Because it's a "Furlough Friday," Christian was able to, once again, sit in on the parent period at the end of class. During this time, the kids were issued chopsticks (yes, regular old chopsticks). They were instructed to use them as practice mallets - soon they will start playing the glockenspiel as part of their lesson/homework. They were shown how to hold the pseduo mallets (palms down, arms held up).
TRADITIONAL TALE: Our educational video this morning was "Little Rooster's Diamond Button." It's a traditional folk tale with Hungarian roots, and various versions known world round (or so its packaging says). It's about a rooster whose diamond button is snatched by an evil king. When the rooster goes to the king's castle to demand its return, the bird is thrown down a well. Fortunately, the rooster has a magical stomach that can hold huge amounts of water, so he swallows up all the water and escapes the well. When the rooster confronts the king again, the bird is thrown into the fire, but smartly uses the well water to extinguish the fire. In a third encounter, the king sends bees after the bird. The rooster swallows the bees, and then releases them back at the king, which wins him the button back. As he takes his leave, the rooster takes all the treasure the king has stolen from the villagers over the years.
The tale was about solving problems and overcoming obstacles, so we talked about the problems rooster faced and how he overcame them and how we have to work to overcome problems in our lives (unfortunately, none of us have a magical stomach).
FLOORS AND MORE: After the folk tale, the family loaded up into the car and headed down to the stadium district/Sodo. There are a number of flooring stores there and I'm tired of looking at OSB on the floor of our not-so-new-anymore entry. For whatever reason, CJ was totally into the expedition (at least at the first store - his enthusiasm waned at future stops). He was peppering the salesman with questions (my favorite: "What's the BEST flooring you have?"
Guess money is no object for Mr. CeeJ!
We found our flooring at our third stop - a beautiful 16x16 inch slate called Peacock. We'll be rockin' the entry tomorrow (and probably the next day. And the next day ...)!
SOLAR POWER: I decided to keep our solar system learning going today by having the kids read and complete the sticker book that Ruthie & Bob were kind enough to give them for Christmas. After that, we were back to NASA. This time I pointed my Web browser to their StarChild content, specifically, their Solar System pages.
Viewing the info they presented about planets and dwarf planets, comets, the asteroid belt, the moon, and meteoroids served as a review for what we've done and read the last couple of days.
Then, it was time to put our knowledge to the test. We took on "Where, Oh Where Does That Little Object Go?" which required the kids to put the planets in 1-9 order. They got a perfect score! (No doubt building the model yesterday helped, not to mention one of their favorite They Might Be Giants' songs, "How Many Planets?" with lyrics that list the planets in order.)
After they nailed that, we tried "Solar System Shuffle," which was a list of 10 trivia questions about the solar system, including: "This planet moves so fast, it was named after the swift messenger of the ancient Greek gods" and "The greenhouse effect is so strong here that this is the hottest planet." A little tougher than the standard first grade questions, I think. One thing that I talked to them about while they were struggling was the process of elimination. They had 10 questions and were given 10 potential "cards" or answers. So I suggested that they answer the ones they knew for sure first, and then that would narrow down their choices when it came to the ones they weren't so sure about. As I was explaining this, I realized just how often in one's life that the process of elimination is used, so I think that information was probably even more valuable than the stuff they learned about the solar system today.In they end they did well on "Solar System Shuffle." They got a solid B (80 percent).
MAS MUZZY: This afternoon we unearthed some of the Muzzy video tapes I scored months and months ago in a Seattle Goodwill eBay auction and started watching them (whilst transferring them to a recordable DVD). At first CJ was balking. "I wish this were in English," he complained. But he came around and was soon singing and talking along in Spanish. EMBRACING DANGER: I leave you with this - a link to an interesting article I found in the Seattle PI's Web site today. Its headline: "Dangerous things parents should let their kids do." The opening paragraph: "Play with a pocket knife. Break glass. Throw things from a moving car. Drive a nail. Find a beehive. Glue your fingers together with superglue." I found myself nodding in agreement while reading it.
let's hear it for learning how to distinguish between Risky and Downright Dangerous. And for being able to evaluate risks and "Expected Values" EV?? Why can you easily walk along a 4X4 lying on the ground but won't even try it when it is 40 feet above a parking lot? It's all about Expected Value.
ReplyDeleteLove the 4x4 example. I'll have to share it (though not demonstrate it!) with the kids. What a perfect illustration of Expected Value.
ReplyDeleteStart putting money at the end of the 4X4 that's 40 feet in the air and you'll start getting volunteers. The more money, the more volunteers - it's all about EV
ReplyDeleteExpected Value =
(Gain)x(win probability) - (Loss)x(loss prob.)
Positive EV means do it, negative means no,
Just be sure you've got all four factors right.