Thursday, January 22, 2009

This Week At The School of Bantau



Watch out or I'll gnaw you to death with my tooth


Monday we talked about Martin Luther King, Jr. I explained a little about segregation and how eloquent a speaker MLK was. I explained that he pushed many changes in laws to relieve the burden of segregation. Aria asked if she would have been made to sit in the back of the buses. I said she would have passed for a white person. She could have lived in white society, but I don't know what she would have had to deal with if her community knew she was 1/4 black.

Tuesday we did some math worksheets practicing more place value with Aria and comparing 3 digit numbers with Casey. Aria is really grasping the place value associations now. I am so glad to see the light coming on for her. I hope someday soon she will see how much fun it can be to figure out math problems. Math is great for those of us concerned with the 'right' answers. In math, there is always a right answer. There is no room for subjective meandering in math.

Casey had a tougher time with three digit comparisons. We're working with greater than and less than. The worksheet site I am using jumped from using one digit numbers to three and this is not very conducive to happy learning. So, I think we will have to practice seeing the patterns in higher numbers before doing any more of those comparison worksheets.

We went to the library. Casey and Connor played on the computers while Aria found tons of books that looked interesting to her. Which made me glad for her. Connor found some books about bowling which he thumbs through periodically. He points at the pictures and tells me he wants to go there. :) Aria found some movies and music for us to enjoy, too.


I lost the rest of my marbles a long time ago

Wednesday I read Junie B. Jones to the children till they squirmed. Then they completed their math worksheets (more place value and comparing numbers). Casey practice the "ap" family of words. Aria read Captain Underpants for 5 minutes by herself, and we learned the Word of the Day, punctuate.

Today, I read Captain Underpants to Casey and Aria read Junie B to herself for about ten minutes. We watched Bindi the Jungle Girl on Discovery Kids. Aria and I enjoyed the show very much. I was surprised to learn that platypuses are venomous. Casey was mildly interested and managed to glance at the show a once or twice. :)

We played a math game called "Race to 100". This practices place value. Aria won to Casey's very observable and whiny dismay. Our word of the day was, Marsh. Casey practice letter formation by tracing a few upper and lower case A's and B's.


I made a cookie for you but I eated it.


I ordered Shiller Math online yesterday. I am very excited. I hope that it works as well as I think it will. Now if I can just find fun and tactile ways to learn everything else.


Baking is very serious work.

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