On this page, Megan is introduced to skip counting as a pre-curser to basic multiplication of singe digits. She does problems like 1, 1+1, 1+1+1 and 3, 3+3 , 3+3+3, 3+3+3+3 . This is helping her see the value of knowing how to skip count by 2,3, 4, 5's, etc.
September 2013 Archives
On this page, Megan is doing skip counting by adding various quantities of a given number, like 1's, 2's, 3's and 4's. Then, on page F-1, she starts putting this together for simple multiplication facts, such as 3 times 2, 4 times 2, then, she adds four 2's and three 2's, again refreshing her memory of how skip counting is related to multiplication. Usually when we do these pages, we use our skip counting charts.
We discussed the definition of canal and basement. Megan understood basement well. I was surprised. I asked her if we have a basement. I am not sure she has ever saw a basement.
Yesterday we continued Mike Mulligan an his steam shovel by discussing personification. FIAR folding pages, had sentences with examples of personification in them. She had to underline the object being personified and say how in which way it was copying a living creature. In all the cases the way was by an action, like hugging, coughing, etc.
Megan on page 31, is thinking about a few things. They ask her to name things based on a characteristic, such as Name one thing that is black, name 1 thing that can be a mess. And she answers it. A bat can be black, and dirt can be messy. On page, 32, Megan had to write various things that started with the letter B. For instance, A bird, a name, a vegetable, a sport, etc. On page 33, she had to draw lines across things that are opposite words, like big- small, run - sit, etc. Then, she had to write a sentence with one of the words. She wrote " Do not run off without an adult!
Megan is adding 0-2 to a number as well as doing some 10s value addition (with no units).The next page she is writing the number of hundreds , tens and ones and then saying the number. Then, she does a few word problems adding 0-2 to a number. Its very slow but I supplement with other math.
Megan did a couple of pages in Miquon pages E-18 - E-19. These were making hops to the left and the right of the number line and seeing where she landed. Its like the precursor to adding and subtraction with the symbols. Megan knows that but I prefer not to skip pages. Especially, since I know they are soon hitting multiplication.
We are ahead of Pandia Press on this but on Tuesday of this week, we did a Chinese culture day because its the time the Chinese celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival. Basically this is a festival celebrating the moon and there is a story behind it. This meetup was a little too chaotic for my taste, but it was my fault. Because of this, we are doing the Chinese at home instead. So today we read a comic book type of book with a story and Chinese facts built in. It was called Good times Travel Agency " Adventures in Ancient China" by Linda Bailey.
It talked about key features in Chinese history. It focused on the Han Dynasty, which as we found out, was a time of great creativity in China. The Han Dynasty was between 202 B.C.E. - 220 A.D. A dynasty is a ruling family . The rulers were called Emperors. China believes that they are the center of the universe. And back in this time, any outsiders were called Barbarians. They called their land the "Middle Kingdom". China stayed under the rule of emperors for over 2000 years (221 B. C. to A.D. 1911) , making it the longest continuous empire.
I was sitting at the computer today and I was doing problems like 4329 times 52 or 1198 * 215 and Megan wanted to do them when she say me do this. I said Megan, you are not here yet. Mommy is just exercising her brain. Anyway, she wanted to do it. She cried. I taught her how and when it came to big multiplications like 8 times 4, or 9 times 4, and how to carry up the ten's places to the next numbers we have to multiply and then multiply those numbers and then add the carried numbers. she did pretty well.
We are studying steam with respect to Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel and so we read this cute little book to go along with it. Its about a little steamboat that goes down the Mississippi looking for magnificent steamships just to find them parked in a bayou and they recalled how they used to be great and how they would pull up and pick up or let off people from Mansions. But now we are useless. But the flood of the Mississippi strands a lot of animals and against the tremendous force of the Mississippi, the steamboats make there way and save the animals. After this, they retire again to the Bayou.
Megan had to write an animal or a plant that started with the letters H-Z to finish what Fred had started. She then, had to give the cardinality of a set.
Megan got her new cash register today and we set it up. We sorted the real coins from the fake coins and sorted her bills. Then we displayed her food so one can easily see what they are buying. Here are some pictures.
Today, we started Mike Mulligan and the steam shovel. I probably shouldn't have with Frog and Toad still in the works, but Megan wanted to draw trees and I knew that Five in a Row discusses trees. Basically, for aerial trees, they are like a ball and stick figure, but when they are close up you see the branches coming out from the main trunk. So, then we , using HomeArt Kindergarden, listened to the teacher talk about how to make trees. 
Megan has to read four words in a row and then X the word as the first one. Words like scan, scam, spud, spat , spud, skim, stiff, stuff , shin , spat, slit. Because of her speech difficulties , I often need her to tell me what the word means to make sure she is saying what I think she is.
Given a list of words, Megan had to read several sentences and fill in the write word from the word list. The words were skid, skin, spell, scab, steps, and spots. On page 24, Megan was given words and had to use those words to form a sentence.
Today in Kindermusic, they are doing Carnival music. I know that they are learning how to keep to the beat of carnival music using drums as I saw that they are playing drums. Also, they are learning to take turns in a musical performance. She played music and when there were singers, the drums were played and when there we instruments, the rhythm sticks were played. She told them that sometimes in a musical performance like in an orchestra, you have to listen and pay attention to when your part comes in. The we walked with a parachute to a song in the carnival and fell down at certain points to fix a broken carousal. She has them say rat-a-tat-tat as they hit on the floor.
This is Megan's textured art we acquired walking around Randolph Carter. Mine is shown below.
We are trying out activities in the Home Art for Kindergarden (I bought the first grade one as well).After this, we have to cut out a leaf from this and then make a caterpillar out of white sculptey material that you can cook in the oven. Mine is below.
Megan had to fill in a plus or minus sign to get the equations to work. This made her think. I am adding Miquon to help her figure out a new way of thinking. On the bottom of this page, she had to fill in the numbers to various addition questions, whether it was the addends or the sum, to make the equations correct.
Megan filled in the missing numbers on 7 rows of numbers where one or more were missing. It's simple but part of Miquon's orange first level book I am trying out.
On page E-20 Megan gets some experience with the meaning of number lines. If the arrow points to the right , she learned it is like adding the amount and if it points to the left, its like subtracting the amount. Such as 7-----3------> is like 7 + 3. And _ <-----3--------7 is subtraction where the answer _ is 4.
On page 18, Megan had to look at a picture and write down the name that describes it, such as plug, sled, slam, slip, plum, slop, and snip. Then, on page 19, Megan had to read a word, x the picture from a row of pictures it describes, and then write the word. Words such as skip, stem , skull, spun, stab, skin, scab.
Megan had to read the sentence and answer no or yes as to whether they are true or can happen or false and can not happened. Then, on page 17, she is given a picture of an action and she had to select the sentence that best describes the picture.
On this page, Megan had to try and draw the other half of a symmetric flower. She did good with a little problem on the leaf. I got her started and she did great. She even colored her flower. It was pretty.
Megan did this page witihout me knowing. There were bones with answers on them and math questions to answer. Then, you had to make the problem to the answer. This was adding of double digit numbers, something very new to her. I was delightfully surprised.
Megan had to do basic subtraction and then circle the two bugs that have the same difference. She had to do this for 4 groups of three bugs. The thing was that one bug was always left out. I said they can only talk if they have the same difference. So, the ones left over were paired with others that had the same difference. This made it more fun.
Then, we read a story on two siblings where one is teaching the other to cook. There was a paragraph to the story and in the end, Megan had to write F if the statement given is a fact and O if the statement given was an opinion. This gave her a little trouble as it is new to her. She had to learn just because we think something is true, doesn't make it a fact. Like "dogs make great pets". This statement about dogs may be true to you, but to someone else it may not be. So , in this case, the statement "dogs make great pets" is an opinion statement.
We need to do more on this type of problem.
Then, we read a story on two siblings where one is teaching the other to cook. There was a paragraph to the story and in the end, Megan had to write F if the statement given is a fact and O if the statement given was an opinion. This gave her a little trouble as it is new to her. She had to learn just because we think something is true, doesn't make it a fact. Like "dogs make great pets". This statement about dogs may be true to you, but to someone else it may not be. So , in this case, the statement "dogs make great pets" is an opinion statement.
We need to do more on this type of problem.
On page 37, Megan had to take a tens numbers and break it down into tens and units. Then, at the bottom of this page, she had to draw a line between words that rhyme. Then on page 38, Megan had to write the numbers to the sentences in the proper order. When she first did this, she had to items that had a one next to them. I erased them all and had her try again and this time she figured it out.
On page 39, Megan had to write a greater than (>) or (<) sign in between two numbers. I told her the mouth opens to the greater number. She then did this fine. She got one wrong and I will have her correct it. Then, on the bottom of this page, she is given two columns of words that have synonyms of them. She had to draw a line between the word on the left and its synonyms on the right.
On page 39, Megan had to write a greater than (>) or (<) sign in between two numbers. I told her the mouth opens to the greater number. She then did this fine. She got one wrong and I will have her correct it. Then, on the bottom of this page, she is given two columns of words that have synonyms of them. She had to draw a line between the word on the left and its synonyms on the right.
Megan read word problems and answered the questions on page 104. Then, on page 105, she had to guess the number in the box with a question mark that answers the problem correctly. On page 106, She simply answers +1 and +2 questions, and then does two word problems.
We found the price of a first class stamp with time (in Month-date-year) and made a plot showing the trend. It was interesting that I read the price of stamps has followed inflation. That is, we aren't really paying more for the stamp, it just looks as we are.
Today the meetup is starting its community worker series. We started with the post office. Well, we started off discussing what a community is and what takes place in it. We discussed stores, libraries, fire stations, police stations, etc.we discussed what you can buy in a store.
Then Leslie read three books about what goes on behind-the-scenes in a post office. Then she read about mail carriers in general and how they have to deliver the mail in all sorts of weather. This was to show self-discipline, perseverance, and sense of duty (civil duty).
Then we handed out Popsicle sticks with different workers on them. A description of the community worker was read and when each kid's community worker was called, they had to raise their stick.
Then after this, I discussed the format of a letter and they had choices. The first was to write a letter. The second was that they could cut and paste the parts of a letter that was given to them in the right order in the given squares for the various parts. Another activity that they could do was making an envelope from scratch.
Megan chose to write a letter. It was soooooo impressive. She set it up right, drew dotted lines on the sheets of paper, Made and labeled her own envelope and is going to mail it out. She wrote a letter to Lillian. Apparently Amanda helped her spell appreciate, as she told her that appreciates Lillian coming over.
Then she did a little post office math. She counted by 5's to solve a math problem related to what kind of letter a kid could send with some nickels and a penny.
She was asked what the boy could buy and she told Leslie, since it was 0.46 cents, the boy could mail a postcard or a letter. Then I had Megan tell me the difference in price. That is,if he mails a post card, how much money would
he have over. She did this on paper, and then we did it with money itself.
There is a new teacher in the spanish class. I really like her. I liked Tabitha too , in her own way. But, this lady is very down to earth. Last week, she spent a lot of time review basic vocabulary, like Months, days of the week, colors, animals, numbers, etc. It was a great review.
We dealt out all the cards minus face cards and then dealt out 12 cards and we had to take turns finding to cards that added to 10. I think modifying this to have us find as many as possible that add to 10 would be better.
In the future, playing to 12. Also, 24 (make jack and queen be 11 and 12) . 8 x 2 + 8 = 24. Mixed math to get to 24.
In the future, playing to 12. Also, 24 (make jack and queen be 11 and 12) . 8 x 2 + 8 = 24. Mixed math to get to 24.
Megan and I divided a set of playing cards up , after removing face value cards and 10s, and we each put down three cards. Then, we arranged them to the highest value and read their value. The one with the highest number in the end, wins both players cards. I was starting to see this as boring , but when we tied in the hundreds place, which didn't happen a lot, we had to then compare our tens value. In this case, I would turn the cards on their sides and we would do the resulting subtraction to see how much the other person won by.
Megan had to answer a bunch of related adding and subtraction questions, where the same number had one added to it and one taken away, as well as some doubles and some where the same number was subtracted, such as 4-4. I think this helps her see relationships, especially 4+1, 4-1, 3+1, 3-1, etc.
Today we read about Arnold Lobel. We realized he wrote the books based on his kids love of amphibians and having frogs and toads as pets. We also learned he has passed away awhile ago. Then, we discussed a few friend questions.
What does Friendship mean?
Who can be a friend? Anyone is nice, but they should have some things in common with you. Megan said they have to be nice.
What do you look for in a friend?
How does one become a friend?
What do friends do with each other? Talk, play games, shop, and just play.
Why is it important to have friends?
I will put in these answers that we discussed shortly.
I briefly introduced other animals that are found in the Frog and Toad stories.
Then,
We looked up and defined the two words, will power and procrastination.
From now on, as we read the stories, we will be on the look out for when Frog and Toad battle with will power and procrastination. I discussed with Megan that her dad procrastinates.
Okay we also went over Vocabulary for the first Chapter in Frog and Toad are friends. The words we defined are November, May, Spring, calendar, wake up , asleep.
What does Friendship mean?
Who can be a friend? Anyone is nice, but they should have some things in common with you. Megan said they have to be nice.
What do you look for in a friend?
How does one become a friend?
What do friends do with each other? Talk, play games, shop, and just play.
Why is it important to have friends?
I will put in these answers that we discussed shortly.
I briefly introduced other animals that are found in the Frog and Toad stories.
Then,
We looked up and defined the two words, will power and procrastination.
From now on, as we read the stories, we will be on the look out for when Frog and Toad battle with will power and procrastination. I discussed with Megan that her dad procrastinates.
Okay we also went over Vocabulary for the first Chapter in Frog and Toad are friends. The words we defined are November, May, Spring, calendar, wake up , asleep.
Megan today picked a science activity to study. The one she chose to study was determining temperature with crickets, so we went out to buy crickets. But, Megan
wanted to make a firefly. We picked out a bottle, a fruit juice bottle with a orange top. Then, she put eyes and antennae on the bottle cap and then glued a black sheet of construction paper near drinking bottle's top and most of the way down the body. Actually, she did this the whole way and then cut off some of the bottom. Then, she cut out legs and wings. She did this by folding the construction paper and drawing a wing and cutting it out so she gets two of the same shape. Then, she cut out plastic that was laying around to cover the wings. Then, someone she made to more wings of the same shape. It came out looking pretty cool. It is supposed to be a firefly , but we have yet to decide on a light. The instructions say to use a one time light stick, but I told Megan that they do not last long.
Megan was given a list of everyday items and had to draw a line between them and the shape that they are.
Various amounts of oranges are on trees, two in a row, and Megan has to add up the oranges in each row.
Balance Benders
Two orange squares = one purple dot on a balance . Megan is given some choices of orange square(s) to purple dot(s), she had to determine if the two still balanced.
Two orange squares = one purple dot on a balance . Megan is given some choices of orange square(s) to purple dot(s), she had to determine if the two still balanced.
I made Megan a bunch of sentence strips from the story and she had to put them in order. This was cute as she made a huge train across the floor upstairs. I wasn't sure how to take a picture of it.
So, Joules had been limping for about a week and at the end of this, we saw he wasn't eating his dry food either. I made a mountain and it stayed a mountain. So, this was Sunday of a long holiday, so on Monday night I emailed them requesting an appointment. The next day , we bring Joules in and wait to be called. The nurse asks us what is wrong and weighs joules. He is 8.6 pounds. Then, the veterinarian came in and he looked at Joules' leg and he felt a tiny bump. He let Megan and I feel for this. Then, he said to rule out other possible problems, he was going to take an x-ray. He did and then he came back and opened it and let us see the bones of a cat. He discussed the femur and tibia. He explained that the bones were white and that the muscle takes on a grey appearance. He also showed us the knee-cap and the hip bones. He used other parts of the bones of a cat as well, but I can not recall these. He explained that he doesn't have arthritis and showed the the bones next to each other on the knee and leg are smooth and have tendon going around them nicely. If it was arthritic, you would see more jagged bones. Then he showed us what might be hip arthritis, but it could be the odd way joules had to lay. He also discussed his backbone and said if this were causing the problem or related, the little discs in the backbone would be squashed together , but we could see equal spacing between the joints.
We tried taking a long necked bottle and putting both tap and clay around the neck surround and a funnel. The idea is that , since the bottle is filled with air and if no air can escape a bottle, then sealing the area around a funnel that is placed inside the top of it, water poured into the funnel should get stuck. But, we could not get this to work. I tried a normal funnel and a funnel shape that I have for squeezing frosting onto a cake. Even this funnel shape with a tiny opening still let water flow in. So, the next day, we put a balloon on this narrow mouth bottle and then observed. The balloon just flopped over to the side. But, then, in a pan of near boiling water, the balloon filled up with hot air. So, this showed, since the balloon definitely made a seal around the top of the bottle, that air must be contained in the bottle as there was very little air in the balloon. I will add pictures later as we forgot to take one in the boiling water.
Megan, using long A words, had to fill in the blanks for sentences describing pirates, such as chain,nail, cake , whale , wave , and sail.
A piece of the pie
Brown and red construction paper
Foil
Straight pins
