Thanksgiving Feast

Nov. 21, 2013

We finished off our unit about Thanksgiving with a full-on Thanksgiving feast! Seth helped me plan the menu (I made him write down any extra things he wanted). 

Making Rice Krispies* Treats turkeys

*(this is for my husband, who insists it's "Krispies", not "Krispie"--and here's his link to prove it).

Enjoying our meal!

We even found Seth a new favorite fruit--pomegranates! 

Turkey Math

November 12th, 2013

I made this super easy number line to help Seth recognize what addition and subtraction looks like. He had a great time playing with it and mastered the concept quickly. I let him use the number line to do the problems I made for him in this turkey math game: 

Each turkey has a number written on it. Seth had to do the equations on the feathers and then match them to the correct turkey. He actually had a lot of fun doing this! 

Can't leave the toddler out, of course! Once Seth was done Catherine had her turn--she sorted the turkeys and feathers into piles by color (and did a most excellent job, too). 

Candy Experiments & Gratitude Leaves

November 4th, 2013

We put some of our Halloween candy to good use for school! First we did an experiment about whether the candy would sink or float in a bowl of water. First Seth wrote down his hypothesis (above), then performed the experiment: 

After observing the candy, he would go back and write down his conclusion and see whether his hypothesis was right (FYI--pretty much everything he got floated). 

Next we opened our M&Ms and Skittles and sorted them by color. Then we made a bar graph to compare the colors and did a little math using the graph. It was easy for Seth to recognize when the bars were equal, and to see that a bar with two more squares meant that there were two more yellow candies than blue ones. But he had a hard time translating that to addition--instead of comparing the two columns and just adding one or two more, he would try to re-count the entire column. 

To kick off the Thanksgiving season, we made gratitude leaves and hung them around the house. I drew leaf shapes on construction paper and Seth would cut them out and draw a picture of something he was grateful for.  

And then we hung them all over the house to remind us of all the things we're grateful for! (Seth is apparently very grateful for broccoli soup).