she is the cuddly, cozy type. stare out the window, sucking the thumb, and lay rolled up snugly in a blanket as we say 'like a burrito' this is also known as the big girl swaddle :) one of the many advantages to this homeschooling thing is that I don't have to deal with getting her up at dawn each morning, force feeding her a healthy breakfast and then shuffling her out the door as quick as possible because she has to get somewhere on time. I have never had to do it I picture it as being quite stressful. I could be wrong.
but still its nice that most mornings are a peaceful unfolding into the day.
I can give her the space of easing softly into the day with as little anxiety as possible. I on the other hand am very much a morning person and this has made for some very interesting conflict between us in the past but I have thankfully learned that she is not me and I am not her.
I learn this daily..... but I digress
.
today.
we always do mathematics first thing in the morning, whether it a game or a drill or working with manipulatives, place value or money. It's very important to me that she is good with numbers and not intimidated by them. also I know that she has this love/hate relationship with mathematical concepts. I think their exactness annoys her, although this is just a theory of mine. I always say during breakfast or right after lets do some mathematics so that we can say we did it and also because the more we do it the easier it gets. she grumbles and says okay.
This morning we did multiplication & division and chatted about how they are the opposite of each other. While I made brinner ( dinner for breakfast) mac & cheese with curried vegetables. She sat in her pajamas in the rocking chair and answered my questions. I had her count in multiples of 6, 7 and 8, then I asked her division questions that correlated to the answers she came up with, for instance - 48 divided by 8 is equal to what? 63 divided by 9 is equal to what? She likes doing math in her head and was coming up with the answers with confidence. I could tell she was feeling awesome as opposed to overwhelmed, so hooray for that.. we talked a bit more about mathematics and how its all about remembering to have a clear understanding of the value of each number you are dealing with (mastering place value is key.) Each number represents a quantity, so when you see the number 462, you can easily picture 462 puppies or cookies or buttons or whatever then follow the commands of the equation take it step by step and you are golden.
After a little more math talk it was time to hit it, we had tickets to a show at the New Victory Theatre courtesy of our sweet friend Dumeha who is a teaching artist there. The New Vic is this super cool theater where they have family friendly shows that are often conceptually interesting, fun & educational. They sometimes have lesson plans attached and fortunately for us Auntie Dumeha is one of the creatives that puts them together and thus has access to all the shows.
Part of the beauty and magic of living in New York is that there is so much culture brought to you through every medium, - art, music, food, dance, workshops. It don't stop as long as you are willing to do the legwork, you are golden.
On the way their via subway we did something I classify as 'language arts' also known as just simple reading and talking about what we read. Some essays on U. S. History, Health, Native American culture, & geography. We picked apart certain ideas, pointed out new words and used them in a sentences. Came up with scenarios, antonyms & contradictions. She has that linguistic intelligence thing happening so this is something she has always enjoyed, words words and more words.
I would highly recommend reading up on Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligences (for parents and teachers) it might give insight into your child's learning style, this comes in handy beyond academics. Day to day conversation is much easier when you have an understanding of the best way that your child might process information. She or he might be musical as opposed to visual as opposed to kinesthetic but once again I digress.....
In the back of my mind while we were talking about Washington D.C. & government stuff I decided we need to take a bus ride one day soon, an extended field trip in where we catch all the national monuments and tour the white house. Probably for MLK week. It would be a nice way to honor his legacy to visit where the I have a dream speech happened, he is one of our favorite people to talk about.
The show at the new vic was in my eyes just okay but she enjoyed it, it was a journey into movement with ideas that played with how sounds & time and how they both connect to make rhythm.
After the show we had errands to run, bank, supermarket, etc. then home. while I taught my yoga class she chilled and munched on some wraps filled with turkey, cheese, granny smith apple & baby greens.
After yoga we did a whole bunch of science experiments using her Halloween candy, we melted chocolate to see how the molecules dissolved and separate due to the the heat and then froze it again. We added baking soda to sweet tarts to test for acidity the bubbles were not as intense as we hoped. We then made ice water and also boiled water and put the same type of candy in each cup to test how the water temperature affects how fast the same item would dissolve, the candy in the hot water took about 5 seconds to dissipate. That was exciting to her. We also cooked twizzlers they didnt melt or change shape in any way they just turned black from the heat. We both thought that was interesting and weird. We also melted some chewy candy to test it for oil. It looked and felt like candle wax when it melted then we we froze it and it was very shiny. It looked like plastic. I was going to throw everything out right away but she insisted on keeping them in the same condition to stare at and look at for awhile. I gave her the space to do that cause truth be told they all did look quite fascinating. The chocolate was weird shades of grayish brown with craters and valleys of beige. The pink & purple chewy candy was a puddle of gooey swirly pretty fun and the twizzlers just looked like licorice :)
here are pics
candy before
candy after
melted chocolate
we talked for a while about all the various things we discovered and what it all meant. Then I told her it was time to get ready for bed, she washed up, brushed teeth put on pajamas and voila ready for bed. I gave her the choice of reading a chapter novel or doing some drawing in her sketchbook while lying in bed.
she chose her sketch book and did some drawing I thought this would be a nice way to wind down from the excitement because all the experiments had her very hyped up!
she drew some strange pictures of made up hybrid animals, half bird half elephant for example.
she thanked me for letting her draw a bit instead of saying to go straight to bed as I sometimes do. eventually she fell asleep peacefully.
looking forward to another exciting day tomorrow
I've had this ongoing conversation with my boyfriend about his desire to sleep in on the weekend and thus allowing his 9yo son to stay up sometimes as late as 10.30 so that he will wake up later than 7. My argument has always been that humans need consistency with sleep patterns, what reason does a child have for staying up so late for nothing productive, and that you lose out on personal quiet time before bed.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of alarm clocks and prefer to wake up naturally, something you can only do when your time belongs to you.
Do you find the mornings while your daughter is still asleep give you that personal time needed to ease into the "obligations" of the day?
I think that is so important for mothers - to make sure they have adequate "me" time, however they manage it in to their "always on" schedule.
yes! exactly i usually wake up between 3 or 4 hours before her so that i can yoga, meditate, go for a run, clean, read make my to do list, whatever. Its so nice to have that early morning peace before she rises. Its like the calm before the storm.
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