9.3.3.

Babe aced her Chapter 5 Math test today. While she was busy getting all the answers right, Bubs was getting all of her answers right on her little shape "quiz." I drew eight shapes on a sheet of paper and asked her to color each one a specific color.

 

 Then Babe picked Jack and Jill out of the tub, and after reciting it with no help at all, I had her pick another one. Yep, a two-poem day. She chose "Little Jack Horner" and I was excited for this one, too. After making sure she recited it correctly (although she kept saying "What a bad boy am I!", because "he's a bad boy for sticking his fingers in his pie!"), I got out the cookie dough recipes and had the girls join me in the kitchen.


We mixed up the ingredients, rolled out the dough, and cut out star and circle cookies. Once they were all cut out, I had each of them punch their thumb into the center of each cookie. Yum!

 

We cleaned up for lunch and enjoyed the cookies for dessert.


But today I'm going to actually share what we discussed at lunch today.


At how horrible of a Calvert learning guide I am!


A little back story:


When I write the lesson plans, I look through the Calvert books and use them as a foundation for what specifically I teach. Then I pretty much go with either what I learned in school or I do some research if I don't know the topic too well. With Geometry, I haven't been reading the lesson books much because, well, it seems self-explanatory.


When we were discussing the number of sides in polygons, I went with what I grew up learning. All self-explanatory, right?


WRONG.


Apparently, kids today are taught that circles have no sides.


Babe's mom agrees with this, while Babe's dad sees all the answers. And after doing some quick research at the lunch table, the correct answer to how many sides does a circle has is:


0 or 1 or 2 or 4 or infinity.


0: There are no corners/angles to make a side
1: You draw one side to make a circle
2: There is an inside and an outside to the circle
4: There is an inside, an outside, a top side, and a bottom side to a circle
Infinity: You can pick any point on a circle's boundary and call it a side


My argument will always be one side, because the way I taught Babe was discussed in a previous blog. When you physically draw a square, how many sides do you draw? 4. When you physically draw a triangle, how many sides do you draw? 3. When you physically draw a circle, how many sides do you draw?


1.


To me, if there are no sides, then there is no shape at all. 


But all of this is kind of moot compared to what was happening during lunch. Do you know who was included in this discussion?


A six-year-old Kindergartner being home schooled. Without being told what the right answer is, Babe now knows that there are all kinds of answers and I'm pretty sure she'd never get that in a public school setting. But that's just me.


So after lunch, after enjoying the yummy thumbprint cookies, we continued with lessons.


She read the article at the end of "Splash!" about different things baby animals do. We had a discussion about baby animals compared to mommy animals and if they do different things or look different. She then did her related worksheet.


After writing her two sentences for the day, I grabbed three large pieces of paper and had her tell me the three different properties of Earth again, and described them as habitats. I then asked her to paint each habitat onto each sheet of paper. She did wonderfully, and I told her this was part one of her Science activity and tomorrow she would complete part two.

Look how cute! I made sure I emphasized how amazing her detail was, especially with the addition of leaves in the cave! Very creative.


And just as Babe's parents walked in the door, I was outlining the state of Alabama on a map of the USA, circling Pelham, Alabama, where Babe's grandparents sent her a postcard from on their road trip across the country!


And with that, we are headed into the last half of the week! WOOHOO!