flag are shaped.

"They are in a square."

Right again. So we looked at the pattern, how the stars columns were in an AB pattern: five stars, four stars, five stars, etc., going from left to right. So I had her draw the pattern. She had the pattern correct but ended up drawing the stars too big, so her version of today's flag has a little less than 50 stars. Oh well.

I then asked her how many stars were on the flag when George Washington was president.

"13."

"What shape do you think the stars were in?"

"I think a triangle."

Good guess. So I showed her a few of the images on Google.

"A circle! I was wrong."

So there she went, drawing stars in a circle formation. I explained to her that it was kind of like a clock.

"But with one extra number, right?"

Umm. Right.

I then had her write the years of each of her flags - 1789 and 2012.

"Does that mean Barack Obama likes our flag now? Is he going to change it?"

I told her I hope he doesn't change it, and that I think everyone likes our flag just the way it is.

"I do too! It's beautiful!"

Aww.

I concluded the day by reading "Big George" by Anne Rockwell, another awesome book with detailed illustrations and easy for kids to understand. Babe learned a new fact today, too! That France, a country very close to England, actually came to American to help America kick England out! She was fascinated!

And with that fact fresh in her mind, she got ready for dance class to conclude Monday!