summary school week #16

Here's my guys, all decked out in 3-D glasses to watch the special 3-D commercials during halftime of the Super Bowl.

This was a short but busy week for us. Due to a work commitment on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I had to abandon my family for three days, which only really gave me half a week to work with the boys. But the amount of stuff we actually got done was pretty amazing.

We of course continued to use our Snowy Adventure Circle. Our curriculum story this week was "Miss Many More", an Enki Education 1st Grade Math story, which laid the groundwork for counting-by. We drew from the story, and made a blueberry pie (the kids insisting on counting out our berries like in the story, by 1s, 2s, 3s, and 5s). This photos shows them working on our pie.

Monday was the first day of the winter semester for our Monday Homeschool Classes. J is taking Chorus, Sheep to Scarf (taught by yours truly), and Roots and Shoots/Earth Scouts (a service club). Zoo Boy is taking Nature Explorers (with his favorite museum educator, Ms. Rachel), and Fun with Fiber (another class I'm teaching, for the younger set).


Tuesday we met some fun new homeschooling friends for lunch, then had Zoo Boy's therapy sessions.

Wednesday we spent baking up a storm all afternoon, since the weather prevented me from being able to work. In this photo, Zoo Boy is mixing ingredients for Cinnamon Bread, while in the foreground Chicken Squares cool. This was also the day we made our pie, so our Oven was kept busy all day.

On Thursday morning we made our 100 chart. And on Thursday afternoon, both boys had a fun museum class about woodchucks and Groundhog's Day.

J explains a story line he set up with his Lego Agents set.

Practice time really fell apart this week. The Map Man was home sick for two days in the middle of the week, and combined with my planned absence at the end of the week, our end-of-day rhythms pretty much fell into shambles. So the kids read whatever they wanted to on their own rather than having any sort of formal practice time.

This drawing might be hard to explain. This is J's artistic rendition of the Enki Education verse to support writing "8", which goes "Jump around, curve on back, swim right up to eat your snack", or something like that (I can't find the actual verse now). What's interesting about this is that as the kids were writing out their 100 chart, J started reciting these number verses, which we'd used during our first math block (and only during the actual writing of each individual number), and haven't mentioned since. During Zoo Boy's turn at writing on the chart, J created this drawing that shows stick figures acting out the "8" verse.

Like our evening rhythms, pretty much the same thing happened to our Story Time before bed. Although we DID read, we didn't read any picture books this week as a family. Instead, I read to them from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. The kids are very much enjoying the story, especially Zoo Boy. Both are dreaming of visiting a chocolate factory. A dream that I'm pretty sure I can make happen, as there is a local chocolate factory not far from here. I also found out that one of their cousins is performing in a stage production of the story this spring, so we'll try to get out to NY to see that.

to 100

Pulling together all of our work with digits over the past curriculum block and a half of math, today we created a 100 chart. We started with blank grid of 100 blocks, and made columns of numerals on the left hand side of each block, skipping the first column. So we wound up with a column of 1s, 2s, 3s, etc up to 9s. I did the first couple of numbers in the column, so the kids could see the example I was setting, then Zoo Boy took over for the next 4 blocks (in this photo he is working on the 3s column).

Then J finished off the last 4 blocks of each column. (He's working on the 4s here.)







Then we went back and filled in the right hand side of each block, with the numerals 0 to 9 in each column. So we created a column of numbers 0 to 9, then a column of 10 to 19, then one of 20 to 29, and so forth. Here J is working on the 40s.



Zoo Boy finishes out the 90s column. I really thought it might take a couple of days to accomplish this, as I figured the boys would get bored with it. But much to my surprise, they actually picked up a head of steam and got more enthusiastic about writing the numbers the further along we got. The entire chart only took us about half an hour to complete, and the kids were never looking for a break.

And here is our completed 100 chart. We hung it up in the hallway for reference, and we'll be revisiting it for an activity with odd and even in a couple of weeks.

This is a nice place to break for a few days. I'm taking the Grace puppy to a training seminar during the day for the next three days, so tune back in next week for more math fun and adventures!

many more

This week's curriculum story has been "Miss Many More", a 1st Grade Enki Education Math story about counting by. In the story, Many wants to make a pie like her Dad's strawberry pie, and needs to pick 100 berries. But when she starts picking strawberries one at a time, she decides it's going to take too long. So she picks cherries instead, because she can pick those two at a time. But even that takes too long, so instead she picks peas, as there are 3 peas on each side of a pod, and then realizes if she didn't stop to open the pods, she'd be picking 6 at a time. In no time, she has 100 peas, and makes her pie, but it, of course, tastes horrible. So she goes in search of a sweet fruit that she can pick swiftly -- and finds grapes hanging in 10 per bunch. But when she bakes them in a pie, they become a grape puddle with skins floating in them. Finally, she discovers that she can pick blueberries, by handfuls of 5, and finally makes a delicious pie.

After recalling the story, we drew pictures of the different fruits in the numbers we were counting by. The above picture is J's, this one here is Zoo Boy's. (Mine is last if you want to compare -- J's is pretty close to how mine is drawn, though.) We also reviewed a counting-by movement activity ("Strange Family") this week.


Then, building naturally on the story, today we practiced counting-by with blueberries. We started counting out our berries one at a time, then two, then three, then five. We counted out enough berries to make a blueberry pie.






The boys work on fluting our pie.













Ta da!! And it tastes even better than it looks!

Don't you just love math?!?!








My "Many More" drawing. The blue squiggly arrow reaching across my page was a continuation from Zoo Boy's drawing -- it connects with his drawing to the title "Miss Many More" because, as he pointed out, my blueberry bush has "many more" blueberries than his. I thought that was pretty clever! (He did ask permission before drawing on my drawing.)

summary school week #15

Yes, it's true, it's an actual weekly summary from me, after a month of totally slacking off, and having completely ignored week #14 altogether. Woo hoo!!!

So this week we were finally back in the swing of things, I having broken out of my January Slump (or, more accurately being forced out by children whining "Mommy, WHEN are we going to do the practice work again?!?"). I thought Zoo Boy was going to bust at the seams when I actually sang them into our new Adventure Circle on Monday morning, and then followed up with a curriculum story. As I sang our transition song from story to creative play, he turned to J and said "I don't' believe it! We haven't done this is SO LONG."

The weather has been tremendously January-ish, so our adventures took place indoors for the most part. As result, our new Snowy Adventure Circle is packed full of heavy duty movement activities, and we follow it up with sensory-rich relay races as well. We're all getting a good workout in the mornings! We also are getting in some big time speech therapy work for Zoo Boy. He lost his first tooth a few weeks ago, and now I'm in a blazing hurry to get as many of his sounds coming out the right way before the top teeth loosen up and change the way everything sounds again. So we've added more oral motor and SLT exercises (under the direction of our wonderful OT and SLP team that we visit on Tuesday afternoons) into the daily rhythm to make sure I find time to work on it with them. (J is participating as well, because he doesn't like to be left out of anything, and even more importantly, because there is a lollipop involved....)

Both boys attended a class about Chinese New Year's at the children's museum on Thursday (see photo at left), and then J took a hard science class about the heart (including getting to examine a buffalo heart first-hand) on Friday. Zoo Boy was supposed to take a similar class (with a similar buffalo heart) earlier in the day, but he got grossed out at the thought of seeing a real heart, and decided that it would probably make him gag, so he opted out. J on the other hand was pretty excited to get to handle the somewhat disgusting insides of a buffalo.

(Snakes and lanterns that the boys made during the Chinese New Year's class.)

Our curriculum stories this week were "Story of the Sun Dance" and "Rabbit and Crocodile". (We didn't manage to read a nature story this week, and it looks unlikely that we'll manage next week either, so that's something we're going to have to add back in as soon as we get a chance.)

We spent most of our story work time playing various games having to do with the 9 digits we learned about during our last math block.

For reading practice, J finished up Knight Before Dawn (one of the Magic Tree House series, by Mary Pope Osborn), and Zoo Boy started reading the first Little Bear book by Maurice Sendak.

Story Time stories for the week were In The Snow, Who's Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George; Winter Days in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and The Tomten, by Astrid Lindgren. We also began reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", by Ronald Dahl, although we're only a few chapters into that at this point.

rabbit and crocodile

Our math work for the second half of this week was focused around the Enki Education Math Story, "Rabbit and Crocodile", in which a clever rabbit outsmarts a hungry crocodile by betting him that he has more friends. The crocodile calls all of his friends in, they stretch from shore to shore, and rabbit counts them as he hops across their backs to reach the other side and safety. After recalling the story yesterday, we made these cute paper bag rabbit puppets, which we used in a math game today.


We also incorporated our digit cards from Wednesday in our game. The kids took turns drawing from two piles to make a two digit number.












(The only cards in the first pile were "0" and "1" so the drawn number was never larger than 19.)

Then they had to count out that number of "crocodiles" (silk scarves) and lay them across the living room floor. They did an impressive job of figuring out how many scarves to add or subtract for each subsequent number, despite the fact that I've not discussed the concepts of addition or subtraction at all. In fact, during our next math block, we'll introduce these concepts via story. As is typical of kids their age, they are already discovering the use of the math concepts prior to me labeling them as "addition" and "subtraction" -- it will be a simple task to give them the names for what they already know later.

Then both kids, with their rabbit puppets on their arms, jumped from crocodile to crocodile, counting out loud as they went.

The game was great fun, and the boys had a blast. They've requested to play it again with The Map Man tomorrow.

WOW

Far and away my all time favorite you tube video -- enjoy!

Snowy Adventure Circle

Here's our current adventure circle, for your reading pleasure! For the convenience of other Enki Education movement book owners, I've included which movement book (Grade One or Kindergarten) and the page that the activity can be found on. I've also included which sensory skills we are working on with each activity. Activities designated with astericks are just straight sensory integration work and do not include a verse or song.

Call: Round and Round (Move to bedroom during last verse, climb into bed and under the covers.)

“Once upon a time there were two boys who loved the snow. One chilly winter morning, they woke up to find a winter wonderland outside.”

Opening: Rise With The Morning (Grade One, pg 66)

“The boys jumped up and down with joy”

Awakening Breath/Vestibular/Proprioceptive: **Bed Jumping**

“Then, still unable to contain their excitement, they ran around the house”

Awakening Breath: **Running** (wind up in living room)

“They quickly put on their outdoor clothing”

Midline: (mime, crossing midlines as you go)
“Snow pants: left leg, right leg
Boots: left leg, right leg
Coat: left arm, right arm
Gloves: left hand, right hand
And a hat!

Then they hurried outside.”

Midline: Snowstorms (Grade One, pg 96)

“The boys knew right then what they wanted to do! They grabbed their sleds and went running to the big hill.”

Vestibular: Winter Secrets (Grade One, pg 68) (Hold scooter boards over heads during verse, moving down hall to kids' room -- one verse per repetition of following sequence, leaving boards at bedroom door for rest of sequence.)

“The boys climbed the big hill”

Motor Planning/Core Strength: **(climb into loft)

“took a big jump”

Proprioceptive: **(jump/crash into bed below)

“climbed onto their sleds (belly down on scooter boards)

“and down, down, down the hill they went!”

Midlines/Core Strength: **(pull themselves down hallway with arms, belly down on scooter boards)**

“Then they did it again!” (repeat)

“And again!” (repeat)

“Until they were so tired, they needed to rest.”

(Flop down on backs, panting)

“They laid down in the snow, exhausted, and watched the snowflakes falling to the earth.”

Vestibular/Proprioceptive: Winter (K pg. 131)

“There were some other kids sledding, and the boys heard them talking about a sleigh ride this afternoon at the horse farm. That sounded like fun! But to get to the horse farm, they had to cross the river, and the bridge was closed because of the snowstorm. One of the boys knew where they could cross the river by jumping from rock to rock.”

Motor planning/proprioceptive/balance: **hop from pillow to pillow**

“They were almost to the other side, just one more BIG jump to make”

Motor planning/vestibular: Jump Rope Game (recite verse while jumping across swinging rope)

“Whirling winds around me fly,
How will I get to the other side?
Over the bridge in one big stride,
Safely across before I ride.”

“Once on the other side, the boys could see the farmer hitching up his team to the sleigh. They knew they had a few minutes before the horses would be ready to go, so they joined in with some other children to build a giant snowman.”

Fingerplay: Snowman (K, pg 173)

“The farmer called the kids over -- it was time for the sleigh ride to start! The boys hurried to take their places in the sleigh next to the other children. When everyone was snuggled comfortably under the thick woolen blanket, the farmed called to the team to “g’yup”. The horses started out slowly, picking up speed as their hooves got used to moving through the fluffy white snow.”

Midline: Horses (K, pg 76)

“The faster the horses moved, the louder the bells on their harnesses jingled.”

Vestibular/proprioceptive: **bounce up and down hall on moon bounces, singing Jingle Bells**

“The farmer dropped the boys off back at their house. The snow was falling again, and tomorrow promised to be another day filled with snowy adventures.”

Proprioceptive: Winter White (K, pg 130)

Closing: Sun is Rising