Cookie Math

This is a quick video reenactment of what we did during cookie math today.  I should let you know that I had to bribe her with two cookies if she did it again in front of the camera.  Of course she didn't count as high as she did the first time.  Oh well, I'm sure you get the gist of our counting lesson.

Makenna is doing really well with her math lessons and can count without my help up to twenty nine.  She was having trouble understanding what number comes after, she wanted to say twenty ten. As I was thinking of a fun way to teach this new concept to her, I remembered back when I was doing preschool with Elysia, and decided it was time for cookie math!

She whipped up a batch of sugar cookie dough, rolled it out, used number cookie cutters, and then waited patiently until they were done!

I had her place the cookie numbers zero through nine in a line as she counted.  Then I place a number one above the line to represent the teens group.  She brought each number up to the one making a new number from the teens group.  As she came to the nine cookie she realized that there was no ten, ( here's when the light bulb went one) "Oh, I start back with the zero."  At this point I asked her what comes after one?  I replaced it with a two and explained that this is the twenties group.  We continue this for some time until she was tired.

Next, she frosted some circles with the peppermint frosting that Elysia made.  I chose a number and she had to place the same amount of chocolate chips on the circle cookie.

Outside Time with Daddy

The girls got new snowboards for Christmas from their Auntie. They were so excited and so was Matt!  He has been waiting for this for a long time.  When Matt was a teenager he worked on a near by mountain as a snowboard instructor.  He has been looking forward to teaching his own kids when the time was right.  He wanted to begin teaching them when he felt they were old enough to truly enjoy it and not get frustrated or over whelmed.  Well, here it goes...

Elysia is still smiling!  She is able to go a few feet before falling, laughing, and getting up again.  I have to say Matt was right to wait,  if we started teaching her last year I know that she would have been crying at this point.

Kenna is doing well too, but she still prefers to use her blue sled.

I'm happy to say that Elysia is now turning slightly and learning to stop now that she has mastered the art of falling gracefully.

Thank you Daddy and Auntie!

Baking Snowflake Cupcakes

The girls love to bake and I enjoy baking with them.  Today we decided to make home made cupcakes instead of buying the box, we don't typically make them from scratch. Of course, I had to some how tie it into what we are learning in our lesson time.  So we added candy snowflakes on top!  Oh yeah, I also made it into a math lesson on fractions.  Elysia got it but Kenna was kind of lost. 

Bake at 375 for 18 minutes.
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tea. baking powder
1/2 tea. salt
2/3 cup butter
1 3/4 sugar
1 1/2 tea. vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk

Beat butter, add sugar and vanilla.  Next, add eggs one at a time.  Now you can add the flour with baking powder alternating with the milk.  Oops... Just add the salt whenever you remember.

Spoon batter into the pan.  Don't forget to use your "Shh...I'm concentrating" face.

Whip up some yummy homemade frosting using butter, confectionery sugar, and a little milk.

You know what to do next! 

My Father's Dragon

Most everyday I read to the kids.  The experts say it's one of the best things you can do for your kids, so hopefully I get at least one thing right in this whole parenting thing. Currently we're reading My Father's Dragon by Ruth Chrisman Gannett.  Another homeschooling mom passed it on to us and I thought it would be a good starting place to transition from picture books to chapter books.  It's relativity short, only eight seven pages and ten chapters.  My goal is to increase Makenna's attention span and encourage her in vocabulary and language skills, but more importantly to foster a love of reading for well written literature.

I wanted to see how Makenna was doing following the story and if she was fully understanding it.  I had her narrate back to me what we have read so far, I was surprised to find out she understood it quite well.  I also had her draw a picture of the Dragon using the description found in a paragraph.

Connor on the other hand didn't really care for books, he just wanted to play with his trucks and trains. Never mind with that sitting down stuff!  So I began to pray about it.  My boy was very different from my girls who loved to sit on my lap and have me read to them, so of course I was a little concerned.  Not many days after my quick prayer, I noticed he wanted to look at a picture on his little board book.  Now he reads his books more than he plays with his trucks. :)  This is how he goes to sleep every night.  We keep his draw filled with interesting new material and then he drifts off to la la land in a pile of books.