October Highlights

Still playing catch up. Warning - This one is long! Here is a snapshot of our month of October.

Math

In October, we continued to work on the concept of numbers. We made books for the numbers 5 and 6 and then followed each of those weeks by working on Math Mats. We are loving our Logic Problems with the Teddy Bear counters. This month, we also used a story board of a field with a scarecrow. We used various unifix blocks to tell stories about the farm. In this picture, SharkMan is telling a story about pumpkins gowing and being picked. This activity, helps to reinforce how numbers can change. When children start story problems, one of the most difficult steps for them to determine is what operation to do with the number - am I suppose to add, subtract... Using Story boards, SharkMan begins to see what can cause him to add (planted more pumpkins, brought more pumpkins) or subtract (decayed, sold.) Hopefully, this will help him when we get to story problems. The mat comes from my one of my favorite books Developing Number Concepts with Unifix Cubes - by Richardson.We also used the Story boards to compare. In the picture below, we are comparing pumpkins with stems to those without. These stories make math concepts very natural to talk about and allows SharkMan to make many discoveries on his own.

We are still using the Hundreds Board weekly. I love how using the manipulative is helping SharkMan to really make associations. He discovered that columns end in the same number and rows start in the same number. I think that children learn so much more when they discover rather than being told. Some of our other activities included playing games. For example, we find might find a number higher 84 or a number lower than 52. We also find numbers between two different numbers. We have drawn pictures with the board, where I give SharkMan different numbers to color and then he connects all the coordinates with lines (like a dot to dot.) We only do a hundreds board activity on Monday and although they are time consuming, I think it is one of our favorite learning tools.

We also are continuing to use the Cuisenaire rods along with the alphabet book. I do think that these are getting a little repetitious for SharkMan and he is not enjoying them as much as he did in the beginning. However, the activities are very powerful. For each letter of the alphabet, he has to come up with different ways to use the rods to make the letters. For example, use less than 5 rods to make the M, or use all of the same color to make a letter. The last activity for each letter is to use each color rod only once in making the letter and then to count the value of each color. SharkMan already knows the value for each color and their relationships to the other color rods. He is also learning that 2 light green rods are equivalent to 1 teal. This will be very helpful when we learn fractions since I plan to use the cuisenaire rods for that too. I love how simple this alphabet book has been but yet so complex at the same time.

I also included a picture of our calendar. This month, we are doing an AAB coloring pattern, working on writing the numbers (and reviewing with sandpaper numbers) and counting down the days until Fall Festival. We use the chains on the right to record the number of days we have had learning time. (In addition, we read the matching Psalm for that day during Bible Time.) The chains allow for daily practice with ones and tens column. I was so proud when SharkMan knew to move the 10 chains into the ones column when we reached day 30. Also included on the board is our weekly nursery rhyme.

SharkMan also enjoyed playing with his new Tangram set.

Reading

We are loving the Sonlight literature. We have read My Father's Dragon multiple times, but SharkMan wanted to hear it again. (I gave him the choice between it and a new novel.) I added Charlotte's Web as our nightly reading since we are studying spiders this month. We have read many books on spiders, bats, and pumpkins. We are also reading a book about the seasons each week. Our literature rotation is going well as we read and learn nursery rhymes and fairy tales. We continue to work on letter sounds. We also found some fun ways to practice writing our letters - Wikki Stix and Chocolate Pudding.

Science

Our focus this month included finishing our plant unit and then units on the jungles, spiders, bats and seasons. We also did a unit on experiments including learning how dish soap helps water clean a plate.
PaPa Shark bought a mini-volcano which they enjoyed watching together.

We had a great Science Day with our homeschool group. We had Pumpkin Day where we measured the circumference of the pumpkin with string and the height of the pumpkin and the stem with unifix cubes.