Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Week 4, day 3

Today's school went smoothly. We started after lunch, and during calendar P was able to accurately read both the temperature, "seventy-seven point seven," and my watch, "two o'clock". No tears occurred over either handwriting or copywork, and both kids participated in a game of throwing a beanbag (actually a small cloth ball, as we had no beanbag) onto cards with the letters learned so far printed on them. E knows the letter sounds well, and only mixed up lowercase f and t - an understandable error. For his school, we brought out the eggs again, and after he achieved success with identifying the missing one of 3 eggs, I added another. It took a bit of trial and error, but soon he was able to identify the missing one more often than not. It's hard to tell if he's being silly for the sake of being silly, or to cover over the fact that he isn't sure what the answer is.

We marked the markable map with E tracing Mexico and P writing the name, and then read most of a library book about Mexico, and another book about mapmaking. P particularly enjoyed the mapmaking book, Mapping Penny's World by Loreen Leedy, so I'll try to make a point of reading it to her again. The kids were interested to learn that at one point both Texas and Arizona belonged to Mexico - "So if you'd been born 160 years ago in Tucson instead of 3 and 5 years ago, you would have been Mexicans." Chocolate originated in Mexico, according to our library book, so this evening I picked up some Mexican chocolate from the grocery store and we can try making Mexican hot chocolate for dessert tomorrow.

2 comments:

  1. how was the hot chocolate? :)

    Sounds like you guys are having fun! Sofia, my oldest, is enjoying Chinese kindergarden. We sit around at the supper table and debate how to pronounce certain phrases....and now she automatically takes off her shoes inside, like people do here. :)

    --Ruth

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  2. The hot chocolate was good, though slightly grainy toward the bottom (not as dramatically as Arabic coffee, though).

    It sounds like you're having an amazing time in Taiwan. I was amused by the "iron surface" Sofia will be eating on October 8 - I have this mental image of a group of kindergarteners munching on a robot... :-)

    Remember how in Jordan people could understand your Arabic and not your parents'? Don't be discouraged when, 3 months from now, Sofia has to give your take-out orders for you so that they'll understand what you want... Your folks will feel gratified that the tables are turned.

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