Once we were inside we had some warm "flowering" tea waiting for us. This kids thought this was pretty neat.
After our tea, Grant and I did our penny whistle lesson, and then I told him a story I made up about a Chinese Junk ship and it's crew of traders heading to the spice islands. I told how the ships were big, but still the fastest on the seas at the time. I talked about how these ships were able to roam the seas, and were seen in ports all over the world, and I talked about the goods they would trade. In my story, they would be trading bolts of precious silk for spices.
Once I was done telling the story, Grant and I drew a picture of the ship in our lesson books.
Mom's Picture
Grant's Picture
In the hull of the ship we drew some large clay jars like those they would have used to carry the spices. We took some ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamon and rubbed a little of each one onto the page inside each jar. The girls wanted to be involved in this too, so they did their own drawings with some spice rubbings. All of them thought it was a lot of fun smelling all the spices, and even giving some of them a little taste.
While we were doing our spice rubbings I brought in some subtraction problems by talking about trading. If our Chinese traders had a total of 15 bolts of silk, and they had to trade two for some ginger, how many did they have left? What if they traded three for nutmeg? How many left?, etc.
After that we used some whole cloves to work out some more subtraction problems.
I also introduced the Chinese characters for the numbers 1-3.
Grant and I did some knitting in the afternoon. His elephant is coming along slowly, but surely.
On Tuesday, we started off outside with some light rain joining us for our walk. Unfortunately, the rain wiped out the times tables I wrote on the driveway.
Once inside, we used our times tables tunes, and the small step/small step/(this time a large step instead of a jump) pattern to review some of our times tables. Grant also did some rope jumping while counting out some of the other times tables.
We also reviewed even and odd numbers. I wrote the even numbers on the board in one color, and Grant filled in the odd numbers with a different color.
When we were done with that, I called out numbers and Grant had to write them in the right color of chalk. Red for even numbers and blue for odd numbers.
He had no problem at all with the concept of even and odd numbers. He even began counting by 2's and telling me the even numbers before I had anything written on the board.
After this we had snack, and the kids tried some rice candy.
It is actually made in Japan, but hey, the kids will never know.
While they were having a snack, I had Grant re-tell me the story I told him yesterday about the Chinese Junk ship trader's voyage to the spice islands.
I also showed him how to subtract in columns, and we practiced a few problems.
I also introduced the rest of the Chinese numbers, 1-10, and they're spelling and pronunciation (Hopefully the videos on youtube have me somewhat close to sounding correct).
In keeping with our "winter wonderland" (not for long!) theme of books for Johanna, I read the kids this book:
On Wednesday, I re-drew the 4's times table in chalk on the driveway, and introduced the 6's times table. I only did these two because we were supposed to have more rain.
So, I came outside a few minutes after I sent the kids out to find Grant wearing my rain boots! I asked him why, and he said he stepped in a puddle with his boots on, and both of them leaked water. I guess it's time for a new pair of rain boots for Grant!
Grant walked each times table forwards and backwards. After that, he walked them forwards again to the "times table tune" they go with.
Once we were inside, we did our penny whistle lesson and reviewed the story I told once again. I also read a cute story from this book:
Grandpa Paul gave this book to Grant awhile ago (Thanks Grandpa!). We read the story called Little Folks from the Land of Many People. I'm not sure how accurate this book is right now since the last publish date was 1943, but it was still fun to read and gave Grant more of a feel of the difference between children living in China, and children living in the U.S.
After I read the story, we brought in some pre-geometry skills and drew some "math pictures". We looked at the patterns in skip counting, and drew them out like this:
(We drew a wrong line there in our 7's circle, so, uh, just disregard that line and pretend like you don't see it. Just be content in knowing that it's supposed to look like the 3's circle.)
Grant really enjoyed drawing these, and couldn't wait to see what they looked like when they were finished. He especially liked how the 5's and the 10's circles turned out. He thought those were pretty funny.
After our math drawings, we worked on some more subtraction problems, and I introduced the concept of borrowing.
On Thursday, Grant walked out the times tables on the driveway before we took our morning walk. Once we got inside, we had some fun doing zoo-robics. In keeping with the Asian theme, we did the duck walk (they eat a lot of duck, right?), and egg rolls. The kids liked doing the egg rolls the best.
After that, Grant and I did our penny whistle lesson, and I read a few tidbits about China from this book:
Once I was done reading, the kids helped me make our snack for the day. Chinese sesame cookies. At least food.com said they were Chinese. They had fun shaping them into balls and rolling them in toasted sesame seeds. We baked them in the toaster oven in the school room, so we had the lovely scent of "Chinese Five Spice Powder infused cookies" wafting through the school room, while we worked on some math.
We added in some more pre-geometry skills using triangles and squares in patterns. I took the following drawing from Melisa Neilson's, A Journey through Waldorf Math, and changed up the story to go along with our Chinese Junks. We also did some mental math problems while we were drawing.
I started out drawing the outer square on the board, as Grant was following along drawing on his chalk board. The outer square was the "map" for our Chinese traders. The corners of the next diamond shape became the stops they made at four different spice islands. At each "stop" on an island, I gave Grant some problems to work out. For example, when they reached the first island the traders wanted to trade bolts of silks for spices. They started out with 20 bolts of silk. If they traded five for some cloves how many would they have left? What if they traded four more for some cinnamon? How many left?, etc..
(I had to step out of the room for a few minutes to do something while we were doing this, and when I came back Grant's island had grown feet. If you look close enough you can see them up there. He was told to erase those, because as far as I know, islands do not have feet.)
The traders moved onto the next island and wanted to trade tea for spices. We did some more math problems there. Then I changed it up on the third island, and we talked about the traders on our ship talking to a group of 15 traders from another ship. If four of them left to go explore the island, how many were left? What if two left to go to the bathroom? How many?, etc. On the fourth island we talked about the number of ships in the harbor coming and going.
The next square in became different stops they made on the islands, and finally the "x" in the middle showed the shortcuts they found to cross the island while they were exploring. So, we started drawing from the outside-in. Here is Grant's final drawing:
Snack Time! We settled down to a yummy snack of tea and sesame cookies.
After snack, we worked out some more subtraction problems.
Once we were finished with that, we practiced the characters for 1-10 on the chalkboard, and then wrote them on our junk ships.
On Friday, we spent a lot of time outside in the morning since the sun returned, and the temperatures warmed up.
Later, I helped Grant make an origami boat, and Johanna make a pink cat.
I also read Grant this funny story involving math:
Stay tuned.....Next week we will be talking about Portuguese cod fishing boats and multiplication.
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