August 4, 2010
First I want to tell you something funny the kids told me. I always joke and ask, "Who loves you most?" They usually say Mommy and Daddy. Today CJ told me that Mommy loves him most, because she is going to be their teacher. This was after we read Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See. Eric Carle is their favorite author currently. At the end where it asks about the teacher Eliza told me that Mommy was her teacher, and sometimes CJ. This just made me a little teary-eyed. They both informed me then that crying had the /k/ sound and began with C.
More routine development today. Find letter on the quilt, write the letter in the carpet (another C word), make a letter poster, and identify the C foods at breakfast. The kids are great at remembering all the parts of the routine that we added. Today we also talked about how letters pair up and Cooperate to make new sounds. Especially /ch/. Cheese, chicken and chew. C makes 3 sounds, which is easy to remember since it is the third letter of the alphabet. And they both know first, second, third, fourth, all the way up to tenth.
We started talking about weather today, and we are writing on the daily calendar what the weather was. Today was cloudy, perfect for C day. We talked about what activities you can do with different types of weather. Can you fly a kite in the rain? Can you go to the beach in the snow? Can you take a hike when it is sunny? They were very funny when I asked a silly one. They even got me laughing out loud.
They also told me that circle is a C word, and that led into a discussion about properties of all shapes. They identified circle, square, rectangle, trapezoid, triangle and rhombus, with no help from me at all! I guess I have been doing more homeschooling than I thought already. They saw the letter C in CJ's nameplate on his wall, in the toy wrenches at the workbench and on the cold water faucet on their play kitchen. They saw a C in a toy shaped like a half circle, and they loved finding C in all their books. C foods were easy to find in the garden today. Cauliflower, carrots and cabbage all found their way to the dinner table, along with cheese crusted chicken. They were vibrating in their highchairs they were so excited over C night dinner. Their grandparents even came to share in letter C dinner. Crisp made from peaches was the sweet end to the evening. It is a stretch I know, but just wait till letter Z foods! Of course today with the letter C, we also spent time cooking, cleaning, and canning peaches! No wonder I am exhausted!
They seem to be really enjoying this adventure, though Eliza had her first full blown temper tantrum today. She was mad that I wanted her to leave her pants around her feet on the potty. I think she woke the neighbors down the street with the amount of screaming and crying that went on. This was then followed by CJ's total freak out about trying the cabbage for dinner. I was totally ready when it came time for my favorite C words, crib for kids and cocktail for me!
In all seriousness though, I am looking forward to the far more simple letter D tomorrow. It is slightly less daunting than the complicated letter C. Hopefully there will be slightly fewer temper tantrums too. Wish me luck!
HAHAHAHA! Crib and cocktail!!!
ReplyDeleteReilly and I have been doing his kindergarten homework over the summer, and one of the first worksheets we did was identifying shapes. I had him read me the directions, and he struggled over "diamond" which was the last shape to be identified. So I reminded him about context clues and said what other shapes on the page could help us figure out what this word is? What haven't we identified yet? He informed me that we had identified them all, and so I pointed to what was supposed to be the diamond and asked him what that shape was, and he replied, "That's just a rotated square." I about died laughing, because it really was. I drew what I thought of as a diamond and he IMMEDIATELY called it a diamond. So then I was curious and went online to find out the exact definition of a diamond, which is NOT a rotated square, but ALL of the preschool material that popped up for diamond shapes were rotated squares! So now my hope is that instead of just marking his work as WRONG, his teachers understand to ask WHY he thinks something is or is not a certain way, because he's a very literal kid and he may understand the definition more explicitly than other kids his age.
That is so funny! We actually didn't do diamond because after teaching 5th grade math I realized that diamonds don't exist. The kids are learning rhombus and kite, which is very difficult to identify between for them. Reilly sounds like a really smart and awesome kid! You need to send me some pics!
ReplyDeleteAnd that's exactly what I found! There are some kites that are referred to as a diamond kite, but all of them are rhombi? What is the plural of rhombus? Haha!
ReplyDeleteCheck out my fb pics. I pretty much solely have pics of the boys. Hahaha! I loves ma bebes!!!
From what I understand a rhombus is 4 equal sides without right angles, and a kite has the top two sides the same length and the bottom two sides the same length, and it is symmetrical. A diamond is really just a rotated square, so your sweetie pie is a math genius!
ReplyDelete:-) Well clearly Miss Lish, we do good work. ;-)
ReplyDelete