Rainforest Dioramas

The end of our rainforest unit required the kids making a diorama. I gave them each a shoebox, open access to all of the art supplies, and a rubric. Then they asked if they could use some of the plastic animals and plants and I agreed. They both did a great job.

Both of them side by side

SweetSon's diorama

He built trees and even had a monkey hanging from the vines connecting the trees. There is an ape sitting on the large rock as well as many other animals hidden. There were 7 different animals included in his diorama. He had a plan from the beginning when he started painting the background and it seemed to all work perfectly for him.

Sweet Daughter's diorama

She stood the shoebox up and went in an entirely different direction. She also has 7 different animals hidden, but I loved that she used (with permission) some of the blue strings off of a pompom to hang as rain. She also included a human figure to be a scientist observing the animals. She didn't have a plan until it all came together and looked great.

Sugar Cube Pyramids

When studying pyramids in Ancient Egypt, one of the projects is to build a pyramid out of sugar cubes. This was fun and not as messy as I had expected, though certainly not neat.

She started by dumping them all out and trying to group them in a pile.

He started with a very exact method so it would be perfectly square.

Her finished pyramid.

His finished pyramid.

He didn't stop there. He added an entire complex. The side pyramids for the wives, the path from the river into the pyramid, etc.

Building a Castle

As part of our curriculum, when studying the middle ages, the kids made a castle out of a box. They did all of the cutting themselves. We only helped tie on the string for the draw bridge. They also decorated their boxes.

She colored all of the outside of hers and part of the inside.

He wrote Do Not Enter.

Things Kids Say (October)

There have been so many things recently that the kids have said that are funny or profound in some way. I'm going to try to remember a few.



Son: "Ruby Bridges went to a gray school."
Me: "Huh?"
Son: "It was mixing black and white at the school."



Whiny 5 year old, the world is ending voice Sweet Son: "Mommy I need your help. Mommy, help me. Help me Mommy."
Big sigh, Me: "Yes? What do you need help with?"
Sweet Son: "I need more present tense words."
Me: "Huh? What did you say?"
Sweet Son: "I'm writing words and I want more present tense words."
Me: "Of course you do."



Sweet Daughter: "So since you mostly vote for people, we aren't a real democracy are we?"
Yes, this led to a long discussion. Because what else would you discuss in the car?




Sweet Son: "N (boy at school) hit the tree and I told him to stop because trees give us oxygen. Then N said trees can hurt us, but I told him we need trees to breathe. It's not food, water, and shelter, but it helps provide us with all of those things if you really think about it."




Son: I don't know how to do this. Can you help?
Daughter: My brain knows how to do it, but I don't.
Son: Aren't you using your brain?

3D City

In addition to the Montessori Kindergarten they are attending in the mornings, I'm working with them in the afternoons. I am using Moving Beyond the Page (MBTP) for our core and Life of Fred for Math. We did some of the MBTP level 5-7 during the Summer and it was easy, so we moved on to level 6-8 for Kindergarten. The first unit was communities. This is one of the projects from that unit.

Sweet Daughter working on labeling her buildings.

They each have 2 large poster boards taped together. They got to lay out their own roads (painters tape because we were being lazy), cut out and assemble the 3D buildings, plan where they were going to go and label them.

Sweet Son labeling his buildings.

Later they also added parks, lakes, and other physical features. Then they used cars and the people from the doll house to play with their new cities.

I have a dream

On the way to school yesterday this conversation happened:

Sweet Son: Mama, I had a dream like Martin Luther King Jr.
Me: You did? What was your dream?
Sweet Son: Well, not just like Martin Luther King Jr.
Me: Ok, what was your dream?
Sweet Son: MLK Jr wanted everyone to be nice and do stuff together no matter what they looked like.
Sweet Son: Yeah, my dream wasn't like that.
Me: What was your dream?
Sweet Son: I dreamed about happy alligators.

Sweet Daughter later said she dreams about her recital and having everyone watch her sing and how everyone will clap when she bows.

MLK Jr.

Every year I read the kids MLK Jr's famous speech. Each year I ask the kids what it was about with varying degrees of understanding. This year they were confused by one thing. Why wouldn't people who are black and white be the same? Sweet Daughter even added, "It's just skin color, it's not anything important like if they know how to follow the rules." I tried explaining that in the recent past people believed the darker your skin color the worse of a person you were. Sweet Son exclaimed, "That's just rude!" They both named people they are friends with who have different color skin. They both pointed out that they are darker than I am. (haha, I know) They are glad MLK Jr did something so that people would be nice to each other.

They were most surprised to find out not everyone agreed and that some people wanted to hurt him. Sweet Daughter said, "Maybe it was a baby who tried to hurt him because they don't know the rules." I said there were many adults who were upset at the idea of all people being equal. Sweet Son said, "But why? That's not logical!"

I love my kids.

Fire Station Party

We were invited to a birthday party at a local fire station. The kids loved it and still talk about the things they learned at the party.

They were given fire hats and sat in the living room to listen to the firefighters talk about fire safety. 

They got to see each piece of equipment put on and what a firefighter will look like crawling toward them. This may seem strange, but if you think about it, in a fire what the child would see coming toward them would be a scary mask and someone who can't hear well. Having the kids know that before they need to can only be positive. 

Then the kids got to learn all about the engines. In addition to getting to go inside, they also got to see what is kept in the different side panels and learn about how you can tell what type of truck it is and what station it is based at by the markings on the side. 

My kids finally ate cake. I don't think they either one finished, but at least they tried. 

Then we went out back to hit the firetruck pinata.

After each child took turns hitting it, one of the firefighters used a pocket knife to make a weak spot. It still took the firefighters a few tries to get it break open. The kids collected the candy as their party favor (in addition to the hat). It was a great party and I would suggest asking if your fire station would let you party there.

The Importance of Early Education

 So my post on Tuesday was about how to develop the brain for better reading success. Now I'm going to do a post on why your child doesn't need to know how to read early.

Kids were tested going into Kindergarten on their knowledge of reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies. What was the best predictor of later reading and Math tests (2nd grade and up)? Science and Social Studies, in that order. Kindergarten reading was not even correlated to 2nd grade reading. Early reading certainly didn't cause higher reading scores. It is much more important to do Science with your kids than any other subject when they are young. This is great because most young kids would rather do Science than reading anyway. Everyone's happy! Also interesting is that early reading doesn't improve later Science and Social Studies scores. Since those subjects are most traditionally taught through reading, I found that interesting. So far the research hasn't figured out why, but still fascinating.

The best way to improve Math scores is going to surprise you. Fine motor skills help with Math. The larger the fine motor deficit, the more impaired later Math becomes. This is most obvious when replicating figures or models, but is true for all areas of Math. They tested many different ways to improve Math scores and the top interventions are: drawing (but not coloring), Legos, fuse beads, pattern blocks, Montessori triangles, puzzles, paper folding, blocks, knob cylinders, and Colorforms. No worksheets, flashcards, or tutoring made the list. Kids tend to shut down when forced to do something they think they aren't good at, but hand them a bucket of Legos or teach them paper folding and they are willing and successful.

Now for something that makes me feel old. These studies weren't just done with young children. These studies went all the way through college students. At the beginning and the end of the college student study they needed a novel way to test their ability to do mental rotation. Something the kids hadn't done before and were unlikely to practice in between the two tests. They used Tetris. For those of you who are around my age you just freaked out a little that college students have never played Tetris. I was presented with this information at a conference. The group of young guys in the row in front of me spent about 5 minutes debating what Tetris is before using their smart phones to look it up. They decided it must be a game for old people.

It's well known that the current educational policy is dill and kill. Everyone says they want their kids to have critical thinking skills. You need to know that these are learned before/after and outside school, usually through play. Music, sports, fine motor, problem solving, etc. It's also important to realize that most colleges care more about these activities than you might expect. When looking at two kids with identical grades and test scores the one that will stand out is the one who was involved in things outside of school. This is also one reasons the homeschooling movement is growing in the United States.

Presidents

We do circle time every day. One day I was cooking dinner and heard the kids doing it by themselves.

We don't just talk about the calendar and weather though. We also talk about current or upcoming holidays. This means we have been talking a lot about (and reading about) U.S. Presidents. Here are some of the things I overheard:
 
"George Washingmachine was the first President here." Sweet Son.

"Abe Lincoln said, 'no more selling people' when he was President." Sweet Daughter. I guess that's how she understands the end of slavery.

Fairly close for a couple of two year olds! It's so interesting to hear their interpretation of learning about Presidents. I love hearing them put these concepts into their own words and seeing them teach each other is a great way of observing their level of understanding these concepts.

Wordless Wednesday

Choices

Everyone tells you the importance of giving toddlers choices. It's important for them to feel like they have control or they will take control in areas you really don't want. What they don't tell you is how to do this without regretting it.

I want you to think I'm too cute to cause trouble.

Give only a couple of choices and make sure that you are open to them accepting either choice. "Do you want to clean up your books or blocks?" They get a choice and you are perfectly happy either way. If you ask, "Do you want to clean up?" They could easily answer "no" and you wouldn't be happy. We try to limit the questions they could answer with no, because it's really annoying.

Me, annoying? No

I have heard so many parents give choices they aren't acceptable. "Do you want to hold my hand or walk by yourself in the parking lot?" I have yet to meet a toddler that should be allowed to walk by themselves in a busy parking lot. A better question would be, "Are you going to hold my hand or do I have to carry you?" While your preference is clearly for them to hold your hand, either option is acceptable. 

We call this the reading couch.

I should admit I used this on my husband (then my boyfriend) for almost 2 years before he caught on and turned it around on me. "Are you going to do the laundry or the dishes while I'm gone?" The trick with adults is not to over use it. Then they catch on and tend to get upset that you are treating them like a child. haha

It does work well most of the time on children though. There are still times when nothing works... welcome to having children. It's also important to know when to pick your battles. You don't want to wear pants in the house, not a huge deal. You don't want to wear pants when it's 40 degrees outside, that's a battle I will win.

Not the easiest way to go around

I can't tell you how many times a day I say things like, "It's dinner time. Do you want broccoli or corn?" While it works most of the time, the rest of the time the conversation goes something like this:
Me: Do you want to read books or play with trains?
Child: No
Me: Do you want to build with blocks or play in the kitchen?
Child: No
Me: Those are your choices, which would you like: blocks or kitchen?
Child: No
Me: Are you being obstinate?
Child: No

Yes, my children could both use the word obstinate correctly before they ever turned 2. Some days are better than others.

Responsibilities

It is important for all family members to have responsibilities to help keep the household running. We believe in starting them young, like as soon as they are mobile.

We start with simple things that they are interested in doing. All toddlers love to fill and dump, well, everything. This can be the first step cleaning up toys. We keep all of the toys sorted so they are easy to put away, even if they aren't always neat. All of the puppets go in one bucket, the balls in another, etc. When you cheer and put things away toddlers are usually happy to help. They do need constant reminders to stay on task and each task must be broken down as simply as possible. You can't tell a toddler to clean up and expect something good to happen. You can tell them to put the stuffed animals on the shelf or the food in the kitchen and expect better results. We tell them what to do with each individual toy and cheer when they do it correctly. This is an extremely slow process, but one they need to learn.

Cleaning up a puzzle

As soon as the kids are capable we let them get dressed. This started with shoes and then they learned how to put on socks, pants, underwear, and shirts. By the time my kids were two they could completely dress themselves. Granted this takes around 30 minutes and we often don't have time for that. They really only practice this skill on the weekends. We help them on weekdays so that we can actually make it out of the house on time.

Those aren't your shoes!

The next job we gave the kids was pushing in their chairs after meals. They love to do this. It's simple and one (or in our case two) less things the adults have to do. We then added putting their dishes on the counter when they are finished, pulling out their chairs, and wiping down the table. They are so excited with each new job and we just keep slowly building our expectations so that it becomes habit.

Silly boy at meal time

There are many other jobs they do around the house as well. After they wake up, they put everything back on their beds. They take off their shoes and socks as soon as they get in the house. They help scrub during bath time. They spray water bottles and use a squeegee on the windows outside. They use spray bottles to water plants. They help cook whenever possible. They put food in the dog's bowl. I love seeing them help around the house.

I can pull the wagon.

What are some jobs your toddler does around the house?