711.

Seventh month. Wow! Only three months left of Kindergarten! Crazy! Time is flying by. I mean really, where the heck did March come from!?

Today was a little off since Babe slept in to recover from her dance competition yesterday. We were only able to get Math in with a bit of intro to this month's theme before it was time to head to dance class.

While Babe was sleeping, I showed Bubs and Z their new work for the month. My goal is to start having one-on-one time with each of them, and I have set up mini goals for Bubs to accomplish by the end of the month.

Both kids loved their new, clean, organized "classroom" and loved it even more when I told them Babe wasn't allowed in while they were working. It was like their own little room.

Before I started working with Bubs, I set Z up with the rice bin. In the rice, I put different items of different colors. I then lined up color flashcards from HomeschoolCreations.com that are transportation themed. I asked him to put each item on the corresponding color card. He had a lot of fun with this.

I then went to Bubs and told her that each day, she needed to complete two bins of her choice. She went right for the puzzle sheet, where there are different vehicles cut up into three pieces. I laminated it and added Velcro to the pieces so she could stick them on. She had a little bit of trouble at first realizing that she had to match the pieces, but after about 20 minutes, she was done with the whole sheet! She was very proud of her work.

The next bin she chose was the number train, where she had to line up the train cars in numerical order. She was able to do 1-5, but she doesn't recognize 6-10 yet, so I first had her finish the train by completing the color pattern. Again, she had a bit of trouble at first, but once she got the hang of it, she finished up strong. I then lined up the train correctly and had her count with me 1-10 as I pointed to the numbers.

In the meantime, when Babe finished up breakfast, her brief intro to the transportation theme was matching pictures of vehicles to their appropriate word cards. She had no trouble with this. Whatsoever. I though for sure she'd mix two up, but when she said she was done, I went out to check and they were all correct.

Then last thing I had Bubs and Z do was go over the terminology for the theme (using the same cards that Babe used). I held up each card as if it was a flash card and had them take turns telling me what it was. Z knew helicopter! That amazed me. After I held up the card, I had them try to find the matching toy on the shelf and bring them to the card. They liked that.

They both did so well today. I set the time for free-play time and headed to the dining room to start Babe's Math lesson, which seemed so odd to me.

It was about two-color combinations and I'm not quite sure how in-depth Calvert wants Babe to understand the concept, but it was a complicated one for sure. I first had Babe do what Calvert asked, take four different colored crayons and make as many combinations as she could. I showed her a really easy way to do this - by choosing one crayon and coloring a combination with each remaining crayon, then putting the first crayon aside. Then taking a second crayon and create combinations with the remaining crayons, and so on. She got the hang of this pretty good. She said she kept wanting to start with five crayons, then eight crayons, so I let her.

Then I brought out the dog manipulatives and had her try with those. She did that really well, too. It looked like she was understanding!

Then I gave her the Calvert-assigned worksheet to do, and it kind of defeated everything I told her. Instead of using four crayons to make as many color combinations as she could, it limited her to only using two crayons to color one thing (wheels) and the other two crayons to color something else (wagon).

Are you confused? Yeah. Me too. And obviously so was Babe, so I kind of just pushed this lesson aside. Calvert does not cover it any more than just one day, so I'm thinking maybe she just needs to understand that the idea of a two-color combination concept exists before. Ha. Yeah I'm sticking with that.

By the time she finished, it was time to make lunch. With dance in the afternoon, school was basically done.

Back to normal tomorrow, I hope!