Second Week, Day 3

Today was a great day, considering Babe woke up not feeling so well this morning. But after breakfast, I sent her back to bed to lay down for another 30 minutes or so. She came out by herself and asked if she could start Kindergarten now.

I slowed down the day a bit, giving extra long breaks in between lessons, and that seemed to work really well. Despite getting done at 4:30, with a two hour lunch break to McDonald's so she could fulfill her free Happy Meal ticket from the library for finishing her summer reading list, we got everything in and she was feeling better by the end of the day.

Math was a review on left and right, and even though she already knows it, I reinforced the lesson using counters and book pages. I took the local furniture store ad and had her put blue counters on all the couches on the left side of the page, and red counters on the couches on the right side of the page. I had her do the same thing with the grocery ad, using vegetables instead of couches.

And I usually don't take photos of the worksheets, but today's sheet had some great responses.

She had to color the right one of each, and Babe is a coloring fiend, so I knew by the end of the sheet, she'd have some of each item colored (forgetting the lesson itself). But when I went through each item and asked her what it was, for the canteen, she responded, "cheek sprayer" (as in perfume bottle), and for the lanterns, they were "Harry Potter lights."

Babe loves the Harry Potter movies, but I, as a Harry Potter fan and "expert", as she calls me, will only allow her to watch the first three movies. So her response was perfect and cute.

I was also very impressed that she knew these items all had to do with camping.

Right after Math, we did a quick run-through of the poem "Peas Porridge Hot." I cooked them oatmeal and put half in the freezer for a bit so they could actually taste "peas porridge cold." Bubs loves oatmeal, and I knew she'd prefer the hot oatmeal over the cold, but Babe had no preference. Ew.

After running a few errands and meeting her parents for lunch, we came home and rested for a bit. When she said she was ready to start Kindergarten again, we dove right into Reading Comprehension with "The Enormous Turnip", a story about a farmer who grew a large turnip and needed help pulling it out of the ground. Again, I used dollhouse people and other toys to illustrate the story. When we were done reading, I even scrambled up the characters and Babe was able to put them back in the same order!

It was a very cute story where, in the end, a mouse was the last character to help pull the turnip out of the ground. Babe immediately asked if it was the same mouse that helped the lion in yesterday's story ("The Lion and the Mouse")! I asked her if she would want a pet mouse to always help her with big jobs, and she said yes. So our next craft was actually making a pet mouse.

I grabbed a pair of socks, buttons, felt, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, yarn, and a hot glue gun. I let them stuff the sock to their liking, they picked which eyes they wanted, which button nose, which color ears, and which color pipe cleaners for whiskers. Then I sat with the hot glue gun while they watched their mice come together. They turned out so cute that I want one!

After free-playing with their mice a bit, we ran right into a discussion on uniqueness. I had Babe explain to me how she was unique compared to Bubs and the rest of her family. I asked her if being unique was a good or bad thing. Then I read one of my favorite stories of all time, "The Story of Ferdinand" by Munro Leaf. We talked about how Ferdinand was unique to his friends who shared his pasture, and if it was OK for him to just like sitting and smelling the flowers.

"I think he likes it because it's very relaxing and he just doesn't like fighting."

I think Babe is exactly right.

It was an easy transition from uniqueness to Science today, as we were still discussing body parts and movements and such. For homework a few days ago, I had Babe trace herself and Bubs and label the body parts she knew. Today, they painted their traced bodies! Of course, Babe took her time and made sure the clothes she painted were to her liking. She did a really good job, though.

While waiting for the paint to dry, we discussed the movements that each part can make. We played Simon Says to reinforce the movements and I incorporated a bit of the left/right terminology into the commands. We played that for a long time before adding another book to her Reading Log, one that actually had to do with today's science lesson! She read this one quite well, and only struggled a second with one word: high.

We can't end the day without singing the song, so Babe and Bubs actually held hands and marched around the table and kitchen while both singing "You're a Grand Old Flag."

As I said, we got a lot done today! And despite Babe feeling a bit under the weather, learning at her own pace made it a great day.

Second Week, Day 2

I'm trying Blogger's new way to update blogs so if it doesn't look as nice, blame them. :p

Anyway, check out this morning's message to Babe outside her bedroom! Cute.

This morning, we again jumped right into Math. It's when everyone is freshly fed and dressed and ready for the day. And ready to learn things like left and right. And by learn, I mean review.

The first thing I had her do was make sure she knew which was left and right. So I asked her to hold up her left hand, then her right. Done. But just for the fun of it, I had her trace her hands and write which was each. Done.


The way this looks actually makes her look right handed, but I traced her left hand since she felt she couldn't hold her left hand down while drawing with her right. It was cute watching her try to figure it out, though.

Next, I had her write each word, left and right, seven times and cut them out. We then walked around the house and labeled certain doors and sides of the room, like the refrigerator, the front doors, and the beds in their bedroom.








What's cool about this is, while lining up at the door later in the day to go learn and play hopscotch, I overheard Babe telling her sister, "Look, we line up at the right door, because the left one stays shut and we always go out the right one."


It's kind of cool to see this all being applied. By a five-year-old!






After she completed her math worksheet, Babe was dying for free-play so I let her go in her room for a bit. Bubs stayed at the table and, might I remind you she just turned three, asked for math homework. So, I gave her the crayons and asked her to draw a blue circle. She did, then asked if she could color it. While she was coloring it, I drew another circle, a triangle, and a square on top of her paper. I then asked her to color the circle red, the triangle yellow, and the square purple.


Voila!!!

How cool is that!?! She was VERY impressed with her work, put her name on it, then went to play with Babe and Z. She was totally proud of her day. 


After a bit of play, it was time for Reading Comprehension with "The Lion and the Mouse." Finally, a story Babe wasn't familiar with! Babe, Bubs and Z (sort of) reenacted the story using the animal puppets they have, and they had a lot of fun with that. Especially Z, who has mastered a lion's roar.


We still had a bit of time in the morning before lunch, so we quickly recited and had a bit of fun with Hickory Dickory Dock for her Phonemic Awareness lesson. I brought out the practice clock and incorporated reading the time. While Babe said the first two lines of the poem, I would spin the hands of the clock so she couldn't see. As she said, "The clock struck...", I showed her where the hands stopped and she was able to say the time every time! Then Bubs and Z would clap that number of times. After some of that, we made up a new rhyme and replaced the word "clock" with "sock."


Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the sock.
The sock was stinky
The mouse ran out
Hickory Dickory Dock!


Babe got a real good laugh out of that one.


After a pretty productive morning, I let them all relax with some Sid and WordWorld. Then it was lunch time. Then it was nap time for the little ones.


Babe did her Checkpoints, then read a book for her reading log. She remembered the theme from yesterday, so before she read the book, she recited the caterpillar poem from yesterday's Phonemic Awareness lesson. I'm loving all these applications. 

Today's science lesson was a pretty in depth one, but she got the hang of it quick. I assembled a makeshift scale and had her remind me how to balance on one foot and how to balance a plate on our thumbs. She did each, then I explained that there was another way to balance something - by using a scale (which she proceeded to believe was a Limbo game).

I hung the hanger from the kitchen fan and tied two empty yogurt cups to each side of the hanger. Instant scale. 


I had her using coins at first. I placed two quarters in each, but then added two pennies in one, as well. As she watched the heavier cup go down, I asked her what she had to do to balance them out. She grabbed two pennies and put them in the opposite cup. Actually, her exact words were, "I put these two pennies in the left cup."


I couldn't give her enough praise! Listening and watching her incorporate the math lesson into the science lesson. I was pretty awe struck!


After we used the coins to get the jyst of balance, I grabbed a bucket of shells we've been hoarding for months. I told her to pick the biggest shell she could find and put it in one of the cups. It weighed the cup down a lot! Then I asked her to figure out how many little shells it took to balance the scale out. Seven shells!


She liked this activity a lot so we did it two more times with two different big shells. She wanted to keep doing it, but we only had a bit of time before leaving for dance, and I still had to get our final discussion about "importance" in. I left it hanging in the kitchen for her to play with when she got home, if she wished.


I asked her what the word "important" meant and she said, "It means it's something you have to do right away!" So I changed the question around and asked her what it means for a person to be important. 


"Like Mommy and Daddy?"
"Yeah, how are they important?"
"Because they tell me what to do and I do it. Sometimes."
I asked her if I was important.
"Oh yes!"
"How?"
"Because we have to be quiet when you are talking on the phone."


I laughed a lot on that one and she laughed along. It was such a cute answer.


I then asked her if she was important and she said, "I guess so. I help clean the house when mom and dad ask me to." Then I asked if she thinks she is important to her little sister.


"Oh yes. I can get her to stop crying and I help her when she needs it. That's being important, right?"


Gah. So cute. I told her she was exactly right and then read "Willa the Wonderful" by Susan Milord. It's a very cute book about a pig who wants to grow up to be a fairy princess so she can help others, but realizes it might be too hard for her to be one. Then something happens at the end of the book that makes her realize she doesn't have to be a fairy princess to be important - that she can be herself! Babe caught on real quick.


Then it was time for dance. But not before singing and marching to "You're a Grand Old Flag" (quietly) to end the day!