two

For me and you,

We count one, two.

The day, the night,

The dark, the light,

The good, the bad,

The gay, the sad.

from Number Qualities Verse, Enki Education 1st Grade Academic Activity

Our study of the number two wound up being pretty amusing. Here's J's rendition of 2, with two dots to represent the quantity. The "feeling" of 2 is that of likes but opposites -- siblings with individual personalities, day and night, left and right hands, etc. To convey this feeling of "twoness" we read the story "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters", which is a fairy tale from Zimbabwe about two sisters, one of whom was gentle, kind and well-loved, and the other who was spiteful and tried to get her way by mistreating her sister. You can guess who won the king's hand in marriage....

After recalling the story yesterday, we discussed "two" and all the "twos" we could think of. Zoo Boy immediately recognized the "twoness" of the two sisters (and wanted to know why the one was so nasty to her sister). I pointed out that J and The Boy are brothers, yet different people with different preferences and personalities. Zoo Boy pointed out that The Map Man and I are both parents, but I'm a Mommy and he's a Daddy. J pointed out the twin stars in the Gemini constellation. We discussed the twos of nature - day and night, dark and light, hot and cold, etc. We examined our hands to see the similarities and differences between our left and right hands. And then we drew. I chose to draw day and night, and the two sisters from the story. And here's where it got interesting:

J seemed to grasp only the concept of pairs, rather than the opposites aspect of "two". First he drew a heart (valentine), pointing out the two points (one at the bottom, the other in the "valley" between the two curves). Then he drew a pair of lungs. (Oh my!) Then he drew an eye -- specifically HIS eye he said -- because he has two eyes. He seemed pretty satisfied with his work.

The opposites message seemed to be lost on Zoo Boy as well, although he captured more of that same-but-different aspect -- he drew a bird feeder (on the left side of the drawing) because we have two green bird feeders, but they are different shapes, and an encyclopedia (to the right), because we have two encyclopedias -- the "My First Encyclopedia" and the "My Very First Encyclopedia." (Amongst their most favorite things to read -- thanks a lot Mimi! And yes, read the sarcasm there....)

With the opposites embodied in the verse, which we did today (several times, hoping to bring forth that opposites feel a bit more), and reviewing our drawings from yesterday, during which I was able to point out the opposites in what I drew, we moved on to writing the numbers. Here's Zoo Boy's, which he actually did a pretty bang-up job with.

As we continue to repeat the verse throughout the block, that opposite feeling will hopefully slowly take hold with them.