745.

Today was a mad jumble of everything - Math, finishing up transportation, experiments, etc. I felt all over the place today!

We started the day with observing the sand experiment. I had Babe review her predictions and then go grab the cups out of the freezer. She knew right away how her predictions fared.

"I was right on one of them! But not the other."

I didn't realize this would happen, but the wet sand froze all the way through!

It was a frozen solid rock!

The dry sand didn't freeze at all. It poured right out of the cup.

"Why do you think the dry sand didn't freeze at all?"

"Because there was no water in it to freeze! I guess only water makes ice."

haha. Cute conclusion.

After wrapping that one up, I started a new one based on transportation travel time. I chose three different modes of land transportation that Babe was going to time how long it took each to go around the block. So I helped her write out her predictions (she was a bit under the weather today, but soldiered on in every activity but writing).

So then we went for a walk.

(We did each mode at different times of the day, but for convenience purposes I will talk about this whole experiment in one section.)

It took us nearly an hour (49 minutes to be exact), which is way longer than usual because of course we had to stop and say hi to every horse we saw.

When we got back to the house, I had her record her time. Then (at a different time of day), we went bike riding around the block.

Neatly 18 minutes! Not bad!

Next, we loaded up in the car and got our time ready again.

"How long do you think it will take us to drive around the block?"

"Like, two minutes. It's going to be a very short drive."

Ha! She guessed almost exactly right!

Then it was time to graph the results. She did pretty good labeling the graph correctly! Even counted by 5s to show minutes!

With the experiment done, I'll move on to our observations of our Spring experiment, which Babe started recording results today.

The sand seed is beyond growing. haha. However, I showed Babe an interesting observation I made. Only the peat moss cup is growing both seeds we planted (we planted two seeds in each cup). Even the soil cup is only growing one seed. Interesting.

So as it stands, the sand bean is the tallest, with peat moss and soil close behind (respectively). The rock seed has no chance.

Babe finished up reading the rest of the library books that were transportation themed, too, bringing her grand total of books read in March to 20! An amazing feat.

"I can't believe I read three books in one day. And I can't believe I have new teeth growing and that I have loose teeth now! I feel like a whole other person!"

I mean really, how much cuter can you get? And where does she come up with this stuff?

Onward to April!

744.

Instead of starting with Math today, I first asked Babe to draw a propeller to see if she remembered what she learned yesterday. She did.

After she drew arrows on it to show me how it spins, we jumped into Math.

Today Babe was officially introduced to Venn diagrams. But before I had her put the two circles together, I had two separate circles on the living room floor and had her sort the shapes into red shapes and rectangles.

When she was done with that step, I then showed her how the two circles go together to form a middle section.

Then I asked her what shapes would go in that middle section.

"Red rectangles!!!"

Awesome!

Next, I asked her to go grab ten stuffed animals from her room. She lined them all up on the couch and as I was staring at them trying to figure out how to sort these using a Venn diagram, Babe witnessed me struggle. I honestly had no idea how to ask her to sort them. She started making suggestions.

"What about boys in one circle and girls on the other?"

"Well, what would go in the middle?"

"Oh..."

I thought hard. I was so embarrassed. So I gave her the reigns.

"OK Babe, you try to figure out how to sort them."

She thought for not even two minutes.

"OK, I'm going to put warm weather animals in this circle and cold weather animals in this circle. Then in the middle, if they can live in both, that's what will go there."

Um.

I almost walked out the door to go find her a college application to fill out.

WHAT THE HECK!? HOW DID SHE DO THAT?!

I ran over and gave her a hug and told her that was the most brilliant idea ever in the history of the world.

Then I let her do her work.

When the animals were put away, we continued the Math lesson on orally explaining how to come to a solution. It was hard for Babe to not just answer, "I know the answer is correct because I already knew that." But when she's been sorting and classifying things for years, it's hard for her to revert back to actually explaining why a hotdog doesn't fit into a group with apples, oranges, and bananas. But I made her. haha. And Math lasted a full hour today.

Since we are trying to fight off illness in time for Easter, we stayed home from the library today and I replaced bin work with activities that everyone participated in, including an "H is for Helicopter" worksheet that Bubs ROCKED at!

Look at those perfect H's!

After they all completed their sheet, I brought out the sand for them to observe and play in dry and wet. In the meantime, Babe completed her Science lesson on sand, built her house, and then started her experiment on frozen sand.

Her predictions for the sand experiment (placing wet and dry sand in the freezer over night) are:

Wet Sand - "I think it will freeze all of it."

Dry Sand - "I think it will only freeze the top of it."

We will observe tomorrow!

While cleaning up the activity, Babe stopped dead in her tracks and screamed.

"LOOK AT THE ELEPHANT!"

While Bubs and Z ran to the window, I was laughing so hard at what Babe was pointing at.

Hysterical.

After lunch, I had Babe observe the progress of her Spring Experiment and we were both so excited at the results so far.

Believe it or not, the sand cup is producing the tallest plant right now! That little bean seed had no issue pushing through that compacted sand like I thought it would! We were all wrong with our predictions. And Babe even took notice that the seeds in the rocks aren't growing "because the water just pours right out the bottom when I pour it in."

Pretty cool that she made the connection on her own.

After watering, I told her that we would start recording the heights of each plant tomorrow.

We went back inside and did her Reading Comp. lesson on cause and effect. After breezing throughout that, we attempted the Writing lesson but Babe was ready for the day to end, so I skipped the lesson and had her catch up on Checkpoints.

She relaxed the rest of the day in front of PBS Kids, but about an hour after ending our lesson, I told Babe to go check on her seeds again because I noticed something very interesting!

Look at that bean seed grow in that sand! It's first leaf is already out! Seriously, not even an hour after watering! Babe had the cutest little gasp when she noticed, too!

And we ended Thursday on that fun note!

743.

Today was Field Trip Day!!! We headed to a Marina to observe water transportation. We saw a ton of boats and watched a forklift take a boat off the top shelf of the garage (barn) and put it in the water! And Babe got to see a real propeller up close!

These photos are a little dark because I only had my phone handy at the time.

We then headed to the other side of the marina where boats pull in and out, and the kids saw a gas station! On the water! They got a big kick out of that. They were also shown how to properly fill a boat with gas so as not to get gas in the water and pollute it. The marina uses special rags that absorb oil and gas for any spillover.

We hung out by the docks a bit longer to watch a water taxi fill with people and drive away (that was an especially cool discussion with Babe about another similarity between land and water transportation).

Then, before lunch, our tour guide (a good friend of mine) had a surprise to show us. We headed to another set of docks and we were told to stay quiet....and then BAM! The surprise showed up out of nowhere!!!

A real, live manatee! Babe flipped out!

"It's not in a cage!!! I've never seen one like this before!!!"

So cute.

My friend pointed out the scars on the manatee's back and told Babe that he got hit by a boat propeller, and that's why boats need to go slow in certain areas of the water.

While we stayed quiet, the mommy and baby manatee came up for air during their nap every few minutes. It gave me goosebumps watching nature like that! A very cool experience.

After we watched them for a bit, we left them alone, had a picnic lunch by the pool, and then of course went swimming in the pool!

An awesome field trip day filled with really cool experiences. I'm pretty sure Babe and Bubs will never forget seeing a wild manatee!

742.

Today was another good day. We started with Math, as usual, and I went over third attributes again, to prepare Babe a bit more for the near future. Then I had her work with sorting, something she’s very good at. I had her sort a whole bag of coins. She did her worksheets, and Math was done.

Regrettably, I had no air transportation-themed library books, so we discussed it pretty briefly next. We reviewed how water and land transportation are different, and we added air transportation to the mix. She came up with some really good ones all on her own! Like hot air balloon (“from My Little Pony, remember?”) and hang glider (“like one that Diego uses!”).

Then we jumped into Reading Comprehension. I handed her the book “The Little Engine that Could” by Watty Piper. She read the whole thing. And it’s a tough book!

While she read, I had Bubs at the table with us for a Z-less day. She brought out the pre-writing bin, completed that, then I grabbed the flash cards for her to repeat her work from yesterday. Which she did. Awesomely. And not only did she tell me the first letter of the select vehicles on the worksheet, but she was able to tell me the first letters of every vehicle! Amazing.

After Babe read her book, we worked on position words with the illustrations. Then she did her worksheet. One of the questions asked her to draw a picture of something she had to try really, really hard to do, just like the little blue engine had to try hard to pull the train over the mountain. I couldn’t handle her picture. So cute!

(If you can't tell, it's a picture of her swimming underwater to grab a pair of goggles at the bottom of the pool. We have been working on that for a couple weeks now.)

After Reading Comp., the girls chose to color instead of outside play, so we gathered in the living room and watched Sid the Science Kid and WordWorld.

After lunch, I handed Babe “The Little Engine that Could” again and had her write one word from every page. When she completed it, I told her that for homework, she was to circle all the vowels.

We checked on the Science experiment, but there was no growth enough to record just yet, but Babe did notice that the bean seeds are completely open in the peat moss. We are just waiting for some height!

To finish up the day, I asked Babe to draw a beach scene, and in the scene I wanted her to draw one mode of transportation for each property of Earth. She did! I love the picture. And yes, she did write her name on every mode of transportation she drew.

When she showed me her helicopter, I asked her if she wanted to see the deaf sign for helicopter. When I showed her, I told her that this sign was her Aunt Dani’s favorite sign! It is a pretty fun one to do.

With the completion of her picture came the completion of the day. She got ready for dance and we were off!