six

The bigger the number, the greater the trouble,

Except when the little one you can double.

Pair two threes, it's quite a trick,

In no time at all, you've built up six.

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

We are using one story, "The Evil Giant", a Colombian Fairy Tale, as an introduction to our work with six, eight, and ten. The focus on these number is the doubling of numerals we've already worked with -- doubling 3 gives us 6, doubling 4 gives us 8, and doubling 5 gives us 10.

Our initial recall the day after we read the story didn't go very well -- this is by far the most complicated, and longest, fairy tale I've read to the boys, and it apparently was just a bit over their heads. J gave an attempt at recalling it, but was missing most of the key points, and Zoo Boy acted like he'd never heard it before. So we ditched our plans to work with "6" on Tuesday and instead I read the story to them again, this time using simple silk scarves and a couple of doll house dolls to illustrated the story a bit. Recall yesterday went MUCH better -- a little too well, in fact, as the kids had actually memorized some of the lines and ALL of the details, so rather than a brief summary, I basically got to hear the entire story again. And then J spent the next two hours drawing illustrations to go with his retelling.

After the recall, we discussed doubling, and when it was obvious that the kids weren't "getting" the concept, I broke out some M&Ms to illustrate (which was a very popular decision). Then we discussed the number "6" -- which is two "3s". I hadn't really planned on pulling a "6" from the story, but the kids were insistent on finding one, and find one we did -- there were six ways that the Giant preserved his life --he hid his "life" candle inside an egg, which he hid inside a dove, which he hid inside an ox, which he hid inside a box, which he hid at the bottom of the ocean. Candle, egg, dove, ox, box, ocean -- 6 things! J was excited and asked for a led drawing, which I was only too happy to oblige him with (this first is my drawing).

Here's J's version. Rather than writing out the 6 things as I did, he chose to write the first letter of each of the 6 things in the margin of the drawing.







Zoo boy opted out of the led drawing, wanting to come up with his OWN six. We had discussed the 6 legs on an insect, but he was insistent on finding a 6 in our lives. And so he did -- the 6 parts of our ceiling fan -- 4 blades, plus the light, plus the pull string. That's just SO Zoo Boy....


Today we drew our 6s, and our dots (two sets of 3 to make up 6) and our geometric figure. As you can tell from J's writing (the first photo on this page), our geometric figure was a Star of David (which is two triangles -- our geometric figure for "3" -- overlapping). J had no problem with this, but Zoo Boy has all sorts of trouble. He started over in a few different locations and allowed me to draw dots to help him, Finally he got it, in the upper right hand portion of this drawing (too bad he picked such a light colored crayon to work with!). I drew the dots for the first triangle and labeled them A, B, and C, and let him draw that first. Then I drew the dots for the overlapping triangle and labeled those 1, 2, and 3, and he was able to follow those and complete his figure. He was quite pleased with the results, and I was quite impressed with his ability to work through something that was very difficult for him without getting frustrated with it (or me)!

The Evil Giant, retold (and illustrated) by J

Once upon a time there was a fisherman who couldn't catch any fish. A huge fish told him that he could catch all the fish he wanted if he turned over the first thing that ran to greet him when he got home.



Think of his dog, who was always the first to run and greet him when he got home, he agreed, and he caught so many fish he thought his boat would tip over.






When he got home, he was upset to see his oldest daughter running to greet him instead of the dog. But he had made a promise, so he turned over his oldest daughter to the King of Fish.





He made the same promise to the King of Birds,









and to the Kind of Beasts (a lion), and lost his 2nd oldest daughter and his 3rd oldest daughter as well.







That only left his youngest daughter, Elisa, and her brother Jose. One day Elisa was working in the garden. A Giant who ruled the land came and took her to be his bride.



Jose set out to save his sister from the Giant. Along the way, he met an old woman, who gave him magic clothes to make him invisible. She gave him instructions on how to find out how to kill the Giant.


At the Giant's castle, the invisible Jose found his sister and told her to agree to marry the Giant and ask him the secret of his long life.








Elisa did as Jose instructed, and the Giant told her that his life was tied to a candle's flame, but he was safe because the candle was hidden inside an egg, which was hidden inside a dove, which was hidden inside an ox, which was hidden inside a box, which was hidden at the bottom of the ocean.

Knowing the Giant's secret, Jose went to the ocean, but didn't know how to find the box. He called to his brother-in-law, the King of Fish, who told all of his fishes to search for the box until they found it.



As Jose pulled the box onto shore, the Giant fell ill. When the Ox ran off, Jose asked his brother-in-law, the King of Beasts, to bring him back. When he cut the Ox open, the Giant could no longer stand. The Dove flew away, so Jose asked his brother-in-law the King of Birds to bring it back. When he opened the Dove, the Giant took to his bed.

Jose took the egg to the Giant's castle and opened it in front of him. The giant saw the flame and knew that the end was upon him.






The Giant reached out with his hand to attack Jose, but before he could strike, Jose blew out the flame, and the Giant fell down dead.







The spells the Giant had cast all were broken when the Giant died, and the King of Fish, the King of Birds, and the Lion (the King of Beasts) all turned back into handsome princes. The horse that Jose road to the castle turned into a handsome prince too and asked Elisa to marry him. And the old woman who gave Jose the magic clothes turned into a Princess who Jose married.

And they all lived happily ever after!

mom = teacher

The Map Man and Zoo Boy were mucking out the horse stalls together this evening, and Zoo Boy was asking his typical string of questions about the world in general. After answering a few of his questions, The Boy said "Wow, Daddy, you know a lot!" The Man nodded his head in agreement, and Zoo Boy went on, "Grandma must have taught you a lot when you were a boy!"

Gotta love the perspective of a homeschooled child!

week #2, block #2 (school year week #6)

My three guys taking on new persona's at the Foster Farm during our visit there this week.

I felt like we really started getting into the groove with our Math Block this week. The kids are really making some good connections to the numerals we're working on, both with the stories we are using to introduce the numbers, and with the significance of each number in their own lives. I felt like my approach and adjustments were right on target for my guys, and everything seemed to click along just right. We worked with the numbers "Three", "Four" and "Five" this week, and continued bringing those concepts into our Pumpkin Patch Adventure Circle. Our nature story for the week, "Apple Tree", covered both our work for number "Five" and our science story for the week. We also took a leaf walk to support last week's science work.

We continued working on handwriting, using one handwriting sheet (one letter) per night. We've just finished a sheet for each consonant we did during our first block, and we'll repeat that practice work during the rest of this block and next. For reading practice, Zoo Boy read "Apples and Pumpkins" by Anne Rockwell, and J read "Detective Dinosaur" by James Skofield. This was the first time Zoo Boy's reading book was something he wasn't already familiar with, and I think he surprised himself with how well he did with it.

Monday was a day off from Monday Homeschool Classes, due to the Columbus Day holiday, so we used our "free" afternoon to create some apple prints (no photos, sorry!) from cutting an apple core in half to reveal the "star" and dipping it in paint, then using it as a "stamp" on paper. (It made some interesting patterns, but the "star" shape wasn't particularly evident in any of them.) Tuesday both boys had museum classes about making masks. Wednesday we decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and play outdoors all afternoon. Thursday we made leaf rubbings from leaves gathered on our earlier leaf walk. Friday we baked pumpkin cookies to enjoy by the fireside while we read our nature story on Friday evening. Saturday we visited (and mastered!) the Foster Farm Corn Mazes. On Sunday Zoo Boy and I were nursing colds, so while The Map Man too J to his chorus practice, The Boy and I snuggled under the quilts and watched football.


J staged an entire production of his chorus show, with his Matreska dolls playing the starring roles, and his magnadoodle and hand-made paper scenery providing the backdrop. He even cut up a bunch of little pieces of paper so that it could "snow" on the set. Those Matreskas are a talented group of thespians -- not a single one of them forgot their lines! (This is the ice-fishing scene.)

(J working on an independent project, building a cave out of a shoe box.)

Story Time stories for this week included Leaves, Leaves, Leaves, by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace; In the Leaves, by Huy Voun Lee; and Pumpkins, by Mary Lyn Ray, illustrated by Barry Root. We finished up Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater, and started in on Farley Mowat's "Owls in the Family" which has already captivated the boys despite only being a couple chapters in. The timing is ideal, with the boys enrolled in a museum Owl program next week.

five

I have five fingers on each hand,

Five toes on each foot to help me stand,

And as I look up from my bed,

Five-pointed stars shine down on my head.

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

Since the story I had chosen to introduce "5" is an Enki nature story, "Apple Tree", I decided to combine the math and science for this week and tell the one story for both purposes on Friday evening in front of the fire. The kids have already had a lot of hands-on work with apples and apple trees via our family adventures over the past two weekends, so this story was particularly well-received by them. (This is J's number, dots, and geometric figure.) During our discussion on "5", we cut an apple in half to see the star and count the seeds, and sang the "Within a Little Apple" song from the Enki Kindergarten Movement Activities.

As I mentioned on Friday, I decided that after allowing the kids to do free drawing for the past two weeks, I thought it was time to go back to a led-drawing, to help them sink back into the artistic experience. Here's the led story drawing that we did. (This is mine.) The element of "5" that was brought in is the 5 seeds from the apple (shown on the ground). Emphasizing the science aspect, we covered the seeds with fallen autumn leaves to keep them safe and snug until they sprouted in the spring.

Here's J's drawing. After seeing his work, I feel that I was right on in my impression that it was time for another led-drawing. J is extremely proud of this drawing (and of how he hid the title in the branch of the tree -- can you see it?).



Zoo Boy's drawing. He worked hard and enthusiastically on his drawing, adding lots of colors to his apple tree's branches and trunk. He was so into the tree that he didn't want to include the children playing in it's branches.

Zoo Boy's written number "5". He was absolutely delighted when he followed my numbers around the circle (on the left) and discovered he'd drawn a 5-pointed star. J figured out it was a star right away, but for Zoo Boy it was a wonderful discovery.

The boys were VERY excited that we did "school work" on Sunday this week. They complain every Sunday about our "day off". So this extra day of "work" was a real treat for them.

children of the corn maze

We had a fabulous family adventure yesterday at the Foster Farm Corn Maze in South Windsor, CT. It was a perfect mid-Autumn day -- cool, breezy, bright and sunny. We navigated both of the large undersea-themed mazes and had a wonderful time!


The kids and I punch our punch-cards at one of the stations. J did an amazing job following the map and leading us to the last few objectives in the second maze. And throughout the day both kids came to understand the concept of first, second and third as we directed them to take their third left or second right.






Between mazes, the kids playd on the huge selection of play and climbing equiptment available. One of their favorites was clamboring over the hay bales -- like they don't get enough of that sort of thing every day at home! It gave The Map Man and I a giggle.



After our corn maze adventures, we took a scenic hayride overlooking the valley and hills to the west.








Zoo Boy gives the big thumbs-up as he pedals by on the pedal-car track, a popular attraction with both the boys.

four

Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall

Make four seasons -- that's not all;

Fire, water, air and earth --

Four elements give us birth.

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

Very appropriately, this is my 4th post of the day (and, I promise, my final post today -- I took advantage of the kids playing outside all afternoon to catch up a bit with the blog!). So please don't miss my other posts below this one for some seasonal fun!

The end of the week focused on "four". Here's J's written numeral "4", a square (4 sided geometric figure), and four dots to depict "4". J commented on how it look like a "4" on a domino.

Our story to represent four was "The Wonderful Healing Leaves", an Iraqi Fairy Tale, modified by Enki Education. In the story, the hero must overcome 4 dangers, and steal 4 scales from a dragon's tail to lay upon 4 lions (hence magically keeping them asleep until removed) who guard the Queen's chamber. The kids easily recognized the 4s in our story recall, and immediately tossed out other examples of 4 -- 4 seasons, 4 directions, 4 members of our family, 4 legs on most animals (and 4 limbs on humans, 2 arms and 2 legs, which Zoo Boy quickly pointed out was 2 plus 2 equals 4). I chose to draw the 4 seasons, and the 4 lions from the story.

J also chose to draw the 4 seasons, but instead of actually drawing, he slip into symbols instead, dividing up quadrants like I did, but putting in a letter (first letter of each season) and a representative color for each season. (Per his explanation, blue sky in Spring, green grass in Summer, red leaves in Autumn, and white snow in Winter.) I like the (F) in his Autumn block, to show that Fall is another name for the season. He also drew the 4 directions (upper right corner), and he drew a cow, noting 4 legs, and 4 teats on her udder.

Zoo Boy also slipped into symbolic writing rather than drawing -- first he traced his arm, then decided he didn't want to pursue that line of thought (the 4 limbs on our body). Instead, he wrote the equation "2 + 2", and, noting that we have 4 fans in our house (we don't, but that's beside the point....), he wrote the word "fan" rather than attempting to draw it.


And here's Zoo Boy's 4, square, and dots.

In looking at the progression of their drawings over the past few segments of our block, I've decided that it's time for a full-blown led drawing to try to re-enliven the art process in them. I think they're getting a little bit too analytical with the numbers before experiencing the artistic digestion portion fully. So hopefully a led drawing will help lead them back to a fuller artistic experience with our work. And the good news of course is that they are clearly having no problem at all with the concepts we're working on or embracing the quality, or "feeling", of each number.