I didn't want to blow off all of my posting from last week though. On Election Day we did a lesson about voting. It was a fabulous lesson, not just because of the topic, but because both girls had one of those "aah ha!" moments during the phonics portion. I asked the girls why we say "vote" and not "vot", and Zoe said, "Because there's a silent "E" at the end.", and then Sophie said, "And the silent "E" makes the "O" say it's name!!" That right there was enough to keep me going for the next few weeks! For the voting portion of the lesson, I made up a story about a King, a Queen and a Princess that lived in the Kingdom of Colorful. One day the princess decided that everyone should wear the same color clothes. She declared that there would be a vote and that the people could choose either red, purple or blue. I elaborated about how the people talked for days about which color they would choose, and then the voting day came and the people lined up to cast their votes. At this point the girls had their papers ready (see above) with red, purple and blue squares. I had already gotten a bunch of Candyland cards ready, and now I let each girl take turns pulling a card. Whatever color they got, they had to put a tally mark under the correct square. We did talk about tally marks and what they mean, but I did not teach them to strike through the four tallies when they got to five. Once the votes were all tallied, we discussed which color won, which came in second and which came in last. We also talked about why people voted the way they did (they already had a lot of clothes that color so they wouldn't have to go out and buy more, they have shoes that match that color, they think that color is pretty, they think that color looks good on them....) We ended the lesson by talking about the election that was taking place that day. We also checked the news throughout the day and watched as the results came in. It turned out to be a fun lesson for all of us, even if some of our local results of the election were disappointing!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Overwhelm Sets In
I didn't post any of last week's lessons because I just couldn't seem to find the time or energy to do it. We did do school all three days last week, but it was a challenge. The baby (now 8 months old) has been this little angel from heaven since the day she was born, and last week she decided to try on being a little devil! The fussing and crying and non-sleeping through me for a loop, so one of the things that got dropped (as happens when survival mode sets in) was this blog. I was beginning to think that I would have to start posting the whole week's lessons at the end of the week, because I just didn't see how I would manage to do it after each day's lessons. But now my baby girl is back to herself and I realized it was just one of those glitches and it will probably happen again in the future. I'm just rolling with it!
I didn't want to blow off all of my posting from last week though. On Election Day we did a lesson about voting. It was a fabulous lesson, not just because of the topic, but because both girls had one of those "aah ha!" moments during the phonics portion. I asked the girls why we say "vote" and not "vot", and Zoe said, "Because there's a silent "E" at the end.", and then Sophie said, "And the silent "E" makes the "O" say it's name!!" That right there was enough to keep me going for the next few weeks! For the voting portion of the lesson, I made up a story about a King, a Queen and a Princess that lived in the Kingdom of Colorful. One day the princess decided that everyone should wear the same color clothes. She declared that there would be a vote and that the people could choose either red, purple or blue. I elaborated about how the people talked for days about which color they would choose, and then the voting day came and the people lined up to cast their votes. At this point the girls had their papers ready (see above) with red, purple and blue squares. I had already gotten a bunch of Candyland cards ready, and now I let each girl take turns pulling a card. Whatever color they got, they had to put a tally mark under the correct square. We did talk about tally marks and what they mean, but I did not teach them to strike through the four tallies when they got to five. Once the votes were all tallied, we discussed which color won, which came in second and which came in last. We also talked about why people voted the way they did (they already had a lot of clothes that color so they wouldn't have to go out and buy more, they have shoes that match that color, they think that color is pretty, they think that color looks good on them....) We ended the lesson by talking about the election that was taking place that day. We also checked the news throughout the day and watched as the results came in. It turned out to be a fun lesson for all of us, even if some of our local results of the election were disappointing!
I didn't want to blow off all of my posting from last week though. On Election Day we did a lesson about voting. It was a fabulous lesson, not just because of the topic, but because both girls had one of those "aah ha!" moments during the phonics portion. I asked the girls why we say "vote" and not "vot", and Zoe said, "Because there's a silent "E" at the end.", and then Sophie said, "And the silent "E" makes the "O" say it's name!!" That right there was enough to keep me going for the next few weeks! For the voting portion of the lesson, I made up a story about a King, a Queen and a Princess that lived in the Kingdom of Colorful. One day the princess decided that everyone should wear the same color clothes. She declared that there would be a vote and that the people could choose either red, purple or blue. I elaborated about how the people talked for days about which color they would choose, and then the voting day came and the people lined up to cast their votes. At this point the girls had their papers ready (see above) with red, purple and blue squares. I had already gotten a bunch of Candyland cards ready, and now I let each girl take turns pulling a card. Whatever color they got, they had to put a tally mark under the correct square. We did talk about tally marks and what they mean, but I did not teach them to strike through the four tallies when they got to five. Once the votes were all tallied, we discussed which color won, which came in second and which came in last. We also talked about why people voted the way they did (they already had a lot of clothes that color so they wouldn't have to go out and buy more, they have shoes that match that color, they think that color is pretty, they think that color looks good on them....) We ended the lesson by talking about the election that was taking place that day. We also checked the news throughout the day and watched as the results came in. It turned out to be a fun lesson for all of us, even if some of our local results of the election were disappointing!
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