After that we read 3 books: Frog and Toad Together, Frog: A Tadpole Tale, and Froggy Learns to Swim. Jem tried reading one of the books to Flossie afterwards and did pretty well. He got stuck on a few words, but he's definitely progressing in his reading.
After that I put on a new video I bought at the teacher store. Since both kids are still struggling with number recognition I thought it might be worth it it to try. It's called Meet the Numbers. All it does is clearly show the numbers over and over and say their names clearly and then has a little cute animation after each one. I started watching it when I was doing the laminating the other day and I thought they might like it, and they do! They both sit and watch it all the way through. We've done it twice now. During it, Jem and Freddie both got up and started trying to make the number shapes with their bodies. Afterward, Freddie went to the Cuisinaire Rods and said, "Look Aunt Wendy! I made a 5!" Loving that video so far :)
For table work they did a couple of F is for Frog writing exercises and then worked on a cutting/science/number order activity learning about the lifecycle of the frog. Right away Freddie started telling me he couldn't do the cutting and I told him of course he could. "How do you do it though?" he asked, and I told him just to put his scissors right on the line he wanted to cut. Flossie was just going to town. He was watching what she was doing too and finally started making some progress. I praised him and he said, "Now I know how to cut!" I said, you told me you couldn't cut, but now you can." "That's because I needed you to tell me how to do it. But why does Flossie know how to do it and she didn't ask you to tell her how?" I had to save his pride and said, "Well, that's probably because I showed her how to do it last time we did cutting." "Oh," he said. After the cutting I had them put their numbers on their papers in order from 1 to 6. Flossie will still act like she doesn't know what numbers are what, but when I push her and say, "No, you know which one is number 1." she will pick the right one for numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. After that she needs help. It is easier to say she doesn't know and have me tell her, and so she defaults to that, but I'm trying not to let her get away with that. Freddie did fine with it. Then I talked them through the stages of the frogs lifecycle and we put those in order and glued them down. After it was all done I had Freddie go back and tell me what we had done. Once again at first he said he didn't know, but when pushed, he did give me some answers and told me what the pictures were and how the frog grew.
After that I put Flossie on her own job which was to make our F is for . . . poster all by herself. I gave her the print-outs and some scissors and a glue stick and a big piece of butcher paper and asked her if she could handle doing it all by herself and she said, "Yep!" so I headed over to the table with Freddie to do some big kid math! I have been thinking for awhile that he is ready to try some more challenging math work, and because we were doing Frogs today, I had an Evan-Moor Take it to Your Seat Math Center called Hopping Away that is about basic subtraction. I sat and did it with him. I made a number strip so he could see the numbers he would need to write out on the worksheet. It has little frog counters that start out on one lily pad and then hop to another lily pad as you take them away. Then you write out your problem on the worksheet as you go. He had no problem at all with the math. The challenging part for him was the writing of the numbers, but he did well with it. I may try to find some number stamps or stickers (actually I think I have some) that he can use next time. He did great for his first time and was really proud of himself. Meanwhile Flossie did a great job working by herself on the poster and was really proud to accomplish that job all on her own.
After naps we were off to rehearsals at the theater and another day was done. Where does the time go??
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