Math Manipulatives, Art and Sheep

Well, AJ's illness didn't turn into anything special . . . the next day she had cold symptoms, no fever, and a return of her energy. Everybody else seemed to escape with very minor cold symptoms.

I've felt like I'm fighting a cold all week, but I think it's allergies. Lots of things are blooming right now.

It's been overall a rather nice week.

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This week we got some Cuisenaire rods to supplement the kids' math program. The Singapore Math series is great, but it is a bit lacking in hands-on learning. I'd read that a lot of people supplement with Miqon math, which utilized the Cuisenaire rods. We got the Miquon Orange book and a couple of other Cuisenaire books to try out.

So far the kids are really loving it. Even Baby E can do some of the simpler activities with the Cuisenaire rods. The rods seem to be the perfect addition to our math studies. M&M, especially, really seems to be helped by having a manipulative to help explain various concepts--no surprise there, since I already knew she was a highly kinetic and visual learner.

Baby E seems to be a kinetic learner, too. She picked out an alphabet puzzle that has upper and lower case letters with pictures underneath, and is really loving that. She is learning the letters and their sounds quickly with letters she can handle and feel. She loves puzzles and has really been wanting to learn how to read, so this is a great toy for her.

The other day I was doing the puzzle with her and she picked up a lowercase "j". I said, "What does that one say?" and she said, "I don't know . . . oh, I know! It says, 'Put me on wee jewwy beans!'" And she did.

One way I've utilized kinetic and visual activities in our homeschooling is by having the kids color or draw while they listen to me read. They really enjoy that, and it actually seems to really help them pay attention and retain the information. AJ, especially, likes to illustrate the story I'm reading, and then show her pictures to the rest of the family as we discuss the story afterwards.

Here are some pictures they drew while listening to a Bible story this week (can you guess which one?) [Click to view larger versions]










(E-Bee did have a little help with the heart here)



We've been studying Israel, which has been a lot of fun. The kids have discovered that they really love hummus. What's not to love about a food that just about anything can be dipped into? Here's a photo of one of this week's lunches (the kids also had goat's milk yogurt and, yes, we did talk about the fact that eating lamb meat and yogurt together wasn't kosher):





(Heehee, I just noticed the typo in the copyright notice. Ooops. Too much effort to change it at the moment, LOL.)

Yesterday afternoon everybody was grumpy and stir-crazy, so I decided to surprise the kids and take them for a walk. We ended up walking about a mile each way to see the sheep at the bottom of the hill. That was a lot of fun, especially since it was prime time for counting schoolbuses. We saw over 20 schoolbuses, a couple of hourses, 5 or 10 dogs, a jogger, a bicyclist, and the sheep. The girls and I enjoyed collecting some strands of wool off the fence to feel.

When we got home the kids still weren't worn out, so they ride tricycles in the driveway for a while as I did some very belated pruning and tidying of the roses and herbs in the front yard.

Then night Doctor A and a friend came over for dinner and we played Dutch Blitz. It had been a long time since I'd played. I'd forgotten how much fun it was. Dr. A's friend was playing for the first time, but was a really good sport about being the most inexperienced (and thus the slowest) player.

For those who have never played Dutch Blitz, I highly recommend it. It's an Amish/Pennsylvania Dutch game much like Nertz. It's a fast and frenzied game with everyone playing at once and trying to beat each other to play their cards.