YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE: Continuing yesterday's exploration of the reasons we have seasons, we busted out the globe and a flashlight today for a little hands-on learning. The kids took turns being the sun, shining their light directly on the earth and then at different angles. It was clear to all of us why in summertime, when the light is more direct, the temperatures are warmer.
MIND OVER MUSIC: Kids were practicing their song first thing this morning and were extraordinarily monotone. I asked them both to sit on the couch, close their eyes, and rather than singing, to picture the rise and fall of the notes. (They do have a frame of reference for this type of activity from their Musikgarten classes, as well as from watching the great graphical representations of classical music we found on YouTube.) So they did it, and that seemed to help some.FRACTION ACTION: Since yesterday was language arts heavy and math "lite," I thought we'd better do some number crunching. I gave them each half a banana to eat while we did some fraction worksheets. They each worked on quarters and thirds and then together, they worked on a couple of exercises, including evenly dividing a platter of 12 cookies among four monsters. They figured out that each got 3. And when I asked CJ how many cookies there were altogether, he started counting the cookies scattered about on the original platter and got confused, as there weren't rows or columns to count. But on his own he shifted gears and looked at the cookies on the individual monsters' plates and (light bulb!) said, "I can count by threes!" Cool! Naturally, that led to us singing "Three is a Magic Number," including a far, far off Broadway live version on YouTube.
TIMBERRRRRRR!: Midday, we had an arborist here, pruning the 50 foot cedar in our yard. I thought it would be educational for CJ and Annabelle to see the three-man crew at work. When the chainsaw fired up and the limbs started crashing to the earth, CJ was jump up and down excited! We watched for a good 45 minutes from the top of the lot. At one point CJ called down, "Excuse me, sir!" The logger took his earplugs out and CJ continued. "Are you here to build me a treehouse?" The man smiled and said, "Sorry, I don't think we're going to get to that today." 
WE'RE TINY, WE'RE TOONY: This afternoon we tried out a feature I found on Comcast On Demand a couple of days ago. On their Kids menu, they have a submenu for Activity TV. From there, we selected 'most popular' and then got a list of artsy activities. We chose a six minute lesson from cartoonist Bruce Blitz. It was an association cartoon - which, we learned, is where you turn one object into something else. In this case, we were going to turn an acorn into a chipmunk. We started by drawing a rounded rectangle and then a U with a point beneath it - instant acorn! From there we added other shapes one by one, and before you knew it, a cute chipmunk was taking shape. I pointed out to the kids that ours didn't have to look like his, or each others' - each was an original work of art. Because it was On Demand, we were able to pause after each step, which was terrific, because then they didn't feel pressured to keep up with the pro. I thought the kids did great, and I think it's an especially wonderful exercise for CJ, who isn't particularly confident in his artistic ability. But today he had absolutely no trouble a) understanding the directions, b) executing them, and c) staying interested in the project. That, and he was very proud of his chipmunk. :) .
KING AND QUEEN FOR A DAY: Today, the Costco run that was supposed to happen didn't, so come dinnertime, it was Old Mother Hubbard 'round here. We had to go pick up the Honda at a repair place in Ballard, so - for the First Time Ever - Burger King, here we come! When I told the kids, you would have thought I said we were going to Disneyland. They were SO excited. All these years they've been pumped full of Burger King commercials and they've never set foot inside the place. They were thrilled with the crowns and the Planet 51 toys. The food was an afterthought. Maybe we'll go there again - in another 5+ years. ;)
Count by 3s - cool. How about 5s? that's another useful one.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Schoolhouse Rock, they've known how to count by 3s and 5s for a couple years now - but yesterday was the first time I can recall where it was one of the kids' ideas to actually use that ability as a tool (instead of just singing the catchy tune). We counted by 5s quite a bit on M&M Festival day - there were so many M&M's, doing it by 1s would have taken FOREVER.
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