Tiny Dancer

ON HER TOES: Today was one of those rare occasions where family gets to sit in on ballet class. When I told CJ it was a viewing day, he replied, "I'll be happy to watch it - even though I'm a boy." Super. ; )

As it turns out, CJ sat silent and rapt the whole 45 minutes. (Books he'd brought along in case he got bored sat untouched next to him.) I was pretty darn entertained, too.

I was so, SO pleased at the progress Annabelle has made since the last time we got to watch. Her attention to detail was remarkable. Case in point: the photo leading this entry. All of the kids were just sitting on the floor and their teacher hadn't given them any specifics about how to sit, but Annabelle sat the "right" way the whole time - straight legs, toes pointed, spine tall. (Can you pick her feet out in the photo above? I'll bet you can!)

And then when they were going through their exercises, she listened, kept her mouth shut (not an easy feat for that girl, believe-you-me), and again, her attention to detail was fantastic. For instance, she was almost always mindful of having 'ballet hands' no matter what they were working on.

For the last five minutes of class, the students get to don a frilly something they've brought from home and do a free dance. Once again, I was thrilled at Annabelle's progress. The vast majority of the girls in the class always wind up doing laps, running around the studio counterclockwise. In the past, Annabelle has been running right along with them. But today, she was definitely dancing and mostly to the music playing. ;) Let's roll the film ...

As we were on the way out, the teacher came up to me and said, "She's a good, strong student. Keep her dancing." :)

BOOK REVIEW: We read a couple of books from the Math Start series by Stuart J. Murphy, a visual learning specialist whose books attempt to teach math while they tell stories.

The first title we read was "It's About Time." The story followed a young boy through his day and noted what he was doing every hour on the hour, using both analog and digital clocks to show the time. The kids' favorite part was the child's fantastical dream-time adventures, which definitely had a "Where the Wild Things Are" feel to them.

Next, we read "Dinosaur Deals." According to the notes at the end of the book, its goal was to illustrate the math concept of comparative value - that "a certain number of one item can be equal in value to another kind of item."

The author chose to illustrate the concept by having the book's protagonist, Mike, go to a dinosaur card trading show. Are you thinking, "Huh? What's a dinosaur card trading show?" Well, that's what I was thinking. It seemed unnecessarily contrived. There are real-world situations that could have been used more effectively, I would think. (For instance, how about a family needing 5 pounds of produce for a fruit salad, and having to combine, add and subtract everything from strawberries to grapefruit to reach the correct weight?)

Anywho, Mike was trying to acquire a Tyrannosaurus card, and the holder of the T Rex card wanted 3 Allosaurus cards in exchange, so Mike had to make other trades to acquire the 3 Allosaurus cards from other dealers. Unfortunately, there were a couple spots in the book where the trades were hard to follow because of the layout of the illustrations and dialogue.

I'm a big fan of Murphy's body of work, but "Dinosaur Deals" missed the mark with me and my kids.
BOOK 'EM: While reading up on the Math Time series, I discovered that publisher Harper Collins (HC) has a lot of wonderful educational features on their Web site. There's a Listening Room, where you can hear HC books read by narrators, there are games with tie ins to popular children's books, printables (like mazes, bookmarks, word scrambles, etc.), online quizzes about HC books and characters and more. We spent about an hour on the site today, listening to stories and playing games. Good stuff!

MOMMY MATH: When I told the kids it was math time this afternoon, Annabelle replied, "How many worksheets do we have to do?"

"Can we do fun math?" CJ chimed in.

Hmm. Their questions kind of bummed me out. I did go grab a math book off the shelf, but instead of ripping out sheets and telling 'em to get after it, I asked them to join me on the couch, and we just kind of read the math book and talked about math. And yes, we did math, but I don't think the kids even suspected they were doing worksheets. :) It was a nice change, and we'll do it that way again, for sure.

SAY WHAAAAT?!?!: CJ, about 9 o'clock this morning: "Hey Mom, did you know once agents complete their mission, they can hang with a hot lady?"

"Um, oh, really?" I stammered. Of course, that was immediately followed by my asking, "Where did you learn that?

As it turns out, CJ hasn't been watching James Bond - though apparently the writers for Johnny Test, a cartoon CJ and Annabelle sometimes watch, have. CJ's comment aside, it's a pretty cute cartoon. Johnny has older twin sisters who are super geniuses and are always subjecting Johnny to experiments.

BONUS SHOTS: Here are a couple of extra ballet shots I took today ...