Math buttons

Yesterday I decided to do a little math exercise I found here. We had 10 buttons, I would take x amount, Wiyot counted how many were left on the table and then had to work out how many I had in my hand. Wiyot absolutely loved it, we played for ages. He especially liked it when I either took zero buttons leaving all 10 on the table, or took all 10 leaving nothing.

After playing for a while I decided to change it a little bit by adding our number cards that we'd made some time ago. I also made some new one's as we didn't have a zero card and needed an extra 10, I also made a + and = card. Then we did the same game but Wiyot also had to find the right numbers and make them up into a sum.
Wiyot enjoyed it so much I had to call an end to the game, lol.

He then wanted to play it again in the afternoon. I decided to
change the game to a Montessori exercise I found in a library book. In this one he had to count the buttons into cups. You're supposed to do it with 11 cups labeled 0-10, but I only had 6 so we had to do it in two stages... Think he enjoyed this too as he liked playing with the buttons. As a bonus we got to discuss "too many" and "too few" when he got it a little wrong... Think he was having trouble counting the larger numbers in his hand. I also asked him things like which cup had more buttons, etc.

I made some Montessori word cards as well which he had a quick go at. He looks at the picture eg a cat and then has to work out the letters that make up the word by saying it out loud. He did most of them really well, think he struggled on "web" thought the b was a p... Will add pictures of them another day.

I ordered some books for him the other day, they arrived while we were playing with the buttons. Am looking forward to using them next week :-)

The paintings from yesterday :)

As promised, here are the paintings that we did yesterday.

Here's Wiyot's, he decided he wanted a sad turtle... and also wanted it to be a bumble bee, hence the legs that look more like wings :-)



And this one is mine, lol. Wiyots crinkly water effect definitely worked better than mine.

Still haven't found the site where I got the idea from, which is a bummer as there was loads of art projects on there. If and when I find it I'll add a link. Basically we drew the turtles onto water colour paper and then painted with water colours over the top. Trying to make sure it's nice and wet, you then cover it with cling film and scrunch it about to create the pattern. We then left them to dry for about an hour before removing the wrap.

EDIT: Ok... was just perusing the blogosphere and happened across the site where I got the idea from. It was here at Art Projects for Kids and is the Sea Turtle Painting :)


And here's a little picture he drew the other day. Think it was as I was doing the breakfast, I'd given Shoshone some crayons to scribble with and, as kids do, Wiyot decided he wanted to draw too... I grabbed an old letter for him and then he did this really cute pic. I'm sad I didn't get better paper for him now :(

Anyway, it's Daddy, Mommy, Wiyot and Shoshone, in that order.


Daddy thought it was very funny that he was one of the littlest characters, lol.


Wiyot remembered his "or" and "air" today, woo hoo, as well as his tricky words and I've taught him one more "we" that was all for the education today as we were out visiting a friend.

Much better today

I don't know why I tried doing some education with Wiyot on Monday, I knew I wasn't in the mood for it... feeling very touchy and a very short fuse, and it never helps to put him in the right mind for learning.

Anyway, yesterday went much better. He still struggled with "or" and "air" but grasped the sound blending again, which was good. I decided to just stick to one beginning sound of "f" and changed the second sound... They weren't all real words, but I just wanted him to get the idea of blending again. Doing made up words means he can't guess either, which is good.

Again today he got stuck on "or" and "air" but I've done spot tests throughout the day and he seems to have got them now...

Decided to teach him a couple of tricky words today, his first ones. I chose the and you, not sure if there's meant to be a particular order you teach these, but hay ho... Think he's remembered them though, we'll see when I check again tomorrow.

We also did some sand writing, he did really well with it. He tends to be quite resistant to writing, but had very little hesitation to writing in the salt, so that was great.

And last but not least, we got out the paints and did a lovely turtle painting that I found on someones blog. I'll try and find a link to it and I'll post some pics when I get chance...

Phonics.

Did a bit of phonics with Wiyot today. Wasn't a good day for it, he wasn't in the mood and consequently didn't know some of the ones he's known for quite a while and seemed to have completely forgotten how to blend the sounds to form a word.

Not sure how he compares to other kids his age and I know it means nothing really as all kids are different. But I think he's doing really well with it all.

I've been using the Ruth Miskin system with him. Think we started mid January... he already knew all the letter names and most of their sounds, we've had to re-teach some of them though as we were saying them "muh" instead of "mmm" as they recommend. Makes sense really, makes it easier for the sound blending...

Anyway, he knows all of his Set 1 Speed Sounds (m a s d t, i n p g o, c k u b, f e l h sh, r j v y w, th z ch qu x ng nk) and is now learning Set 2.

So far he knows:

ay: ay may I play
ee: ee what do you see?
igh: fly high
ow: blow the snow
oo: poo at the zoo
oo: look at a book
or: shut the door
air: that’s not fair

He was struggling with the last two today... Maybe it'll sink in during the night and he'll wake up with a more positive attitude, fingers crossed!

A new blog...

Not sure how often I'll be blogging here...

I'm hoping it will be a place for me to share our home education adventures. The kids aren't at "compulsory school age" yet, so technically they don't have to do anything formal.

But I'm sure many of you know, home education doesn't start at 5...