Fun blocks

French knitting

Ruth got a lovely book from the correspondence school with loads of sewing and knitting ideas. I hunted out my old French knitting tool and she was so excited to get started.

She got so much done in just one day.

Elephant puppet

Ruth did such a good job sewing her elephant puppet last week. Today she stuck on all the bits and it looks great.

Water's skin

The girls got to see the "skin" on top of water today. First we filled the cup ever so slowly so that they could see how the water bulged over the top of the cup - held in place by the skin.

Then we even manged to get a needle to float on top of the skin. A steady hand is needed as the needle naturally wants to sink. Then we took a toothpick and put some dish washing liquid on it. As soon as the toot pick touched the water the skin was made too thin (from the dish washing liquid) and so the needle instantly sank.

Then the girls made their own submarine. When filled up with water this bottle sinks. But when air is put in it comes up to the surface.

Sinking boats

Today their task was to find different things to act as boats for the cargo of marbles that we had.
They had so much fun counting the marbles and seeing how many we could get in before the boat sank.

We were also able to see how cargo is put in different sections of a boat so that it does not topple over. We used this small Frisbee and put blue tack (prestic) in to make 4 sections. So many more marble are able to fit on this way. Without the blue tack it toppled over so quickly.

Water's force and floating things

Ruth has had fun doing water experiments this week. Today we saw how water has a force and pushes against the balloon when you push it into the water.

The girls collected a whole lot of things from their art room and Ruth sorted them into what she thought would float or sink.

At first almost everything that they had collected floated.

I showed them how if the lids (or peg) got filled with water they would sink. We also watched over time to see how the different types of paper absorbed water and then sank (to different levels). It did not take long for Ruth to work out what would sink and then she was able to look for a few things that she knew would go down.

My body

 Ruth really enjoyed making an outline of her body and then labeling it. She wanted to write each word herself so I wrote on a scrap paper and she copied each word.
It was lovely to see how many names Ruth knew. We only put on what she could remember. When we spoke about ankles she told me that her ankle is what allows her to move her foot to walk. She then went through all the other joints in her body (including her spine) and told me how they helped her to move.
 She always enjoys painting but does not get to do it often. The paints that I mix always end up going mouldy but today I found some old finger paint that was now so runny that it worked really well with a brush.


We also had fun drawing the head outline of everyone else in the family to see how we all compare. Dad only just managed to fit on the paper.

Pregnant lady

Ruth's correspondence school teacher sent her this puzzle with other things on babies.

Magnet fun

Next letter

We moved onto the next letter today.

The envelope in the middle (on the bottom) has different cards in it. These are the cards from last week. Ruth had fun sorting the cards into living things and man made things.

Numbers

Ruth is doing really well with writing her numbers. She still struggles a bit with 6,7 and 9 so I made her this card that she can use to check. She has started working in more detail with two digit numbers. I think we she has finally found something that is a bit of a challenge and so will slow her down a little. Which is no problem - she has been racing through this book at such a speed.

Raising Rock Stars

I have had these pages printed out for a while and finally got them up on the wall for Ruth. It's a free on-line preschool programme called "Raising Rock Stars Preschool" and Ruth is very excited about it all.

It's always fun to have cutting practice. Cutting out the pieces for the memory verse.

And to get to use Mum's sellotape.

At the end of the week the wall was lovely and busy and well decorated with all the things she did.

Magic World Builder

Ruth has been playing computer games for a bit after lunch this week while I have a nap. We have a couple of games that are fully loaded onto the computer (the disk is not needed to play) and so she can get any of those started and change as she likes. Today when I came up she had been playing around on the "101 Kid's Brainy games" and was in the 8-12 year old section. She found this "Magic World Builder" and got to follow the blueprint to complete this playground (as it gets harder you have to add more pieces and start turning the pieces around to fit properly). What makes this extra tricky is the fact that it's 3D and you can move up and down and around to see all the sides of your building. She has quickly learned some of the different things she can do with the mouse (like zooming in and out) and I think she is going to have loads of fun on this.

More Math fun

Ruth was thrilled to finally be working with ALL the blocks. She is quickly learning which colour represents which number. The most fun is 8 which is brown for chocolate.

Math fun

December 23 - counting the blocks and circling the number

Ruth has been flying through the Math-U-See work and is having so much fun.

January 3 - counting and writing the number

I was encouraged when on the intro it was said that it's not important for the children to write the numbers if they are young or it's too hard for them. Their writing ability should not get in the way of their enjoyment of the math concepts that this year introduces. It's all about having fun and seeing different things. So I did not expect Ruth would be writing the numbers but she surprised me and with the help of her puzzle got started on writing.

January 6

Then she got introduced to Decimal Street and started reading bigger numbers. Her writing of the numbers in improving all the time. I now have a bookmark for her which has the numbers written clearly as I want her to write them (with a red dot in the spot where she needs to start). This has helped her so much and she continues to have so much fun.

January 10

I could not believe that reading numbers in the hundreds was going to be introduced. Ruth has taken it in her stride and is doing so well.