Week in Review: Swimming, Dancing, and Growing Beans

A handful of things we've done this week...

Gemma grew green beans.

And one of the five was finally big enough  to steam and eat.

This week, Gemma graduated to the Alfred Prep level B book!

Gemma started swim lessons this week. She is a Minnow, which means that she is learning side breathing!

She's reading Pippi Longstocking and The Magic Tree House: Sunset of the Sabertooths to me. I'm re-reading her favorite stories in My Book House Volume 2, such as "Snow White and Rose Red."

She's practicing a song for Pentecost.

She's begging for two chapters a day of Life of Fred: Cats. I ordered the rest of the elementary series, and it arrives next week. 

There is a big jump in Cats. In the chapter about place value, readers are asked to add 1+9, 1+99, and then 1+9,999,999. Gemma knew the first two answers - she understands ones, tens, and hundreds - but had no idea how to solve the third. I showed her that there was a pattern. In 1+9, the answer has 1 zero. In 1+99, the answer has 2 zeros. In 1+999, the answer has 3 zeros. She solved the problem by counting the number of nines in 9,999,999 and writing 1 followed by that many zeros.

Today, on our walk home from the library, we went on a 4-digit number hunt. Each time we saw an address with four digits, she read the number to me. 1905 became "one thousand nine hundred five."

Her class practiced their recital dance. All of the moms were invited to come sit on the floor and watch them run through it. We're all excited to see how much they've progressed since last year (several of them were in the 3 year old class together). Here is this year's dance's ending pose:

During her weekly hands-on math play date with her friend D, they built square numbers...