Math, Magnets and other activities

Sasha has shown interest in some new activities: sewing, weaving, and activities with numbers and magnets.

Here she is being very careful with the needle:



She wanted to sew some buttons on her pot holder:



I think she had more fun playing with the buttons:



Experimenting with magnets:




"floating" magnets:



Following her interest with numbers, and given the fact that she counts very well, we decided to take it a step further to see what she thought of adding. I write a simple equation, then she takes two separate counters (different kinds of fruit), puts them in a bag, and counts the total. Lastly she writes the total with magnetic numbers. She really enjoyed this activity:






Counting by tens:




Another new game we have consists of rolling dice, counting the number of dots, then selecting the pocket with the corresponding number, and reading the note inside:




There are 12 notes, all with actions like: hop like a frog, the crabwalk, etc. But my favorite is: give a one-minute hug! Not only is she learning the concept of how long one minute is (we count to 60 while we hug), but I also get to hold her for that long without her squirming away. : )
In this picture she got: do five donkey kicks:



Her new favorite color is pink. We got some white paint and she mixed it with red:




I-just-had-some-cheesecake smile:



Gathering sticks to decorate with "cherry blossoms" (pink and purple tissue paper)




Pasting pieces of tissue paper for the blossoms:




Dissecting a flower at school:


Cutting on the lines:


Painting her bird house:

A few random activities

Sasha is learning how to weave. Here she is weaving a pot holder:




The final product:
(I uploaded a video on youtube)



Even though we don't celebrate Easter, we decided it would be fun to decorate eggs and hide them around the yard. Plus, we had a nice warm day today and spent most of it outside.
Here she is mixing paint to make new colors:



Painting:





Getting ready to hide them:



We found them!



Her turn to search:



Having trouble finding them:



The final activity was one of her favorite: peeling the egg shells for an egg salad:




Sining at the Baha'i Feast (she didn't know the words of the particular song but wanted to join them anyway)

Houston

We're back from Houston! It feels good to be back in our home, cook our own meals, sleep in our own beds, etc.

Our trip was somewhat successful, but everything is still tentative. We had appointments with several potential schools for Sasha, and were able to watch the teachers work with the children. Most of the schools we liked are full. On our last day though, we received a call from one of them saying that they might have an opening in the fall.

Same story with the apartments. We were looking for an apartment that was close to her school, cheap and spacious. We don't want to buy another car, so we're trying to find an apartment within walking distance from her school. We considered buying, and spent too many hours looking at houses. They were all either too far away or too expensive. We finally, sort of, decided on an apartment that was relatively close to her school, and we're now waiting for a call-back to see if it will be available at the end of June when we move.

So, the trip was successful in that we were able to narrow the search down, and now we have to wait.

I only took pictures the day we decided to give Sasha a break from all the driving and looking at houses, to go to the zoo! We also had dinner with James' aunt Adrienne and uncle Jan, but I forgot to take my camera. :(

In the tube surrounded by piranas!



It was a very windy day, can you tell?




Trying to read the zoo map:



The texas longhorns!



When wearing a dress, one must twirl:

Update before we head out to Houston

We're leaving tomorrow and will be back on Sunday. We have appointments set up with several potential schools for Sasha. We'll also be looking at what the options are for houses... We need to figure out a lot of things, like do we rent or do we buy?
We'll give an update of our situation when we get back.

In the meantime, here are the latest of Sasha!

Slicing strawberries for breakfast:



and green beans for dinner:



Some school pics (taken by her teachers)
I love this one. Can you see the love between these two? Sasha loves Julia!



Table-washing is an important Montessori activity. It helps children learn to attend to an entire sequence of visual motor tasks:



The children handle geometric solids under the cloth and try to guess what they are. Here Sasha is saying "ovoid!"



The Montessori math curriculum begins with concrete and gradually moves towards more abstract math concepts. Because children take in knowledge through their senses, these beads are a good way for children to visualize and hold quantities. She is presented with one bead, ten beads stuck together, (as seen below), 100 beads, and a cube of 1000 beads.



Building a bird feeder with Daddy:



Making play dough roses with mommy (I remember when my mom taught me to make these when I was a little girl)



Making a shopping list. Sasha loves practicing her writing. The Montessori method encourages writing phonetically to begin with. I got a great video of her spelling out words phonetically while writing her shopping list. (link on right)



The days have been getting warmer and warmer, and as they do, we find more reasons to be outside. Sasha and I walked to "pick up" daddy after he got off the bus coming home from school:



At Baha'i class they talked about the equality of men and women. Their art project was to decorate a bird who's wings represent this equality. One is the man, the other is the woman, and not until both are equal can the bird fly.



Random:










James in front of his poster at the NE section of the GSA meeting (Geological Society of America).

Happy Naw-Ruz!