mostly hs'ing post
i'm glad we were out for most of yesterday 'cause today is a true 'inside' day. pouring. it isn't supposed to stop until tomorrow or tuesday. do they cancel classes for rain? i wish they did.
damn, we just found out that the bedroom ceilings have been leaking for who knows how long. my bed is wet. ugh. i'm sleeping with la nena on her twin bed and j will crash on the couch. lovely. la nena is a bed hogger.
la nena got up (and got me up) before nine. i let her watch tv for a while then we moved on to school work. j did some reading with her - she finished reading a dorling kindersley reader (level 1) 'a bed for the winter.' it was her first book! we have her take breaks in between school so she played on the computer before we moved on to geography. we're working from the evan moor 'first grade daily geography practice'. to add to this workbook we sometimes look at her atlas or put together a world puzzle that's just right for her age. it's one of those big, foamy puzzles. but today we just worked from the evan moor book and did the lesson on the u.s. map. we talked about the different states, the size of the u.s., etc.
after that i read her a couple of books - the brother's grimm the goose girl (which i regret not reading beforehand) and a book about icebergs.
j then did a lesson from the physics book we're working with - "hands-on physics experiments k-2" published by mcgraw hill. it was a lesson on measuring with different kinds of rulers (hands, etc.). then we moved on to talking about constellations. i'm really liking the evan moor 'exploring science series'. it's got this right balance of experiments, reading and writing. j did this lesson with her, too. they went over some of the constellations. she was interested as they looked at the workbook and a constellation chart we have. she remembered the book we had read about the big dipper - paul gobles' her seven brothers.
she also remembered that i had promised her that we'd do an experiment from a science kit i got her at target yesterday - 'blood, bones and body bits' (yes, i know it sounds gross). i think i should have spent my money on something else but unfortunately sometimes i buy things compulsively. anyway, we needed food coloring so la nena and i braved the rain and went to the store. or rather, i braved the rain, she was happy jumping and wading through puddles. we got home with the food coloring and john did the experiment with her. it was a model on how the heart pumps blood through the valves. after they were done, i asked her how it went and she says with a big smile "it was gory!"
she took another break and then we turned to the final (and most dreaded) subject: math. this is the hardest thing to get her to focus on. i don't want her to develop the fear of math that i have, this mental block to it. but she gets easily frustrated with it. and it's not like we're pushing her to do multiplication or division and stuff. we're getting through the addition, subtraction kumon workbooks and dorling kindersley 1st grade workbook. she works on the addition/subtraction with the abacus.
so today i decided to change things up and we started working on the activity book for base ten blocks. i've read about them and know they're used as math manipulatives in some classrooms. she had a great time with it, what a difference in attitude. we worked on place value and counting and turned it into a game. using the blocks, she constructed numbers up to 800 or so. she asked that we work on the base ten blocks instead of her workbooks. i'm still going to have her work on her math workbooks but we'll incorporate the base ten blocks wherever we can. it reinforces my idea of her as a hands-on learner. thus her love for science experiments. we've been practicing counting by 2's, 5's and 10's using the abacus and she gets it that way. but i skipped that practice today and we just did the base ten blocks.
the school day ended and we settled down to watch a harry potter movie. the books have become a part of her bedtime ritual. she's a hands-on learner but she's always loved listening to us read to her. i'm not a big harry potter fan, la nena and her dad do the harry potter thing. i read to her whatever we get from the library.
damn, we just found out that the bedroom ceilings have been leaking for who knows how long. my bed is wet. ugh. i'm sleeping with la nena on her twin bed and j will crash on the couch. lovely. la nena is a bed hogger.
la nena got up (and got me up) before nine. i let her watch tv for a while then we moved on to school work. j did some reading with her - she finished reading a dorling kindersley reader (level 1) 'a bed for the winter.' it was her first book! we have her take breaks in between school so she played on the computer before we moved on to geography. we're working from the evan moor 'first grade daily geography practice'. to add to this workbook we sometimes look at her atlas or put together a world puzzle that's just right for her age. it's one of those big, foamy puzzles. but today we just worked from the evan moor book and did the lesson on the u.s. map. we talked about the different states, the size of the u.s., etc.
after that i read her a couple of books - the brother's grimm the goose girl (which i regret not reading beforehand) and a book about icebergs.
j then did a lesson from the physics book we're working with - "hands-on physics experiments k-2" published by mcgraw hill. it was a lesson on measuring with different kinds of rulers (hands, etc.). then we moved on to talking about constellations. i'm really liking the evan moor 'exploring science series'. it's got this right balance of experiments, reading and writing. j did this lesson with her, too. they went over some of the constellations. she was interested as they looked at the workbook and a constellation chart we have. she remembered the book we had read about the big dipper - paul gobles' her seven brothers.
she also remembered that i had promised her that we'd do an experiment from a science kit i got her at target yesterday - 'blood, bones and body bits' (yes, i know it sounds gross). i think i should have spent my money on something else but unfortunately sometimes i buy things compulsively. anyway, we needed food coloring so la nena and i braved the rain and went to the store. or rather, i braved the rain, she was happy jumping and wading through puddles. we got home with the food coloring and john did the experiment with her. it was a model on how the heart pumps blood through the valves. after they were done, i asked her how it went and she says with a big smile "it was gory!"
she took another break and then we turned to the final (and most dreaded) subject: math. this is the hardest thing to get her to focus on. i don't want her to develop the fear of math that i have, this mental block to it. but she gets easily frustrated with it. and it's not like we're pushing her to do multiplication or division and stuff. we're getting through the addition, subtraction kumon workbooks and dorling kindersley 1st grade workbook. she works on the addition/subtraction with the abacus.
so today i decided to change things up and we started working on the activity book for base ten blocks. i've read about them and know they're used as math manipulatives in some classrooms. she had a great time with it, what a difference in attitude. we worked on place value and counting and turned it into a game. using the blocks, she constructed numbers up to 800 or so. she asked that we work on the base ten blocks instead of her workbooks. i'm still going to have her work on her math workbooks but we'll incorporate the base ten blocks wherever we can. it reinforces my idea of her as a hands-on learner. thus her love for science experiments. we've been practicing counting by 2's, 5's and 10's using the abacus and she gets it that way. but i skipped that practice today and we just did the base ten blocks.
the school day ended and we settled down to watch a harry potter movie. the books have become a part of her bedtime ritual. she's a hands-on learner but she's always loved listening to us read to her. i'm not a big harry potter fan, la nena and her dad do the harry potter thing. i read to her whatever we get from the library.