First part of 2018

April 22, 2018

Preston playing Jenga, which he got for Christmas.

New Year's Eve

Getting ready to go out and make noise on New Year's Eve.

A great picture of all the kids spontaneously making art together. (That is the art kit you gave Dallin the year before for Christmas.)

Preston made a fort out of all our empty packing boxes.

At the end of January, we started Preston's math unit, which then got interrupted in favor of packing, and we didn't completely finish it until the middle of April!

We introduced the four operations through a story about four gnomes who help mine jewels underground and then help the Gnome King Equals make sure all the jewels are counted properly. Each gnome represents a different operation.

This was too long ago (and too much water under the bridge) for me to remember the specific activity, but it was one of many with manipulatives as we worked through understanding the four operations.

It looks like Gnome Divide has divided the grapes evenly between the four gnome friends.

Thinking hard...

Phonics review--putting different consonants in front of the vowels to see what sounds they make. Once again, Preston can't go an hour without a snack of some kind.

Gnome Times helps count quickly by two's.

This was a bad camera exposure, but a cute picture of Preston and Sariah being invited to go into the cockpit of our airplane and meet the pilots.

We had smiles and silly faces on the second flight, but the first flight brought on a full-blown panic attack for Preston that lasted over an hour.

Seeing your family was a highlight!

After so many weeks in hotels, Preston was happy to unpack all his toys in our new apartment.

And finally it was back to school:

I used this manipulative idea on our first day of doing the bonds (or facts) for each number up through 10, and he loved it so much he just had to do it every single time. The animals had to go over the bridge to cross the river, and he had to keep track of how many were on one bank and how many on the opposite bank vs. how many animals he had altogether.

After he used the animals in figuring out the "bonds" (or facts) of each number up through 10, we made a chart in his book. He really loves making charts and sorting/organizing things.

Writng X is tricky (he keeps wanting to turn it into a +), so we're doing lots of gestures, movement, and sensory activities to help.

Gnome Times' page in his book. We learned about how she has lots of energy and loves to count quickly by counting in multiples.

Gnome Divide is kind of bossy and likes to make sure everything is counted just right. He likes to make sure everyone has their fair share.

Gnome Minus is very generous and is always giving things away. She is also quite forgetful and loses things.

Gnome Plus is kind of a homebody who loves to sit by the fire and sip hot chocolate. He is rather slow-moving, but consistent and methodical and loves to carefully count things.

In the midst of all this, Preston worked on his knitting and finished a square, which we sewed into a little bunny for Easter.

When we learned the division symbol. I gave him two cookies and a licorice rope and asked him to use the rope to split the cookies evenly between the two of us.