9.1.3.

As usual, we started the day with going over a subtraction worksheet. Once she takes her time and reads what she's supposed to do, Babe gets all the answers right. Woohoo!

Moving on, continuing our discussion into literature terms, I hand her a book called "Goodnight Gorilla" by Peggy Rathmann. I know you've heard about this book because it's so dang adorable and it's made up of mostly illustrations (not all pages have words, and the ones that do only say "Goodnight (insert animal here)". I told Babe that we were kind of going to do the opposite of what we did yesterday. Instead of illustrating a sentence out of the book, she would pretend that I can't see the pictures and tell me the story in her own words.

She struggled with this a little bit, using minimal words and speaking only in dialogue. So I had her start over and I sat at the opposite end of the table. Then I had her use more adjectives to describe what she saw so that I could better understand the story.

Once I moved away from her, she was much better about using more descriptive words.

"'Goodnight, elephant,' the zookeeper is saying. But shhh, the gorilla has all the keys and he's unlocking the cage! And the mouse is following! He's carrying a red balloon."

"The zookeeper doesn't notice that there are animals following him?"

"No because he is so tired. It's nighttime!" 

Perfect.

Once she finished that book, we ran through Reading Comprehension with "Spring is Here" by Taro Gomi. She's read this before, but I wanted her to refresh her memory on it.

We then built a writing web, and I explained to her how authors use writing webs to organize all their thoughts onto paper so that writing their book will be easier.

We started with the main topic, Spring. Then I had her think of four different things that reminded her of Spring. After her third one (she thought of gardens, nice weather, and baby animals), I told her I couldn't think of any more, but after thinking for a few minutes, she nailed it!

"Picnics!"

Amazing. I told her instead of writing picnics, write "Fun Things" and then picnics can go in there.

Once she thought of her four subtopics, I had her think of three items to attach to each of the four bubbles. She did it without a hitch.

After writing them all down, I had her illustrate her writing web. 

Too cute.

The last think on the agenda was an intro to seeds and parts of a seed. I had all the kids sit at the table and handed them their own little jar. While handing out different size seeds to each, I had Babe tell me all the parts of a tree.

"Hmm...leaves! Branches! Nests! And roots!"

Nests! Ha! I let it slide.

I then explained that just like trees have parts, so do seeds! That there are different things inside seeds. We started by peeling the seed coat from a bean seed.

 

"Why do you think it's called a seed coat?"

"Because the coat probably protects the seed from being too cold, or too hot, or too much wind."

So cute.

When they each took turns peeling the coat off, I split the seed in half and showed her the other part of the seed.

"It's so teeny tiny! It looks like a little plant! What's that called?"

"I actually don't remember. We will learn all about them tomorrow."

ha. Oops. But I did tell her she was right. That the thing she was looking at was a teeny tiny little plant that is inside the seed, and once the seed gets watered, the tiny plant hatches from the seed, just like birds hatch from eggs. 

Her eyes got so big. Then I knew she was going to love what was going to happen to her seeds in the coming weeks.

I filled up their jars with water and had them dunk their seeds in. I told them the seeds were going to be easier to peel and look at tomorrow after they've been soaking in water all night.

We set the jars up out of the way of normal activity, then it was time for lunch.


After lunch, Babe headed out for a doctor appointment and after a very fun game of Pillow Fight, Bubs and Z passed out. When Bubs woke up, she ate her snack and then I had her come to the living room for a bit of work.


I first handed her a pile of number flashcards and asked her if she could put them in order. She did! All by herself! TWICE. She did mix up 4 and 7 at first, but when we counted numerically, and counted the number of dots on the flashcard, she was able to finish strong each time.


She then saw the letter flashcards and asked if she could do those. I had them sitting to the side in case she wasn't up to working, but when she saw them, she wanted them! So I first laid out the capital letters A-F. After she named each one, I handed her a lowercase letter card one at a time and had her place it under the correct capital letter. What a breeze this was to her!

I then handed her the next pile of letters. Harder letters. I laid them all out and after she named each one (with the exception of calling X, K and Y, Q). Amazing. So one at a time again I handed her a lowercase letter. She was freakishly able to do all these too! Just amazing.

When we got to the letters covered in the farm unit, letters like P, F, and D, I had her tell me the farm animal that begins with the corresponding letters. Her recall on that was dynamite! I was very impressed. High fives and elbows all around!

 
















 

With that, Bubs' work was done and to end Babe's day, I had her read "Hello Kitty's Garden Party" for her Reading Log.


Wednesday complete!

Third Week, 4th Day

In Math today we finished Chapter 1!!! Before I told Babe, though, I set up a kind of quiz in the playroom with three different piles of random items with the intention of reviewing all previously learned Math terms.

I had her to sort this stuff by color,

this stuff by shape,

and line this stuff up shortest to tallest.

Well guess what? She passed Chapter 1 in Math. With flying colors, really.

I wasn't able to get a picture of anything else before Z and Bubs started playing with everything, but I did incorporate other Math terms like top, bottom, under, over, right, left, nearer, and farther and Babe was able to do all of those. Very awesome. After her worksheet, I told her that she just finished Chapter 1 and her eyes got pretty big. I told her, though, that the coming weeks in Math would be pretty tough because it will be stuff she doesn't know yet.

"But you're still gonna teach it to me, right?"

Yep.

Thursday is library class for Bubs and Z, so after Math we free-played and then headed off.

After lunch, we went right into Reading Comprehension, where she had to read a wordless story. Calvert provided one about the first day of Kindergarten for some children, and before I had her "read" it, we went through the book and I asked her questions about what was happening in each picture. Then I had her go back to the beginning and "read" the book. Her dialogue tone was pretty cute (when she had the mom and teacher talk), and she made sure to say something about everything she could see in the picture.

For example, the first picture is of a boy getting out of bed. Behind him, under the covers, there's a stuffed animal. She "read", "Good morning Rabbit! I'm going to school today! You get to come with me because you are my show-and-tell!"

After she "read" that book, I gave her "Goodnight, Gorilla" by Peggy Rathmann, which is one of her favorite picture books. It's so adorable that I enjoy it too. On each page, she spoke as the mouse (who stole the key from the zookeeper and is letting all the animals out of their cages).

"Shh, stay quiet (insert featured animal). Follow me. We are going to sleep in his house tonight!"

I laughed out loud.

When she got to the page where the zookeeper's wife wakes up, I almost died.

"DEAR! Why are all these animals in my bed?!"

So cute. And after that, I'd think she got the jyst of telling wordless stories.

I had her do her online Checkpoints, then we discussed her favorite things to play and made another list.

#2, Elephant Chase, is a game I made up in the pool that we played a lot at the beginning of the summer. The way it's played is, she stands on the diving board and I stand in the middle of the pool. When she throws a sinking elephant toy in the pool, she jumps in while I go and find the elephant. If she can swim to the steps and get back on the diving board before I put the elephant on the diving board, she wins. It's awesome exercise for me and she has a blast racing me. So really, I win too! I'm actually surprised she remembered it to add it to her list.

After she made her list, we moved to Science, the intro to her five senses. She was able to name them all, so I read "My Five Senses" by Aliki. We concentrated on sight today, so we talked about how there are different colored eyes. We went through everyone in her family, and then I told her that some kids don't have the sense of sight, and that some of Aunt Dani's students are blind, which means they can't see.

"I know!"

"What do you think they do if they can't see?"

"Well, they get new eyes like that dolphin got a new tail in that movie!"

Wow.

I told her that most kids can't get new eyes and that they don't have all five senses.

"So they only have four senses?!"

Mhmm.

To engrain how important our sense of sight is, I had her sit on the couch and I wrapped a handkerchief around her head to block her eyes. Then I told her to walk to the fridge, get a Capri Sun for herself, walk back to the couch, and poke the hole to drink it. She stood up right away and felt for the couch to walk along it. As soon as she stepped out into the "open" she got nervous and put her arms out in front of her to feel for the counter. Then she walked along the counter to the fridge, opened the door, went right to the correct shelf for the juice! And then walked back.

She unwrapped the straw and wanted to go all the way back to throw the wrapper out. So she took the same route, but I about lost it again when she ended up in the dining room and slipped her hand through the back of the chair to throw the wrapper out. She picked it up, turned around, and proceeded back to the kitchen to the real garbage can.

When she got back to the couch, she poked the straw through the Capri Sun.

Kind of.

I was dying while she was doing all this and when she started drinking it, I took the handkerchief off so she could see what she did.

She laughed too.

After she refreshed herself with the juice, we ended Science and I brought out her Me Book from yesterday and had her draw her family on the second page.

Cuteness to the max. Can we all just "awwww" in unison at how they are all holding hands?

We ended the day with a quick final discussion on what to be when she grows up.

"I want to be everything."

She even watched the provided online video about how to tell what you want to be when you grow up, and one of the things listed in the video is to find things you're good at.

"Well I'm good at everything and I said I want to be everything when I grow up!"

OK then.

I gave her "When Poppy and Max Grow Up" by Lindsey Gardiner and she read it to me and Bubs. She was so excited about this book because she had to turn the page in her reading log to write it down! A whole new page!

Another day done!