Aaron was excited to go back to VH, Naim not so much. But then after he got there all was fine.
So here is what I have for math playground:
This week we explored the commutative property of addition and practiced addition sums by:
– Reading “One Monkey Too Many” (by Koller)
– Playing with the Math Monkey (balancing the same number of bananas on both sides)
– Doing a banana puzzle to find sums to 11
– Playing with the 11-bead board
– Doing fun relays with domino addition, and
– Adding 11s with bean sticks
The memory trick that I use to remember that the COMMUTative property allows us to “move around” the numbers when adding (e.g. 2+3 gives the same result as 3+2) is to think of cars driving around while COMMUTing.
We also practiced counting up to 30 with a dot-to-dot puzzle, practiced spatial logic with a button puzzle, practiced visual discrimination with a matching puzzle, and had some spontaneous skip-counting (by 10s and 100s).
One learner discovered the “doubles plus one” addition trick. (For example, if you know that 4+4=8, then you also know that 4+5=9.)
Bookworms, which they are both in now, was something about pirates. Aaron made a Jolly Roger flag, but left it at Dwights.
Science for Naim was the digestive system where they made a “digestive” machine and ultimately made POOP!
Legos was Legos.
Avery and I stayed home today and he was self-managed pretty much because I had lots of pain. His receptive skills are getting better and better. I am able to tell him now what is coming up ahead. Like, “Let’s change diapers and then you can come back down and play.” You have to keep the sentences very simple and sometimes repeat them two or three times, but his behavior calms (instead of screaming at the thought of being torn from what he is doing to change diapers, he accepts his fate and goes willingly. This has helped tremendously to get him to have some patience when he wants food or a refill of something from the kitchen. We now have enough communication (most days) for me to tell him that I’m going to go get him some water and he won’t scream until I come back with the actual water. I can also (usually) get a solid yeah or head nod to get that water is what he wanted in the first place.
It is coming, ever so slowly….It is coming.
Filed under: Communication, Language Arts, Math, Science | Tagged: Bookworms, Gooey Science, Legos, Math Playground | Leave a comment »
Acquara Independent School 