Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Spring outing



There are days that must be spent out of doors. Yesterday was just one of those days. The children and I packed our nature journals and explored the backroads of our growing town until we ended up at a little park.

We saw Pelicans - which I have never in my life seen before. We watched them circle above us in perfect formation. The graceful sky gliding dance pretty much made my day.


Liam is seven and so I know better than to question why he does what he does. It makes complete sense in his mind and that is good enough for me. So I did not make any comment when he decided to wear his long johns under his shorts. Nor did I inquire how he managed to lose his shorts in the lake. If I were to guess I would have to say he lost his shorts in the lake so that he could have an excuse to take off his shoes and wade in the frigid waters. Good thing he wore his long johns though.



While Liam was up to his knees in muck, Tansy wandered away with my camera. She took pictures of trees, shells, duck prints, gofer holes, geese and pretty much anything that charmed her curiosity.


Days like this keep me sane. Days like this remind me how truly blessed I am to be able to have most my children at home with me. (I wish Tristan could have shared in our outing. We miss him while he is in public school). Thank you Father for days like this.



Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Dear Shawna: Math

Shawna is our home school facilitator and we use our blog as a means of letting her know what we are doing with our education. These posts could be used as possible reference for other home schoolers (not that I am someone of reference but perhaps what works for us might work for someone else - you never know). So, with no further ado...

Dear Shawna,
Liam and Tansy are using the worksheets from math-drills.com.


Tansy is working daily on her multiplication and long division. The goal is to make sure she is proficient in the basics before we move on to algebra.


Liam has a firm understanding of the concept (he adds in his head and uses his fingers one and two digit numbers). We have never really sat him down for any formal math study. He has picked up his knowledge through play and perhaps observation. Any worksheets he does is a form of play now. He enjoys to do what we call 'window math'.


http://www.math-drills.com/addition/add_horiz_one-digit_001.pdf



http://www.math-drills.com/multiplication/mult030236_001.pdf


http://www.math-drills.com/division/div0301nr_003.pdf




Most of Tansy's work is done using waterproof markers on the windows in the kitchen. We call this 'window math'. This is one way we excite the children to do some figures.