what's a post with no pictures?

Hhhhhmmmmm..... I haven't written all week because I feel like my posts need a picture and I just haven't had any to post this week. So, I'm writing anyway. :-)

This week has been busy but in a stay at home busy way. We had lots of clean-up to do after my scrapbook supply organizing adventure on Sunday. I had a couple of assignments to work on for Memory Makers. I've been in a crazy curriculum planning mood. And we added some new stuff to our homeschooling so our days have been longer.

Here's one of the things that we've added.... Living Math for Clara. I had used this site a couple of years ago when Alex struggled with some concepts in kindergarten. At the time, I had just used it for book suggestions. This time I actually ordered the lesson plan since we're studying the ancients this year and it would go together nicely. I haven't started using the lesson plan but we've been incorporating some "living math" books into our day already. Here's what we got from the library...

One Potato: A Counting Book of Potato Prints (counting 1-10 and then by 10's to 100)
In My Garden (counting 1-10 and then by 10's)
Ten Puppies (adding to make 10)
100 Days of Cool (counting to 100)

With the exception of the last book, Clara reads the book to me (so she gets some extra reading in too) and we use her Math-U-See blocks to reinforce what the page is saying. For example, if the page talks about 1 watering can, she gets out her one block, if the number is twenty she has to get out two tens, etc. For the Ten Puppies book, she gets out a ten block to start and lines up the other ways to make ten under it so she can really "see it". I'm not sure how much progress we are making (I'm hoping there is some) but she's much happier doing math. We will continue to do an actual math curriculum through Math-U-See.... we may just wait awhile longer before restarting it.

Oh... I forgot... Clara is also doing lots of Dot-to-Dots. She struggles with her numbers. She can count aloud just fine, but on paper she often mixes up 12 and 21, 13 and 31, etc. Dot-to-Dots has been a completely painless way for her to work on this. We were both getting frustrated with her assignments in her book to write the numbers out or fill in the blanks. I'm hoping this kind of practice will make her ready to try writing them out again, without as much frustration this time.

Okay.... I should start my day! Maybe I'll have pictures soon!!