Fun with Addition

Joyce has been having fun with addition using the golden beads and the colored bead stairs. We followed the album pages from MWEI and MTC for the golden bead addition exercises. For now, we're using two instead of three addends because we don't have space to put all the beads and number cards on our coffee table :) We've began with addends that will not involve exchanging. Here're two examples from her notebook (I forgot that she knows how to use a ruler... oh well, next time :) We have been "adding" using the colored bead bars as well. Many thanks to Lori at Montessori for Everyone who provided the ideas for the Bead Stairs. We've tried Making Ten which allows the child to become familiar with combinations that make up ten:

Let the child pick a bar from the left set:
Ask "How many more do we need to make ten?" And then count with the child. Let the child get the corresponding bar and place it to show that they add up to ten.
Then, we perform the reverse equations and let the child notice the symmetry. The Addition Snake Game is Joyce's favourite for the moment. We used the MTC and
NAMC albums as reference. Here are the required materials:
- ten bars
- one black and white bead stair
- five colored bead stairs
- red felt mat
- notched cardboard marker
- (optional) a pointed stick (like a long toothpick) for counting beads
Set up the black and white bead stair and the cardboard marker:
Let the child choose a bunch of colored bead bars and arrange in the shape of a "snake."
Count along the chain. When you reach ten, stop and place cardboard marker over the bar after the tenth bead. "Oh, we've counted to ten. So we can exchange it with a ten bar." Place ten bar above the counted beads. Count the remaining number of beads on that bar (e.g. 7 in this case). Get the corresponding black and white bar above the counted beads. Place the cardboard back to its original position and put the counted colored bead bars into the empty bin for the black and white bead bars. Join the ten bar and black and white bar into the snake.
Start counting at the first black bead. Repeat the process:
- count up to ten
- get ten bar
- count remaining beads on colored bead bar
- get corresponding black and white bar
- remove cardboard, put bead bars back
- join ten bar and black and white bar into snake
After all color bead bars have been counted, show the child that the sum of all the color bead bars equal the ten bar plus black and white bead bar (if any) (e.g. 34 in this case). The child may write the equation in her notebook (9+8+7+6+4=34).
There are more variations to this game, such as using the same colored bead bars to make up the snake, and this is a great way to introduce multiplication.

The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows

Thanks, Elizabeth for sharing this wonderful meditation for this feast. I honestly didn't even know about this feast (I've got lots to learn indeed). This was very powerful and touched me deeply. It was like watching the movie Passion from a whole different perspective - the pain and sorrow she went through seeing the scourging of Jesus, wiping Jesus' precious blood off the ground, watching Jesus fall on the way of the cross, and finally witnessing his suffering and death on the cross. I'm so thankful for this feast and this meditation. It's like a "Mini Lent" for me.

The Cost and Conditions of True Discipleship

Today's Touched by Grace column in Catholic Exchange is an excerpt from the past Sunday's homily by Fr. Roger Landry:
Cost and Conditions of True Discipleship

The entire homily by Fr. Landry can be found on his website:
http://catholicpreaching.com/index.php?content=homilies&homilies=20070909

After reading this homily and yesterday's article on the same topic, I realize that I have the "Jesus is part of my life spiritual cancer" which Fr. Landry talks about. I have to be more aware of my decisions, however small, that it may be a choice between Jesus and something else. Am I ready and willing, to always put Jesus first?

Sharing Two Posts I enjoyed

Sharing two posts I enjoyed reading today:

A Gospel to Make you Squirm
For a long time, I held the same belief as the author did - that I just need to be a "moderate" Catholic. I thank the Lord that He has shown me the "need to run for the gold" and not to just "finish the race."

God's World Has No Cages
I was just feeling really guilty that I'm not doing enough for my children, that I should be driving them to as many soccer/piano/art classes as possible. And it reminds me to be always present and learning alongside my children. Thanks Cay!

What happened to those pictures?

After receiving emails from some well meaning family and friends (one of whom works for the police) who voiced their concern for the security of our children, we've decided to remove their pictures from our blog for now. We can look at it negatively - "Oh, how sad it is that this is the way the world is right now!" Or we can look at it as more motivation for us to keep our children safe, to teach them right, and to pray for all those who are afflicted. It is also an opportunity for us to improve our writing skills - I know "a picture is worth a thousand words," so if worse comes to worst, we'll just have to write a thousand words to explain what we mean :)

We hope you will understand and continue to visit! And thank you for those of you who voiced your concerns - we know you did so out of love for us.

Let us pray for all the children whose innocence have been exploited by others. Let us also pray for those whose souls may be clouded with darkness and hope that they will see the light of Christ.

Some Highlights from Our First Week

Thanks be to God that our first week of homeschooling went quite well. I had anticipated that my kids would fight over materials, that Matthew would play with all the materials or hop back and forth between the learning room and play room, that Joyce would complain that she is not interested in any of the work, that they would last through the work period. Well, none of that happened! Each morning, they were able to "do work" for 1.5 hours, and on a couple of days, I had to cut them off. I know this won't always be the case, and it's most likely the novelty of "doing school at home" that's keeping them interested. I'll work hard to try to make things interesting and engaging for them. Here is a summary of what they've been doing this week:

Matthew is in a sensitive period with water. He likes to transfer water with whatever container or utensil he can grab, during or outside work period. I've found him standing in front of the kitchen sink and scooping water with a spoon, back and forth between bowls. He is enjoying building the pink tower again, which is nice. For a while I thought both of them had completely lost interest in it. He also loves animals. I'm so thankful for that because everyday he goes through most of the 5 animal puzzles and that is usually a good time for me to show Joyce something new :) (Usually I alternate between showing them a new presentation while the other one is doing something on his/her own. It is working out nicely and they're not fighting for my attention all the time.) Another favourite activity for him is the knobbed cylinders. He usually picks at least 2 per day. It is amazing to see a bouncy and chatty 2.5 year old boy sitting still, completely focused, placing little pieces of wood into holes in silence.

Joyce is already an expert in a lot of the practical life and sensorial materials, and she likes to show Matthew how things are done (she likes doing that a lot and claims that "I am a teacher also." :) She's enjoys working with the moveable alphabets, reading simple 3-letter words with CHC's Little Stories for Little Folks, and the bank game.
She has been having fun with this wooden puzzle where each shape is split in half in 3 different ways. Just a few months ago she was haivng problems with them and got frustrated easily, but this time around, I gently gave her a few tips and she was able to persevere and figure it out. It is heartwarming to see her beaming with confidence after completing it.

It has been a very good week indeed. Thank you Lord for guiding us. Thank you Mother Mary for watching over us.

Our Learning Room

This is our learning room in the basement. This space in the basement used to be our family room and now half of it is devoted to school.Starting at the left hand side is our bookshelf of picture books. Next to that is the metal insets and sandpaper letters. Around the corner is another shelf for language material, followed by a practical life shelf, and then the math shelf. And there is Matthew folding a tea towel :)
A closer look at the three shelves: a half-empty language shelf (more language materials to be made :) with the movable alphabets and a chalk board for writing. The practical life section contains materials for washing leaves of a plant, dry and wet pouring, spooning, medicine dropper, nuts and bolts and clothpins. The math section contains the golden bead materials, sandpaper numerals, spindle boxes, numeral and counters, large and small number cards, ten and teen boards, and the color bead stairs.Going around the corner, are two low shelves for the geography/sensorial materials. And as you can see behind the shelves and the sofa, there are toys in the other side of the room (our "downsized" family room). So far, it has been a blessing that the children have not set foot in this "play area" during "work period." For geography, there are the globes of land/water and continents. We have two maps for now - World and Canada. The free standing sensorial material are the red rods and the pink tower. On top of the shelves are the geometry cabinet, geometric solids and metal fractions. The sensorial shelf contains the knobbed and knobless cylinder, sound boxes, color tablets, brown stairs, binomial and trinomial cubes, and constructive triangles. Turning around 90 degrees (on the opposite wall to the previous language/practical life/math shelves) is our shelves for "things that didn't fit in the other shelves." There are some toys e.g. leappads and doodle pros on the two left columns of that big 5x5 bookcase. Then the rest of lower shelves are plant and animal puzzles and dressing frames. The tall bookcase on the right is waiting for more materials, probably math related such as addtion and subtraction strip boards.
Finally, our library. It used to be books for the parents, but children's books have invaded almost half the shelves (and we are happy with that :) The lower corner shelf holds the tabernacle from Our Father's House. The lower shelves of the CD tower hold the items from their miniature mass kit. I'm hoping to add more CGS materials and store them in those empty shelves behind the glass doors.It took a long time to get this planned and organized, and I'm sure there will be more tweaking and moving things around along the way. I'm so grateful to everyone at the 4real forum! I don't think I would have achieved this without their sound advices, generous support and prayers. Any comments or suggestions would be much appreciated!