8th. 2nd. 1st.

Welcome, Monday! The Monday after a holiday. Yuck. But we all pulled through it.

Today Math was basically a "placement" day for Babe. Today's lesson would have had her write her numbers 0-5, then tomorrow 5-10, but really? Yeah. I skipped those altogether and figured out where she was in solving problems like "What is 2 after 4?" She was able to do those pretty quickly without a number line, which is great! I then had her play the two computer games to help figure out what was tougher for her.

She was easily able to count fish in the first game, but she was having an issue with "Catching Numbers I", where she had to click if the fish tank had more than, less than, or equal number of fish as another tank. She knows what each term means, but she was having trouble remembering how many fish she counted in the first tank (if she counted 15 in the first one and 13 in the other, by the time she finished counting the 13, she forgot how many she counted in the first one). I'm not worried. I chalked it up to her lack of focus due to the long weekend.

We moved on in Math and concluded with the worksheet on "One More, One Less". Babe will be done with Chapter 2 Math by the end of the week. Like I said, moving right along!

Since Math took a while, left the rest of Babe's lessons for after lunch and gathered Z and Bubs for their new bin work for April. They were chomping at the bit to start working.

The first bin Z picked was transferring (plastic) apples from a mini basin to a glass jar using spring loaded tongs. He loved that!

Bubs' first bin was matching egg shaker sounds. I prepared a dozen plastic eggs, each half dozen with different insides to match. I have to revamp this one because after the first two eggs that Bubs matched, she stopped listening to the sound and matched the color instead (both the colors and sounds matched).

Bubs then saw the "milk" bin and went for that next. I mixed white paint and water to make "milk" to pour from one glass jar to another. Bubs did well with this! When Z saw it he had to have a try too. He did well enough for being two, but he got pretty messy so I might take this away as a bin activity and use it as an after-work activity. Both loved it very much and I think it might be easier on a table.

Bubs then saw the pre-writing sheets but wasn't as enthused as she usually is. Very interesting. She did one of the sheets but didn't even finish it! Then put it away.

I then gathered them to the middle of the room and introduced the farm terms using cards I printed from 3dinosaurs.com (as is most of the paper work for this unit). When all the cards were laid out, they then matched the farm toys laying around the room with the cards, then I had them match the wordless cards with what was already laid out.

They both did so well!

Playtime!

I then went back with Babe and did Reading Comprehension on the book "The Story of Half-Chicken", an interesting folk tale about the origin of weather vanes. Babe was able to read the whole story, recall details, and answer questions. After she did her worksheet, we all went out to play.

After outside play, I caught Babe doing some bin work. :)

After lunch, Babe recorded the measurements in her Spring Experiment, finding that the sand seed has stopped growing, but the peat moss seeds are still going strong (growing three inches in one week)! The soil seed is also still growing, but not as fast.

For writing, I had Babe choose a page in the book she read earlier and listen 18 nouns, which she did perfectly (aside from spelling, which I told her not to worry about). I love when kids free-spell. So inventive!

We ended the day with an intro discussion on continents, countries, and states. I showed her a world map and a map of the US.

"Can you tell me what a continent is?"

"No."

"OK, continents have countries inside them."

"Oh, just like states are inside our country?"

"YES! That is exactly right!"

Awesome.

I know that the idea of continents is a bit too huge for a six-year-old to grasp, so I didn't push it today. We just looked at the names and shapes of each, then looked at the oceans and figured out which form of transportation to use to travel to each.

Within 15 minutes, it was time for Babe to get ready for dance...dance picture week! Gah! Let the craziness begin!

Only after a busy, full day!