bits

 Part of our play today was building a 'cardboard cave' and painting cave animals on it (marker, really)...I printed one out and she cut it out and traced it.  We discussed Lascaux cave in France, how it was discovered, how old they think the drawings are and what they think they represent.

We also did some rounding number math - of which she said it was too easy, she knew that stuff, why are we doing it, but kept going and going on the Softschools app I brought up.  She drew that math card again for tomorrow...and we will do a bit further into the subject.  I had her do a worksheet that was a little harder and she was able to do it by herself with no trouble. We read our first section in our Social Studies book 'People Together' and discussed it.  She is not enamored with it...but she doesn't 'know' everything in it, either...she was getting things very mixed up so we might have to go slower than I planned on this or it just might have been focus issues (She was like herding cats during the end of the cave project and during the social studies as well). If I hadn't had to leave for work at noon I would have had her take a half hour break instead of starting the reading.

We did poetry - we read several poems and she wrote a poem "from the viewpoint of a cat" as was a suggestion in a prompt site.  She dictated the words again/  I read this a good way to get them going for the first part of elementary years, and then stress more handwriting own production as the year gets further on...stress having _Good_ production before the technicality of writing it all out.  We discussed using adjectives to describe things better - we will be working harder on noun/adjective/verb again because she needs that refresher course.

Pumpkin Cat's Lunxh
a poem by Esme Lamb

If I saw a white mouse
I would chase it to town
catch it by its pink tail
and gobble it down.

I was very hungry
my tummy was not round
but after that fat mouse
I no longer have a frown.
  

 NOTES:  At the last minute, the night before we started school I came up with an idea to 1.) give Esme some feeling of 'choice' in what she does for the day and 2.) Make sure we cover things without getting in a rut or just arguing about what to do wasting time.

I made up two decks of cardstock cards - one purple for Reading, and the other green for Math.  I have had her draw two cards from each deck and that is our suggestion for what to do for that subject for the day.  Some are specific, and others are open-ended.  She and Daddy can suggest things to go in the decks.

Example : Tomorrow she has chosen 'Read a book from your desk or shelf' and ' Read a news article online' for reading.   For math, she has drawn (for the second day in a row, what luck) 'Place Value and Rounding numbers' and 'Measuring, Marking and Cutting project' (geometry).  She agreed we can take the rounding to the 'next level' just a teensy bit and she would like to do it some more.

Having her pick them the night before gives me a chance to arrange some thoughts for the math, especially...and be ready to work with her towards a goal the next day. 

Retention: I'm thinking about giving her a 'test' at the end of the week, or near it -- about major info we learned during the week..and see if she can remember it.  She doesn't like this idea.  I think it's important.  She had great retention about Lascaux but couldn't tell me any of the reasons why we might round numbers (she had been drifting and trying to go play when we were discussing that).