The past two weeks were a tad out of the ordinary. We had houseguests visiting from Germany. They have two little boys, 2 & 4. Despite the lack of a common language, the kids interacted fantastically and the older boy would protest when they would go sightseeing each day, asking to stay with Sanji instead. Sanji and he, Jusus, are going to start writing to one another as pen pals. Their dad was a foreign exchange student that interned where my dad worked when I was in high school. Our families have kept in touch all these years and this is the second time they have visited us here in Portland.
In math, adding has just been introduced. I really love how a concept is introduced but then not drilled in. In one of our lessons Sanji was asked to enter 3 on the abacus, then I placed my finger after the 3 beads and asked her to enter 2 more. So she could see that 3 and 2 are five. We had several exercises like that, with the abacus, and with manipulatives. It all focused on 5. There was one lesson just on the different ways to split 5.
Sanji really enjoys when the different cards come out for games. One day the game was to put the number cards in order and then each of us takes turn removing one but pushing the cards together so there is no gap. The other has to quickly say what number is missing. Many of the games and concepts seem so simple but as the lessons progress, I see how they all fit together and how important they are to reinforce.
I am still holding out that I will win an All About Reading set! One of the contests ends on Tuesday. If I don't win, I'm going to order it that same day. Sanji has been using Explode the Code online, a few times a week. I'm really missing the structure of AAR though. She also reads books of her choice daily and loves to take turns reading pages with me when I am reading to her.
Last week we learned about Flamingoes. She had taken a sudden interest in them and somehow I had no idea that we have them here at the Oregon Zoo. We are going to go see them next week. We watched some Discovery videos about Flamingoes, read some educational books about them, and some fun stories. I found tiny rubber flamingos that I gave her on the first day of flamingo fun and on the last day I gave her a cute webkinz plushie that she named Flora, after one of the books we read.
I'm still not doing tons of planning, we pretty much wing it and I'm kind of learning to accept that the way that I picture in my mind as being the "right" way or the "best" way, doesn't mean that we can't do it another way and have it be great. Which it has been, and is.
