When One Plus One Equals One

The other day W told me that sometimes one plus one equals one.  I was a little skeptical, but I've been helping him understand addition by showing him that it is a process of putting things together.  I've been emphasizing the process of addition because I don't want math for him to be what it mostly was for me and most children: meaningless manipulation of symbols.  I remember some half-hearted attempts at making math meaningful in school by making us solve contrived word problems or insisting upon units.  One teacher would become upset if the class answered "what is 3 pigs plus 3 pigs?" with "6" instead of "6 pigs". 

In any case, I asked W when it might happen that one plus one equals one.  He replied that when he attaches one toy to another toy, he has one toy.  I liked that example.  I suggested another by taking two glasses of water and pouring them into a third glass, showing that one glass of water plus one glass of water can equal one glass of water.  The best example was then suggested by Beth: if you add one herd of sheep to one herd of sheep, then you have one herd of sheep.  I was happy to see W developing an understanding that our answer depended on how we performed the addition, as well as what we were interested in counting. 

So there you have it.  Sometimes one plus one equals one.

    

Thanksgiving Reading and Activities

I still have a couple of catching up posts to make, but I thought I'd share the Thanksgiving books we have been reading, and share some links that I have found useful. A fun sing-a-long book is One Little Two Little Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy, which has cute and well researched illustrations by Lynne A. Cravath. For older children, Eating the Plates by Lucille Recht Penner is a great chapter book to learn more about what it was like to be a Pilgrim. W is enjoying it so far, I've been reading him a chapter or two at a time. Another book about giving thanks is Grateful: A Song of Giving Thanks by John Bucchino (The Julie Andrews Collection). I was happy to stumble upon this one at the library and it has a great message. The accompanying song sung by Art Garfunkel is available on iTunes.

Plimoth Plantation and Scholastic partnered to present a webcast which gives a brief introduction to what life was like for the Pilgrims and Wompanoag in Plymouth around the time of the first Thanksgiving. Click here to watch a reply of the webcast. Scholastic also offers a page of free Thanksgiving printable activities. If you live in New England, a field trip to Plimoth Plantation makes for a fun and educational experience no matter your age. My husband and I were actually married in the garden there so I can vouch that they are an excellent wedding spot as well. :)

Next Wednesday I will continue the long held tradition of Pie Day, and will enlist young W's help in making pies to bring for Thanksgiving at my Aunt & Uncle's house. We will be "rowing" Cranberry Thanksgiving next week, although with the holiday and Jacob's day off Friday we will be less focused on homeschool work those days, and may use the long weekend to start decorating for Christmas.

      

Halloween 2010 - Woody and Buzz

For those followers not on Facebook, here is a glimpse of our own personal Woody and Buzz. They are really hoping the big man in red will bring them Toy Story 3 this year for Christmas, and Buzz Lightyear (with wing span). ;)

FIAR The Glorious Flight

I was not familiar with Alice and Martin Provensen before reading The Glorious Flight which is covered in Five in a Row Vol. 1. After this week, I will be looking to add some more of their books to our home library! W enjoyed The Glorious Flight, and it was a perfect book for FIAR since it has many different elements and you could really go in any direction with this one. First of all, for geography we covered England, France, and the English Channel. We also talked more about French culture and language which we had previously talked about when reading Madeline for FIAR. Other topics which applied to the book included art, language arts, history, inventors, the science behind flying and of course early aviation. Another great book about aviation is The Little Airplane by Lois Lenski, which is very descriptive of the mechanics of the airplane. Today to finish off the week we made paper airplanes and tried flying them outside. (Most of them were a little top heavy thanks to taped-on "propellers").

W finished the first book of Handwriting Without Tears "Letters and Numbers for Me" and was very enthusiastic about singing the song featured at the end of the book. He is on chapter 13 for Math-U-See (Addition Plus One) and I love watching that little light bulb go off as he figures out the problems. On Thursday we spent the day in Hudson with Aunt Julie, and then met with friends for the annual downtown trick or treat. It was such fun! Needless to say W didn't get much workbook work done that day, but we had a great time with his best friends from Hudson (A & his little sister C and their mommy). We will do a separate Halloween post (or re-cap post) in the next few of days.

I couldn't resist introducing W to the episode of one of my favorite television shows of all time Road to Avonlea entitled "Dreamer of Dreams" (Season 2), when Jasper Dale tries to invent a flying machine. Image courtesy of The Magic Lantern Road to Avonlea Epiosode Guide. W loves the kid scenes in Avonlea but doesn't quite know what to make of Mrs. Potts yet. But really, does anyone? :)

Early in the week, our picture books by post swap book arrived! Thanks to Zoe & her kids at Playing by the Book. W was thrilled to have a package to open and inside was Wendel's Workshop by Chris Riddell. It is a hilarious book to read aloud and also inspired W to learn more about inventors and robots. Thank you so much to our book swap partners!! W has read it dozens of times already. Your book is currently en route but I will let the title be a surprise when you receive it.

     

FIAR: Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Last week for Five in a Row W read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton. The book follows Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel Mary Anne during the time when steam shovels were being phased out by modern technologies, but in the end there is a good use for her. It has some repetition throughout, but also has some challenging words for beginning readers. This was one book that he was already familiar with but he is still enjoying it and thinking about it in depth. Also he can read it on his own now, so we alternated reading throughout the week.

On Monday W made composite characters using paper plates, he drew faces, and then he thought of two people he knows and what those people like to do, and made up a new name for his character. The one he based on me and the cat was Ludwiga who likes to cook and play with mice (eeew!) He also made up Tree who likes to play with their cat and give hugs based on two of his aunties, and Cada who likes to work on the sledding hill and play with masks. Anyway, I think he got the general idea of the term so when he hears it again he might remember it. ;)

For Math-U-See W finished chapter 12, and is grasping the concepts of addition. Each addition problem has a few different steps: identify the number, find the unit block for that number, write the number, color in the blocks on the paper to match with the unit block, and finally say the number. Sometimes the numbers wind up written backwards but for Kindergarten that is what happens. This makes for some very colorful papers! C even joins in the fun sometimes although I try to keep him interested in his own papers to color while W is trying to figure out problems.

Last week we also participated in a Paranormal "Ghost Hunter" Hike through one of the homeschool groups, it was a lot of fun and we found a nearby place to go hiking.