722.

Another good day at school. Babe's Math lesson was a breeze even though I lumped two lessons together. We did two lessons on counting by 5s and 10s to 100, both of which she knows how to do. Simple. When I had her count both ways, she did her worksheets and Math was done.

I next described in brief the Irish Potato Famine. It wasn't a long discussion because I didn't want to go into too much detail, but I basically described to her what happened and why it was an important event. She didn't really understand why people were starving.

"Why couldn't they just eat strawberries instead? Or chips?"

haaa!

I told her that a lot of the people didn't have enough money to buy other foods and that they ate what they grew.

"So they ran out of seeds for everything? All their other food got sick too?"

She started to slightly understand, but it's unfathomable for her to imagine someone not being able to have food readily available.

After the discussion, I handed her a few worksheets and her word search to do while I went in the back room with Z and Bubs.

Today, Bubs picked the frog activity first and before I could set Z up with the pre-writing bin, Bubs already had the lily pads laid out in numerical order! I was so shocked!

She was very successful at this activity. She blew my mind. Extra high fives. To make it a bit more difficult, I took the lily pads, shuffled them up, and had her pick one from a pile (they were upside down). When she picked it up, she had to tell me the number and then put the corresponding number of frogs on it. Again, she did this well! She got them all right! Even knowing the difference between 2 and 5. Extra extra high fives!

In the meantime of this, Z was doing one of his most favorite things in the world. A foam number puzzle. He will sit there and do this over and over for a good hour.

After Bubs' frog activity, she did the pre-writing sheets. The girl loves to trace.

Look at those circles! Almost perfect!!!

I then gathered them up and read them a DwellStudio board board book called "GO". I pointed to the letters, which Bubs recognized, and I had them repeat, "G-O. GO!" a number of times. As I turned the pages I had them tell me which color or vehicle was on the page. After going through this twice (on Z's request), it was free play.

While they played, I headed back to Babe where she was just finishing up her graphing activity in her Math Practice book. I then went into the kitchen to prepare our next activity.

Since Babe was learning about the Irish Potato Famine, I decided to cut up some potatoes for them to use as stamps. Not really a good example of wasting food as a craft project while people starved because of lack of potatoes, but whatever. It worked. And they all absolutely loved this idea. I cut three different potatoes and had them rotate after one minute with each. Then when they each had each potato at least once, I told them it was up to them to share for the rest of the time.

These turned out so amazing that it gave me an idea for art for my home kitchen. Babe's totally turned out like amazing retro wallpaper. I loved it. And so did they!

CLEAN UP. OUTSIDE. LUNCH.

After lunch, I had Babe go grab a land transportation book, and she did. But she also brought out the other two library books she checked out on her own last week.

So yes, Babe read THREE books today. AMAZING.

"Drive Along" by Melinda Melton Crow

"Brownie and Pearl Hit the Hay" by Cynthia Rylant

"Dora and the Unicorn King" by Molly Reisner

Just as she was finishing adding the three to her reading log, there was a knock at the door. I answered it and Babe was so excited to see her oldest cousin (Al), a freshman in high school, at the door. I told Babe that Al knew all about the country that she was learning about this week.

"You know about Ireland!? And St. Patrick?! And how he wasn't from Ireland, but really from England?!"

So cute.

So I had Babe go sit on the couch while Al presented her with a (fictional, but historically accurate) story about the Irish Potato Famine. Babe was wide eyed. It was so cute.

When Al finished her story, Babe applauded! My heart melted a little bit. It was so unexpected and so cute. Al was flattered and asked her if she had any questions.

"How come the people couldn't eat strawberries instead of potatoes?"

!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't handle the adorableness.

Al told her that it wasn't only the potatoes that got sick, but all the crops the farmers planted! And since strawberries are plants, they couldn't eat strawberries either!

It was a really cute and cool discussion and Babe loved hearing something from someone else. It worked out well.

I had Babe do her Checkpoints and when Bubs and Z woke up, Z's dad came to pick him up early and the rest of us went in the pool for a bit.

End of Tuesday!