Measurement Fun!

This is such an easy activity, I sometimes forget to get the stuff out! Joy and I have been measuring lots of things lately, including her kitten and the trees in the National Geographic insert (which are huge, btw!). I want Joy to explore all kinds of measurement, so we began weighing things and exploring volume.

Most of measurement is fun, but finding volume or capacity is the best! We gathered some measuring cups and spoons, a funnel, and some random containers. I put some water into a small plastic tub and we played on the table, since it's too cold to play with the water outside.

At first, I just let Joy explore pouring, overflowing, splashing, funneling, and other fun stuff. Then I started asking her guiding questions. Here are a few of them:

1. Which one holds more water?
2. Can all of that water fit in here?
3. How would you get water into this skinny container?
4. How many teaspoons of water can fit in here?
5. Does this container hold a whole cup of water?
6. How can you find out how much water this container holds?

Some of her explorations were quite careful, and some were quite impulsive. I wasn't out to have Joy know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon! My purpose was for her to explore the volumes of known- and unknown-capacity containers. In other words, I just wanted her to know that we can measure the capacity of a container, and that we might use teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, etc. to do so.

Using the funnel turned out to be quite a bit of fun! Joy hadn't used one for a while and didn't remember what they do. She was quite intrigued by the tall skinny purple container and wanted to put water into it. She tried pouring water into it, but was frustrated. I suggested that she use the funnel, and after some fumbling, she came up with the method shown on the right. Then she used the funnel for every container!

We left the materials on the table for several days so Joy could play, and she did. These experiences are crucial to developing vocabulary and understanding of not just measurement, but of our world!

Tracking Trapezoids

Joy and I have been looking for shapes a lot lately. It all started with a Montessori Geometry App for the iPad. It's by Les Trois Elles and available in the iTunes App Store. It's a great app with activities for kids from 2-10! I've even learned some things. The younger children can put shapes into puzzle forms; the older students work with patterns, determining how one shape is different from three others, etc. Joy likes the app, and so do I!

We started paying attention to shapes around our home, like these bricks. We named them rectangles first... then quadrilaterals... then parallelograms. Joy was learning a lot from playing with her app!







We started finding parallel lines everywhere. I would point them out at first, then Joy started finding them. We found them on our craft table and our floor. We found them on sidewalks and between bricks. And of course, we had lots of fun seeing them everywhere!

Joy learned that squares tipped on their sides are what she calls diamonds. That squares and her diamonds are both rhombuses. That squares are always rectangles, but diamonds are sometimes kites, not rectangles.

And we both learned that it's EASY to find rectangles in the real world. Triangles are pretty easy, too. Squares and diamonds are plentiful. But those trapezoids...

We searched high and low for trapezoids! Joy was looking for isoceles trapezoids and right-angled trapezoids. I was watching pretty much everywhere we went for trapezoids. We talked about trapezoids, and why they wouldn't be used very often for architecture (which is where we found many of the other shapes). But we couldn't find trapezoids.

Until we found THIS building! Joy was bouncing and twirling when she found these trapezoids! It has rectangles, squares, parallelograms, and many other shapes, but the trapezoids were special. She insisted I take pictures of the trapezoids...

And when we went inside the building, we found MORE trapezoids in the stonework! To the left, you can see Joy pointing to two right-angled trapezoids, fit together to make a rectangle. We spent lots of time examining the shapes in the stonework; the trapezoids were worth it!





So is the learning. We continue our quest to find shapes in our world.

Publishing Non-Fiction

One of the features of the new Common Core Standards in English and Language Arts is the increased use of non-fiction in reading and writing. I have known for years that the vast majority of required reading as an adult is non-fiction. Including non-fiction in classroom reading has been on the increase for several years, at least in schools in which I have been involved. So including non-fiction reading and writing has been a given with Joy.

The books above are from a series published by Capstone Press. I chose them to be some of Joy's first non-fiction reading because they are interesting and filled with great pictures. There are more in the series, too! As we have read them, I realized they are very patterned from book to book. The picture to the right shows the second section of each book, which is always about the young. Once I realized the books were so patterned, I decided it would be a great non-fiction writing project to write one of our own books in the series!

 Joy, of course, chose to write about puffins. They are still the animal which catches her attention these days. Here is her first page on puffins. You can compare it to the first page of the book on ducks below.

It's easy to see the pattern of this first page, and it was easy for Joy to see it, too. As we wrote each page for the book on puffins, we read the corresponding page in each of the other books in the series. We discussed the patterns found: the information and the sentences. The structure really helped Joy to formulate her own thoughts

about puffins.

Joy has been learning to keyboard using Dance Mat Typing, a terrific online, free program with lots of interesting characters. The puffin book was the first writing project that I had Joy type for herself. She was able to do most of the writing herself. I also used the opportunity to teach her about spell check; she was able to proofread with some help.

In each of the books in the series, there is a pictorial time line of the animal from birth/hatching to adulthood. We made one, too, but couldn't get the graphics to work exactly the same. Joy learned a lot about graphic work on this page! You can see our version close-up below.

Another thing that Joy learned about in this project is finding and using pictures from the internet. We did not cite them; I was more interested in helping her learn how to search for images and manipulate them. We will being citations in first grade, I think.

All in all, this was a fun and interesting project for Joy. She loved her final product, which is now on her bookshelf as a book she can read! She reads to her daddy nightly as part of her "homework," and this is one of her favorite reads.

Biographies

One of the things that Joy and I have been up to in the past couple of months is reading biographies. There are tons of well-written youth biographies in our public library, and we are checking them out three or four at a time. I decided to do this when someone mentioned Abraham Lincoln, and Joy said, "Who's that?"

I have tried to choose biographies from different eras, fields of accomplishment, and types of people. We have read about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Ben Franklin. We've also read about Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr, and Rosa Parks. I've read to Joy about Handel, Rembrandt, and Alexander Graham Bell.

After reading three or four biographies, I realized that we needed to put the people in historical perspective, so I created a GIANT time line.

I started by putting Joy's lifetime, my own, and Joy's dad's lifetime on the time line. I hoped this would give her a little perspective as we added others. She noted that the time line was a lot like our number line, and I pointed out that the numbers on our time line were 10 years apart (just like the red TENS on our number line).

As we added Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Joy exclaimed, "He didn't live very long!" This was proof to me that she truly understood what the time line represents. She was also impressed that both Mom and Dad were alive when Dr. King was alive.

I highlighted a section of the time line for the Civil War because so many of our biographies dealt with people who lived during it. As Abraham Lincoln was one of our first biographies, his lifeline isn't marked on our time line (yet). Joy is starting to understand that many of those living during the Civil War were greatly affected by it.

Joy is very interested in art and music, so we've included several people in each category. I started playing music or showing her pictures by the artists as we learned about them. She has since decided that she loves classical music! I catch her playing classical music on the iPad as often as her favorite Barbie movie soundtrack! A benefit of the biographies project.

This project has been so successful in introducing Joy to many people and eras that I think we'll continue it for the foreseeable future, even if she attends a public school. It's even been interesting to me to see the lifetimes of these people on the same time line! I have all kinds of questions that I'd never thought of before, like, "What did Mozart think about the American Revolution?"

I love learning, and I love the spark of interest I'm seeing in Joy as we learn about these people and their lives. I would recommend this project for any family!

On the Road

 I haven't written a blog post for quite some time. Things have been a little chaotic in our family. My husband and I each have a parent who is terminally ill, one of whom is currently in hospice care. Joy and I have spent many recent days in hospitals, rehab facilities, and at home (away from our home) with ailing grandparents.

Homeschooling is great for situations like this. Joy hasn't missed a day of school! We've had school in the car, in the hospital, and various other locations.

But we also have to adapt our usual lessons for the road. The pictures on the left show some of the many activities that just wouldn't work on a road trip!  Too many pieces, too much stuff to tote, or too messy.

One thing we did to make away-from-home school easier is purchase an iPad. We had talked about it before, but it really seemed to make sense in this situation. And it was a great decision!

 There are soooo many excellent educational apps available, mostly for free. And it was also a wonderful car-time occupier; Joy could listen to music, play games, or read books. I will share some of our favorite educational apps in another post some day soon.

 There are certainly some activities from our normal routine that travel well: Sluggy, the sight word puppet made most of the trips; Tell Tale, the storytelling game, was a hit, even in the car; and our number sense bracelets were easy to carry. We also use some Kumon workbooks occasionally. First, because Joy needs to have experience with written skill activities, and second, because she likes them! Yes, really. So those came along in the car.

I tried to purchase another workbook on one trip, but all I could find were "test prep" workbooks. For KINDERGARTEN??? Really!? It's another sign of just how test-crazy our educational system is right now. The Kumon workbooks are totally different; their sole goal is learning. They are set up for kids to learn a small bit of new information, use it repetitively so they internalize it, and then add another bit of new information. I definitely wouldn't use only Kumon (or any other type of) workbooks, but they are the best I've found.

 So, we've continued school and learning, even in the midst of much traveling and a bit of chaos. Joy seems to be doing okay, even though two of her grandparents are failing. I think being able to help take care of her grandmother has helped her process the upcoming loss.

I'm not sure what the near future holds for either of these dear parents/grandparents. We will continue to serve in any way we can (that is appropriate for an almost-6-yr-old), so their may be more road trip school days for us in the future! I'm so glad that we are able to teach/learn this way.

Building Number Sense (Again)

Remember the egg carton ten-frames? I wrote about them here. Well, I planned to use them today to make some more numbers, but Joy had made a comment about 100, and I switched my plans. That's one of the greatest things about homeschooling: I can vary the plans to meet Joy's immediate interests or needs.

We started by taking the stack of 10 ten-frames apart and laying them out on our number line. At first, Joy was counting by ones to find out where each filled ten-frame went. After thirty, she exclaimed, "I know where they go! They go on the red numbers!" I pointed out that the red numbers were the 10s, which made me giggle a little. Joy often identifies things solely by their color (as in "the girl with the red shirt" at church or someplace).

Then I had Joy dump out the ten-frames, one at a time, and place the individual glass pebbles on the number line. This time, she identified them correctly as "ones" right away. A key factor in my knowing that this was a perfect fit for her number sense understanding was when Joy exclaimed, "It's going to end on the thirty!" after placing 21 and 22. She was clearly comprehending the number organization.

Joy was excited every time the glass pebbles ended on the 10s! Then, at 59, there wasn't another pebble. She looked confused for a moment, and then she very purposefully moved herself and the egg cartons to find the missing pebble. She was quite proud that she knew there had to be one hidden.

When done placing all 100 pebbles on the number line, Joy took great pleasure in counting them by ones all the way to 100! (And yes, we usually have school in our pjs!)

By far, the funniest part of this number sense activity was Joy's kitten. Thankfully, he didn't notice all the glass pebbles until we were done, but then he had a grand time chasing them all over the room!

Number Sense

I have taught math to elementary-aged students for more than 20 years. I have seen math methods come and go, watched students make progress and get stuck in the muck, and tried many "new" things... and I've learned some things. Things that are very much affecting how I teach Joy.

One of the things I know is that kids who just get numbers do much better in math. But how do I teach "getting numbers"?? Because Joy is at an early stage of development in math, and because she has no peers with whom to compare herself (which she would definitely DO if she had them), I can teach her in a way to develop that elusive number sense. So math in Stealth Kindergarten isn't so much about adding and subtracting and comparing numbers, as it is about understanding numbers.

For example, taking the number rolled on two dice, in this case: 56, and making the visual picture of 56 using Base Ten Blocks. These are commercially-made cubes that are in ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands. Fifty-six looks like 5 "longs" (bars of 10 cubes) and 6 "little cubes" (single small cubes). Then Joy counts them, "10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56." This is not easy! Transitioning from counting by 10s to counting by 1s without losing your place is a sophisticated skill. I have known 4th and 5th graders who could not model numbers in this way. Joy has some difficulty with the transitions sometimes, but she is definitely improving her true understanding of what the numbers mean.

Base Ten Blocks are a wonderful tool, and I use them quite often with Joy and with students I tutor in math. They can be used to model numbers through 1,999 and decimals through the thousandths. They are only one tool, though, and one of the other tools I frequently use costs nothing, so I really like it, too!

Egg cartons are a great way to make ten-frames! A ten-frame is simply a rectangle with two rows of five spaces, equaling 10, of course. We have used ten-frames to learn to identify numbers of objects up to ten.

For these ten-frames, I cut off the lid and one set of the egg-holes so there are ten holes in two rows of five. I use small glass beads that are sold for use in plant vases. You could use anything from buttons to pennies to marbles to fill the ten-frames. You can see that we have quite a number of these egg-carton ten-frames!

I have collected egg cartons for about a year now, and we have more than 20 of them. I bundled up a stack of ten to make one "hundred." Now Joy can make numbers up to 199! We sometimes roll the dice to select a number. Sometimes, I write a number on a whiteboard for Joy to create, and sometimes I model a number and she writes it down. Understanding that 38 is much smaller than 83 is an important goal of these kinds of activities. Place value is an essential skill to understanding how numbers work.

 

Another way to model numbers is with visual patterns. A ten-frame is one visual pattern for kids to use. Dice arrange the numbers 1-6 in different ways that are good to recognize. These cards are an extension on some visual patterns.  We are playing "War" with them in this picture, comparing the number of dots on each card.

After becoming familiar with many different visual models of numbers, I had Joy make her own set of ladybug cards, putting various visual models on ladybugs. To the right, she put a dice-shaped 6, plus one. Below, she used the 10-frame model to make the same 7. Joy had a great time creating ladybugs with various dot patterns. We use them to play games and she loves it!

We've even found visual models for numbers in making cookies!!!!
Joy recognized this "nine" right away.

These pipe cleaner bracelets are also part of Joy's number sense instruction. Each one has a different number of buttons on it and is labeled with that number. The idea behind these is that you can divide the buttons into two groups, modeling part-part-whole.

For example, the 8 bracelet identifies the whole (8). In this picture, the two parts are 4 and 4. So this model shows the following:  4+4=8 and 8-4=4. We use these frequently to tell stories and model the number facts.

This 10 bracelet models 7+3=10, 3+7=10, 10-3=7 and 10-7=3. We might tell a story like this: There were 10 children at the playground; three went home. How many children are left at the park? Joy tells stories for me, and I tell stories for her. This is important because it helps her understand the stories better than simply answering "story problems."

We just recently added triangular flash cards to our number sense instruction. These are cards that show the whole number family, not just a simple problem. I absolutely believe that children need to develop automaticity with basic math facts, but this will be far more meaningful if they have a strong number sense before they try to memorize. These cards are a great transition; under Joy's hand is the "whole" (5). Each card shows "part-part-whole," and the "whole" is red. So you can use this card to model 5+0=5, 0+5=5, 5-0=5, or 5-5=0. Using these cards will help Joy move toward numerical representations of the number sense she is developing.


A good resource if you are looking to work on number sense with your little one is Building Number Sense by Catherine Jones Kuhns. It has great activities for K-1 students!