Week in Review: Happy 5th Birthday!

A handful of things we did this week...

Gemma practiced the song that the children are singing at church for Pentecost.

We walked home along the beach.

In Life of Fred: Cats (book 3), we hit a snag, so I made two activities using 3x5 cards. 

The first activity is reading 7-digit numbers. If a child can read 3-digit numbers, they can learn to read 7-digit numbers.

Number ten cards 0 to 9. Then, put a comma and the word "thousand" on a card, and put a comma and the word "million" on a card. Put those cards down with enough space between them for three index cards. Randomly lay down the digit cards, and get reading!

(Note: This activity is about teaching the child how to read the word. This is not about teaching place value. If it were about place value, we would put cards like "millions," "hundred thousands," "ten thousands," etc. above the digit cards. While that concept is hugely important, it isn't necessary to reading large numbers. In public elementary school, we spend lots of time teaching place value. It is retaught every year. I would argue that six months of an elementary school child's math education is spent on place value.)

In Life of Fred: Cats, there was also a bit about prepositional phrases. This is not an easy concept for a four (or five) year old. 

My daughter's favorite Dr. Seuss book is Wacky Wednesday. I used it for inpiration to write my wacky sentences...

With a black marker, I wrote sentences beginning with "There was a..." With a red marker, I wrote prepositional phrases.  I intentionally left off the end punctuation because I wanted to show Gemma that a prepositional phrase can also come at the beginning of a sentence, and that a sentence can have multiple prepositional phrases.

On Monday, Gemma asked to watch multiple videos of things being eaten by Venus fly traps, and wanted to know what a tesseract is.

Our home(pre)school co-op is learning about insects this month. This week's topic was ladybugs.

We went to the library, and ate cookies...

...before swim lessons.

She practiced her recital routine.

And she turned five!

She wanted a leprechaun-themed party, so that's what she got. Each of her guests got shamrock hair accessories, her cupcakes (from the grocery store) had green frosting and Saint Patrick's Day rings, her piñata was a rainbow with a leprechaun on it...

...and for a craft, they made "leprechaun" gardens...

They also got soaked in the water play area. (This was not a planned party activity.)

Much of the credit goes to my husband for pulling it all off...