Number Line

Today while the 2 big kids were at school and Ezra was napping I had a wave of inspiration for a fun way to introduce Cartesian coordinates to kids, starting with a one-dimensional number line. So I did some prep work, and later this afternoon when the kids were home and at a loose end we did a number line activity!

I started by explaining a number line. Then I have each kid a small slip of paper with a "secret" number of dots on it, and told them to get us to guess how many dots they had by marking it on the number line.

Then I have them each several small slips of paper, with varied number of dots on each one in different colors, and had them mark those numbers on the number line, using the coordinating color.

Then I have each kid a sleeve protector with a paper number line inside it, so that they could write in them with dry-erase markers. I then hid four Easter eggs for each kid, each egg containing a different number of raisins. The kids enthusiastically hunted for and found their eggs.

Then they brought their eggs back into the office and counted the raisins in each one, and marked the number for each egg in the matching color dry erase marker in their number line.

Ezekiel seemed to really enjoy this activity, and asked for more after he had finished. Here he proudly displays his first graph of data!

Jane was able to follow along after watching Zeki do it a bit. In the end she did quite a good job too, but was more work out from the exertion and was ready to be done with math for the time being.

I went on to show Zeki how to do addition and subtraction using a number line, which he easily mastered, with great interest.

I was overall very pleased with how this little schooling activity went.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jane, age 3

Jane is my super big helper lately. The other day she was helping unload a box of diapers and put them away. I was busy doing other stuff so I didn't pay much attention to what she was doing, but I later found the very neat arrangement in the diaper cabinet.

This is in an upper cabinet above the dryer, so she must have climbed up onto the dryer to put them away. I wonder how long that took her, getting them into all those neat little stacks of about five each.

I am often impressed with the logical constructions she makes. For example, today we had some friends over who have both a 3-yr old and a baby. As I was getting Ezra settled for his nap, I heard The 3-yr. old friend come out of the bathroom. Jane said "you forgot to close the door, so the babies can't get in there" (Jane usually helps me close all bathroom doors so Ezra won't crawl into them.)

Friend: but our baby isn't big enough.

Jane: oh, well, can your baby crawl?

Friend: no

Jane: ok, then, we can leave the bathroom door open as long as Ezzy is sleeping.

I find this an impressive train of reasoning for a 3-yr. old.

 

 

Preschool!

 Zeki and Jane started preschool this week! Jane is going Tuesday/Thursday, and Zeki is going 5 days a week. They both seem to like it so far!

Zeki gets to do Spanish on Wednesdays. They both have outside play time each day, as well as P.E.. And they both seem to like their teachers and classmates!

 

Justin turns 30!

Yesterday was Justin's 30th birthday, so the kids and I spent the morning scrambling around to get him the birthday present I had been planning for months. Turns out we were able to get a pretty cheap Wii U from a store going out of business!

Justin graciously agreed to let the kids help him open his presents. Jane was all "ok, how about his: I open the ones without ribbon, and you open the ones with ribbon." I think she might have been under the impression that if she opened a gift, it would be something interesting to her.

 

For dinner we had steaks (which Justin grilled), cabbage salad, mixed roasted veggies, and Mac 'n' cheese. Of course there were leftovers (though only a tiny bit of steak leftover), so we are Mac n cheese and veggies for lunch today. And Jane got the last little bit of steak.

Jane: I want 10 more pieces of steak.

Me: we don't have that much steak.

Jane: can you call dad and tell him to come home and cook a lot of steak?