Week 25, day 2

Tuesday: Science. Actually, I decided to switch Tuesday and Wednesday this week and do math today. Titmouse Club is available on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and I was invited to a women's meeting at church this morning. Since my mother-in-law is out of town until tomorrow afternoon, I can take the kids to Titmouse Club tomorrow instead. After the meeting at church was over, we did all our review items. I'm impressed at how easily P is reading her readers now compared to how she did at the beginning of the year. Sonlight's readers are going at just the right pace for her so that she feels confident each time she picks up a new reader. For our math lesson, I didn't introduce a new concept, but worked on the idea of "fact families". For example, 1+4=5, 4+1=5, 5-1=4, 5-4=1. The Math on the Level Yahoo group tipped me off to the idea of "fact family hexagons" - you put the 3 numbers in the family on a hexagon on 3 of the 6 sides. Then you make a "hexagon house" that covers one of the sides, and the child has to come up with the hidden number to complete the family. The orientation of the number on the hexagon gives you a clue as to whether you need to add or subtract. We made a few hexagons and worked through why they work using Cuisenaire Rods. By lunch, P had had enough, so school was over for the day.