Our first math block deals with number qualities, so this month we're exploring the digits and those things that have each of the digit's qualities. We of course started with 1. Actually, that's not entirely true -- we actually started with drawing a 0 (zero) and discussing the nothingness that 0 embodies.
On Monday we read the Celtic Fairy Tale, "The Stolen Bairn and the Sidh", in which a young lass's bairn is stolen when she is injured by two women of the Sidh (a not-so-nice fairy race). The mother eventually gets her baby back by trading a very special eider-down cloak to the King of the Sidh.
On Tuesday, we recalled the story, and then discussed our "magic number" for the day, 1. I told the kids how special one is -- one is unique, singular, an only. We discussed all the 1s in the story -- one bairn, one lass, one king, one cloak. J even came up with the fact that the fishermen had one boat. Then we discussed 1s in real life -- the sun, the moon, the earth, some ones in our household, and of course ourselves. I then said we were going to draw a picture of things that are one, and mentioned that I was going to start by drawing the sun, since there is only one sun. (I went on to add in the lass and her bairn as well, as other examples of one.)
Zoo Boy decided to draw the earth, as there is only one earth. And then he drew Harold and the Purple Crayon, since we only own one book of Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson), although he was quick to point out that the book actually has four stories in it. Unlike with the led drawings, Zoo Boy did not look for any assistance at all with his drawing.
J decided to draw Ganymede, Jupiter's biggest moon (or so he claims, and I have no reason not to believe him!), since there is only one of those. He also drew himself (and a fine rendition of himself too, if I do say!).
Today we added a verse about counting by ones ("Strange Family", for those of you using Enki Education First Grade) into our new Pumpkin Patch Adventure Circle (details coming soon!), and we reviewed the ones in our picture from yesterday. At story work time, we recited the ONE verse from "Number Qualities Verse". Then we drew a large number 1 in our good books, along with a dot that represents one. The first photo on this page is J's 1, this last one is Zoo Boy's.
1 comment:
That sounds great. Your boys seem to be really making connections. When we began number qualities, I didn't point out the connection between the previous day's story and the number we were working on. I think that was a mistake for us. My girls never did make that connection on their own.
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