Cuttlefish, Chromatophores, & Coolness

Today, thanks to Creature Cast, we learned about both multicellular organisms and squid iridescence. Although I think much of it was over P's head, he seemed to grasp some of it. We talked about it more, made reference to how the iridescence was similar to butterfly wings (like in the video), and then sought out videos to showcase it in "real life".

we looked at some of Loligo squid (the kind mentioned in the Creature Cast), including some neat light displays. At about that point, we watched the NOVA "About Cuttlefish" short, and had to learn more!

NOVA has a website on these "Kings of Camouflage", and we enjoyed learning more about the Anatomy of a Cuttlefish (including its weird W-shaped pupil, its 200 chromatophores or pigment cells per square millimeter, and its blue-green blood!) and watching videos of these Quick Change Artists.

Pretty awesome stuff.

Aerodynamics (or why paper planes work better)

Learning math

We starting officially doing the Math-U-See Primer curriculum. P breezed through lessons 1 & 2, and will need to work on writing, which I expected. K also breezed through 1 & 2, though it was quite clear that she just didn't get the concept of "zero", so we'll be focusing on that for a short while for her.

Number Love and Workbook Fun

Today, P decided on the way to go swimming to count from 100 to 200, and did so with no problems. After returning from swimming (where we spent about 2 hours in the pool with both P and K learning to kick), P started turning over pairs of Uno Hearts cards and adding them together with the use of Math-U-See manipulatives.

We then started looking through the stack of Brighter Vision Learning Adventure workbooks we've collected, and both P and K started working through pages of them. K stuck mainly to coloring via a color-dot method and practicing letters. P followed a chart to color images, worked some 2-digit equations, some word finds, decoder puzzle (where you use a code and then write the word based on it), logic puzzle, mazes, and search and find pictures. We also did a word page that emphasized the consonant digraph "wh". P did skip-counting by 10s and by 5s (using nickel examples).

1+10=11

July 17th

Writing numbers, adding place value, sequential order

Peace Camp: Day Four

P's activities today were: Board Games, Marbles, and Chess.

In addition, P is learning typical "socialized" behaviors, including lunch sharing, name calling, and general potty talk. We discussed in depth the importance of being Kind First, thoughtful and respectful of all, and that some language just are generally inappropriate for people in general (and kids in particular). We also discussed healthy food options based on nutritional values, and made sure to get more input on what we included in his lunch.

Today's theme: "It Matters What You Do!"

Measuring Differences

P demonstrated knowledge of different volume measuring sizes today - cup versus gallon, teaspoon versus cup, etc., and which ones were larger than others.

Global Domination Risk

Today, P and I spent several pockets of the day playing Risk, for 2 players. We took turns placing our armies and later applying new armies and attacking. Adding is required a lot (P referred to it as a counting game!), and then we consulted a chart we created to determine what the total number of added countries we each controlled was when divided by 3 and rounded up (such that 1, 2, 3 = 1; 4, 5, 6 = 2; 7, 8, 9 = 3; etc.).

Strategy is the point of the game, and that was used to determine whether or not to attack an opponent. Comparisons of army totals (for example, 5 armies on Congo is greater than 3 armies on North Africa, and therefore more likely to succeed) and learning the Roman numerals (I, III, V, X) for the pieces representing the army numbers also was used. Figuring out how to win an entire continent to get the bonus number of armies as well as matching up cards to get more armies was another aspect of the game.

Although we did modify a few of the rules (like the increasing value of the cards), P was very amenable to the rule modification from the sample run with Jeff the day before. P quickly controlled Australia, and my attempts to maintain South America were repeatedly assaulted by P taking over North Africa and attacking from there. I had him read/sound-out/say all the country names, which is hard when Irkutsk is one of them! Near the end, I briefly held North America before he invaded from Asia, and he had Europe for a while before I took out Western Europe and swept through from there. We ended up stopping the game because it was very late, and he definitely was well within a position to completely win.

Laid-back Morning

What a great start to the day this has been. P and K have been playing together, showing sharing and turn-taking, and many other social skills. Compromise, self-expression, anger management, problem-solving, and most importantly conflict resolution.

We followed that up with a number of rounds of Shape Shuffle (tangram puzzles), where K put together on her own a number of puzzles that required shape matching. She also made color matches and patterns.

P worked at harder puzzles that had no guiding lines, and showed how a circle can be divided into two half-circles or even four quarter-circles. He showed some creative manipulation of pieces to make a candlestick all one color with limited pieces. We also briefly discussed how you can make other pieces from smaller pieces. He made color patterns and isolations within puzzles as well. Finally, he studied the shape name sheet.

After that, we pulled out Hullabaloo where P and K had a great time moving around in different ways (galloping, walking, crawling, hopping, etc.) and following directions while also making color and shape distinctions.

Oh, and another social skill -- they cleaned up when they were done! This is one we often have trouble with, so it is worthwhile to mention.

Oatmeal Cookies

P and K helped me make oatmeal cookies today. We measured out ingredients (US measures), prepared the separate bowls of wet and dry, and mixed it all together. We then "patiently" counted the 9 minutes down to when they could come out of the "very hot" 375-degree oven, and then divided them up evenly between the three of us. Yummmm.

Math Building/Exploration

Birthday Cake Lesson

Another Learning Coop activity, the planned lesson was to talk about birthdays and celebrations, read the book __________, measure and bake a cake, and then decorate it afterwards.

P played but didn't participate in the actual baking activity, though he sang happy birthday, listened to the story and decorated/ate the cake. And LOVED playing with others in the backyard.

K listened to the story, peeked in through the passthrough at the baking, and finally warmed up more when it was time to decorate/eat the cake. After that, she was golden, and in the end left saying she loved the host-mom's daughter. And, this afternoon, she told me how much she liked two older girls in the group who wear skirts like her and have brown hair like her.

Math-U-See Math Manipulatives

Our new math manipulatives came in, and neither P nor K wasted any time in "playing" with them.

K started by making a cube of 100s to form a "thousand".

P created two pyramids: one in which he counted by 2s using two ones, then two twos, two threes, etc. and another in which he started with a two and went upwards by two with two, four, six, eight, ten, ten plus two, etc.

Chess Practice

Early Morning Chess

Building Castles

P created a representational castle using large building blocks.

Homemade Catapults

Jeff helped P & K create catapults out of measuring spoons and string, and used river rocks from out front to knock down Lego towers. This followed a discussion of historic battles involving castle raids and the use of cobbled together catapults to break through town walls. Several attempts to get the correct trajectory with the homemade catapult were used to finally knock it down.