Mish Mash Splash

April 14, 2013

Where are we? 

After we unpacked the rolling box of materials and made our list we got down to business. We started our morning by using the inflatable globe to review the continents and oceans then we focused our attention on North America and our country the USA.  Cannon explored his new “flat” map of the United States and located Indiana, Michigan and California.  Then we got out the “talking” map puzzle.  Cannon picked up each piece and when he moved it to its proper place heard the state name and capital repeated. Dad helped identify states where friends and family either lived or had visited. We both thought it was funny that the puzzle maker decided to put Alaska south of California closer to Mexico than Canada.

 

 

 

Vaporizing!

One of the words we added to our vocabulary last week was “evaporate”. We found a definition* and then with mom’s help we made a little experiment. Cannon is used to helping in the kitchen and one of his jobs is to let mom know when the water is boiling. This time we made careful observations – part of the scientific process – and just before the water started to boil we could see clouds of water vapor rising from the surface of the water. We “caught” the vapor with a clear glass pie plate and we could see and touch the water droplets.  There are more questions about vapor but we will save those for another time.

* Evaporation is when the sun heats up water in rivers or lakes or the ocean and turns it into vapor or steam. The water vapor or steam leaves the river, lake or ocean and goes into the air.

 Numeracy - Playing with Numbers - Counting by sets – 2-4-6-8

 

Cannon uses his "long arms" to choose the colors.

Cannon used beads to make strings of number sets. 

He selected the color for the set then we worked together to string them.  The hardest part was keeping the beads from “jumping” out of our hands and rolling onto the floor where a certain baby sister might find them.  We counted the beads and then we looked at the number “squares” to see another way of counting by sets. These are both ways of “fast adding” leading up to multiplying. 

 

 

Counting them out and
putting them on.

Stringing them up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are so many fun things to do with numbers.  One of them is playing hide-and-seek.  Cannon enjoyed my story about learning to count by 5s by playing hide-and-seek so we demonstrated. We used the front door as the “base” and I hid my eyes and counted 5-10-15-20-25-30 all the way to 100.  When I turned around Cannon was gone. I search everywhere, under, behind and around.  I searched in the shower, behind the bed in grandma’s room – no Cannon.  Finally, I peeked in the dark pantry and there he was!

It was lots of fun and we will have to do it again.  Next time Cannon can be “it” and do the counting and I will do the hiding.

 

Another Visit to Ghana

Earlier we had looked at Adinkra symbols that are used in Ghana. The symbols are used to decorate cloth.  The spiral shape is used in different ways and represents lots of ideas in many cultures. In Ghana it is Adinkrahene (Adinkra king). “Chief of all the adinkra designs, forms the basis of adinkra printing."

We looked at the design on the cloth of one of the Ghanaian dolls and saw the spiral symbol there.  Cannon used the spiral stamp design to print on the blue paper he had made earlier.  This design represents the indigo blue cloth that is made in West Africa.




Spiral Stamping on Printed Paper Inspired by Indigo Cloth by Cannon Hoops

We read a chapter of Captain Underpants the Attack of the Talking Toilets and a chapter from Frog and Toad.  Cannon demonstrated his skill with a round of Math Slam.  Cannon shared his new tickle book with me and we both put on the “tickle” mitts and tickled along with the story.