February 2008
01-02-2008: Wrote the letter "N" and coloured a net. Investigated mirror's with the help of our science book. The work book has pictures that have to be completed by looking in a mirror. This is too difficult for denali so we used a piece of plexi glass that was lying around the house. You could use a "mira" (I used them when I taught highschool) but I don't know where to get them. Plexi glass works the same just have to make sure it is perpendicular to the paper. Worked great and denali could do the tracing.
04-02-2008: Wrote the letter "V" in our alpahbet book. I'm starting to sound the letters out to Denali. It's going okay. Learned about transport in our science lesson. Denali had to name various vehicals and identify which travelled on land and which in the air. Then she did some colouring.
06-02-2008: Visited the Exploratorium. Did some more mirror drawing here and some letter recognition. Looked at many displays to do with vision. Came home and wrote the letter "N".
08-02-2008: Insisted that Denali finish writing all the half written letters in her alphabet book. We finished writing "I", "N", "V" and coloured a bit. We learned about fuel and which vehicals use fuel to move. It was a bit difficult since we have never talked about it before. Denali knows that the car needs gas (or food) but not that it is fuel or what it is used for. I resorted to telling her that if it has an engine it needs fuel to turn the motor. And vehicals that have motors usually make loud noise (not necessarily true these days but... oh well). We then did an activity where she had to colour only the vehicals that had motors.
09-02-2008: Made a birthday card for Dylan. Denali painted it with acrylic paint and then stuck sequins and jewels on it with glue. Deruni did the same paint but sprinkled glitter on hers.
11-02-2008: Started colouring the Brazilian flag. Just finished the green part. Revisited the numbers 0-5. Then we did "6" in our number book because it was required for one of the exersices that Denali picked to do in her pre-school activity book. Then we started on the activity to find that Denali cannot recognise the numbers 2-6 although she can write them all. So after much fustration we stopped school. After a while we made some flash cards for the numbers 0 - 6. I wrote each number in the middle of a 3 by 5 index card. Denali forgot her fustration and was intrigued, she requested her own writing utensils to copy. After writing the numbers I placed stickers on the back, number of stickers corresponding to the number. Denali got to pick the stickers (each card had a different type of sticker with similar stickers within a card) and stick them on the back. Then on the top left hand side I wrote the number in sinhala and on the top right hand side I wrote it in english. Denali was very proud of the cards and although we didn't use them she carried them around with her the rest of the day.
I have been reading a paper by Maria Montessori so there maybe some change in methods here! (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/montessori/method/method.html)
13-02-2008: Finished colouring the yellow part of the flag. Read The great kapok tree : a tale of the Amazon rain forest / by Lynne Cherry. In a Brazilian village / Maria de Fatima Campos. So say the little monkeys / by Nancy Van Laan ; pictures by Yumi Heo. Tried "enumeration" montissori style with some red and blue duplo blocks. Didn't work with denali :(
15-02-2008: Started with some number work using Denali's number flash cards. Denali laid out the six cards in correct chronological order, numbers facing up. I read the numbers, pointing to each while reading. Had Denali repeat the numbers. Next asked her to pick the card with the number "1", which she did correctly (thats why I asked for this one first), then "3", then "2". She could not do the two latter. I put away "4", "5", and "6" and repeated the exersize with her. She got bored and stopped. Then did the finishing touches to the Brazil flag and stuck it on our world map. Made Brazilian cheese bun's for tea. Read the shaman's apprentice.
18-02-2008: Wrote the letter "B" in our alphabet work book. Coloured the butterfly. Read some books about Brazil (see top of page for list). Coloured some paper dolls and dressed them. Cut up some foil into strips to use to scare away the blue jays once we plant our seeds.
20-02-2008: Strung the foil together and put it in my pot of basil. Did our science lesson on differentiating between fruit and vegetables (i.e. pictures of both: circle the vege's) and coloured the fruits the correct colour. Matched up fruits with their corresponding trees. (Note: these science books were the girls favourite reading books for a while. So we've read them, in a non-orderly fashion many, many times. I think this is why Denali is so quick at doing the lessons in them. Maybe this is the way to go. Just have them lying around for a while and keep revisiting them without any stress involved. Or maybe I'm wrong and the books are just that easy.) Coloured these in too. Read some books on Brazil.
22-02-2008: Did an excersise on seeds, identifying fruits with one seed and those with many. Denali planted some california poppy seeds. Lets see if they come. Made Brazilian candies. Denali rolled them in sprinkles and ate them, not much more. Denali coloured the turtle and wrote the letter "T" and "t" in her alphabet book all by herself.
25-02-2008: Took Denali to the hardware store to pick colours to paint her bedroom. Not that we are painting her bedroom but the task at hand is to design her own room. The weather was nice for a change so we all went out into the back garden to weed and plant more seeds. We planted several rows of poppy and a bed of basil. Observed worms and spiders in the earth.
27-02-2008: Planted some poppy seeds indoors a while ago. These seeds finally came through (although we haven't seen any others yet). Went to water the plants outside. Did some colouring in the alphabet book.
29-02-2008: More colouring. Not doing much with Denali because Sen is out of town. Too much other things to do. Denali's writing in her alphabet book by herself. Denali helped me cut the vegetables for lunch.