Calculating Kids

MY FUNNY VALENTINE: We started the morning by crafting some Valentines. For inspiration, we turned to a trusted source of ideas and inspiration: ActivityTV. Sure enough, we found a cute cartooning activity, turning the letter B into a "bee mine" valentine. After they finished that, they tried another project, this time a broken heart themed valentine.

The ActivityTV cartooning tutorials by Bruce Blitz are great. They break drawing a multi-step cartoon into bite sized pieces that are easy for the kids to follow along. (It helps that we can pause the video, too, so they don't feel pressured to keep up with the pro.) This type of activity is especially valuable for CJ, since he isn't one to draw just for the fun of it, but this approach allows him to produce something he's actually really proud of when all is said and done. (In fact, his work usually ends up resembling the teacher's example moreso than Annabelle's does, as CJ hangs on the teacher's every word and really works at following directions.
JUST WALKING IN THE RAIN: I had hoped to get our walk in before the rains came, but by the time we were buttoned up and ready to go at 11 a.m., it was drizzling. Oh well, that's what coats with hoods are for!

Before we headed out, I started singing and whistling "Just Walking in the Rain." Now there's a golden oldie (Johnnie Ray, 1956). If I'm not mistaken, I listened to that on a 78 RPM as a child. I found a YouTube clip of Ray performing the song and the kids got a kick out of it, largely because of the whistling. Annabelle sang it throughout the afternoon.

ROLLER BOOGIE: Late this afternoon Annabelle rediscovered her skates in a cupboard. She strapped 'em on and started clomping/skating around the house (one of the "advantages" of still having plywood floors is that I couldn't care less about them getting marked up).

Bee eventually coaxed CJ into strapping his skates on, too. "I'm nervous," he admitted, standing up stiff-legged. Annabelle reassured him that she'd hold his hand and keep him from falling down. :) As it turned out, Bee went down three or so times, while cautious CJ managed to stay upright for the duration of their rollerplay - about an hour.

YOU WANT SOME FRIES WITH THAT?: We hit Value Village today just for the fun of it. One of the items the kids homed in on in the toy section was a McDonald's branded toy cash register. Of course, the kids wanted to buy it and of course I did not.

"But it's a calculator," Annabelle pointed out, knowing I'd been looking at calculators in another aisle just moments before. (Somehow we are calculator-less in our home right now, other than the ones on our cell phone and computer, neither of which are very convenient when figuring out measurements, or for the kids to use while doing table work.)

"Look, 9 plus 4 equals 13!" Annabelle said, demoing the register.

"One hundred plus one equals 101," CJ chimed in. So, of course I caved (it's for the children's education!) and we are now the proud owners of a McDonald's cash register-slash-calculator. (Do you suppose I'll be the first person in the history of the U.S. doing her tax returns using a McDonald's cash register?)

That aside, the kids played with the register for a couple of hours this afternoon. They played McDonald's franchise, taking turns ordering and ringing up orders. And they also just used it as a calculator, having fun with multiples (like a regular calculator, it displays a running total, so they messed around with adding by 2s, 3s, 5s and so on).

NOUN v. VERB: Our language arts activity for the day was perusing a few games on the Scholastic Web site. The kids chose to play "Clean Up Your Grammar." Two recycling bins were on a beach, one labeled 'noun,' the other labeled 'verb.' Newspapers would pop up on the screen with a word on it and the player had to place it in the right receptacle. It was a good activity - we would be well served to spend more time talking about the parts of speech. (Time to break Schoolhouse Rock back out!)

FUNNY FACE: I got an email from someone named CJ that Annabelle's face is featured on the front page of his (or her) child delevopment Web site. It's a cute photo of her - she was trying to drink the sprinkler spray on a hot summer day.