723.

Things are still going great here. The new routine is working out flawlessly. Though I am knocking on wood. It almost seems too perfect. But it's all great and everyone is happy.

Today in Math, Babe practiced vertical addition problems. She is no stranger to these, as she was working them out a year ago when I wanted to see if she could do them. But I got the dominos out and had her work through a few more. To challenge her a bit, I also had her take the vertical addition problem and write it as a horizontal number sentence. She did this with ease. After her worksheets, Math was done. (WE ARE SO CLOSE TO THE END I CAN TASTE IT!!!)

I then did the quick Reading Comprehension lesson with her. She read the article "Cool Wheels" at the end of a Calvert Transportation book, and when answering the questions fully and correctly, Babe was done.

I handed her some vertical math problems, a leprechaun maze, and her word search to work on while I went to Bubs and Z.

Bubs went right for the pre-writing sheet, so while she was doing that, I worked with Z on the frog activity, but taking away lily pad 4 and 5. I put the lily pads in order and had him count with me. When he did, I pointed to the number one lily pad and asked him to put one frog on it. He did. I did the same for lily pads 2 and 3, and he did those too! Amazing. By the time he put the third frog on though, he was done. And more interested in matching the frogs, so I made it an exercise. I put all the frogs back in the bin and pulled out one, then had him grab the match.

Look at that proud face! After such hard work, I let him do his foam Cars puzzle for the rest of the time.

Bubs finished up her tracing sheets, and then I told her it was my choice for next bin. I grabbed the clothespin math bin and she wasn't too thrilled. haha. But I flipped all the cards over and showed her one at a time. The first card was of some Irish flags. She counted five of them, pointed to the correct number, grabbed the correct matching clothespin, AND clipped it onto the correct number!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know what she did next?!

She started singing.

"You're a grand old flag you're a high flying flag and forever in peace may you wave..."

Yeah. It was that cute. I started singing along with her, then Z joined us. I love that she remembered that song from six months ago!

So when she was done, I flipped over card after card and she kept getting them all correct. I didn't like it. ha. She was doing it so easy! Even with the numbers 6-10! Now I have to spend our Spring Break figuring out more challenging but equally fun things for her to do.

After bins were put away, I read them "A Red Train: A Colors Book" by Bernette Ford. Each page has a different vehicle of a different color, and a bonus, the colors are spelled out in capital letters. So I had Z tell me the color of the vehicle and Bubs spell the color word. I know she can't read yet...she's a long way from that. But this past week she has started recognizing that letters make words, and having her be able to spell each word out loud will get her used to future lessons. Her brain has definitely been growing lately.

When I finished the book, it was time for free play.

During their 30 minutes of play time, I went back to Babe to check on the progress of her work. Her Math was done, the maze was done, and her word search was one more word complete. She piled up her work and I got out a plastic bag for her to look in. Before work this morning, I cut some clovers from my side yard for Babe to look at.

I told her these were clovers, kind of like shamrocks, and I asked her how many leaves there were on them.

"Three! They kind of look like hearts!"

I then had her retell me the story of St. Patrick and why we celebrate him.

"He is famous because he was very kind. And he was kidnapped and brought to Ireland to be a slave! He was from England. Then he escaped and went back to England and said, 'Hmm. I'm going to go back to Ireland and tell them how to really treat people.' And then he told them about God and Jesus."

I told her she was exactly right, and that the way he taught them about God was using the shamrock.

"How many plants are in my hand?"

"One."

"Good. How many leaves are there?"

"Three."

"Right. Three leaves, but one plant. This is how St. Patrick described God to Ireland. God is three parts - Father God, Son Jesus, and Holy Spirit."

"Oh, spirit? Because Jesus died? So he's a spirit?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

"But you said Father. What about his Mother?"

haha. ha.

She was getting the hang of it really quickly, though. She remembers all about God and Jesus from VPK, so it was pretty easy and fun to explain this to her.

After our serious discussion, I gathered all the kids on the couch and read them "Green Shamrocks" by Eve Bunting. Such a cute cute book about a rabbit growing his own shamrocks for a St. Patrick's Day parade. This introduced the idea of shamrocks to Bubs and Z well enough that they could do the next craft.

Four-leaf clover handprints!

Clean up. Outside play. Lunch.

Babe did her Science lesson after lunch. She learned the word "absorb" and what kinds of things absorb water. I handed her eight different items from around the house and helped her make a chart. The top of the chart was her predictions for what each item would do - if it would absorb water or not absorb water.

Then I had her dunk the items one by one! She predicted correctly on almost every one! She was sure the crayon would absorb water.

We then got into an impromptu discussion about why we use things that absorb water to dry our hands after we wash them.

"Did a Lego piece absorb water?"

"Nope."

"Do you think you can dry your hands with a Lego after we wash our hands?"

"No I don't think so! That would hurt!"

haha. Cute.

We cleaned up our watery mess and I had her go get another land transportation book to read. She added "Ride and Seek" by Melinda Melton Crow to her reading log. Then the serious discussion began.

We tried to figure out how to catch this year's leprechaun, because we failed to last year. I read her a great book called "Jack and the Leprechaun" by Ivan Robertson. Jack the mouse went to Ireland to visit his cousin and was told of the leprechaun, and whoever catches him gets his pot of gold. Babe was wide-eyed as I read the book and she kept finding him on all the pages. When I was done reading, I told her to think of some ideas of how to catch him.

So we made a list.

"What is a leprechaun's favorite food? Do you know?"

"I don't. But you can check the Internet!"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I then tried figuring out how old I was when I first said the word 'Internet' and knew what it was. Because I certainly wasn't six-years-old. haha

Then we made the rainbow decorations that will adorn the treehouse on Friday, but for now they will adorn the living room.

And with that, school was done for the day. Tomorrow we continue our serious discussion on leprechaun catching and build a trap to set out!