Taking it to the street.

Emma has been struggling to memorize her multiplication facts.  She can work them out in her head, but has not been able to recall them from memory.
So we took our math to the street yesterday.  It was a beautiful morning, and the kids had a blast playing multiplication hopscotch, and other variety of games and memory work.

Jack was able to work on skip counting and jumping, while the girls worked on the 3's.

I think that this worked.  Before bed I reviewed the facts with Emma, and she knew them all without hesitation.  

We have tried all kinds of rote memory work for Emma and it just hasn't stuck.  My theory is that when she is asked to do something physically challenging (jumping from square to square- don't land on the lines, etc) it frees up the portion of her brain that was anxious about the math.  She was so worried about trying to remember that it blocked it.  Being physically active distracted her and allowed it to really sink in. 

I'm going to look and see if I can find any literature to confirm this. :)

one article, and another

Moving on to the 4's today!

sound project- string telephones by, Abby & Emma

                               SOUND EXPERIMENT 

When you make string telephones you tie a string to two plastic cups and add paper clips, then you talk to the person on the other side and you can have a conversation. A three way call is possible you just add a third cup, more string and a third paper clip. To hear the people talking you half to pull the string tight to here the sound, If you don't the vibration will stop and the sound won't make it through. ~ Emma

     Today we did a sound experiment.  We made a phone out of string and plastic cups. It worked really well!  The way the phone works is when the string vibrates, the sound waves move across the string from one cup to another.  We also made a three way call by adding one string and cup to the middle.  That also worked very well.  We had a lot of fun doing this! ~ Abby

The "3 Way" call.

Mom's Note:  This experiment was really cool, I had no idea that it would work as well as it did. 

We used just a regular plastic cup, some twine, and paperclips.  

Queen Beatrix gives her thrown to her son Willem-Alexander. ~ Abby

    Philip    William

©Jeroen Van Der Meyde/Dutch Royal House               

Today we got some news, the queen of the Netherlands,  stepped down from her thrown! Queen Beatrix gave her thrown to her son Willem-Alexander.  

                   I'll tell you a little about the history of the Netherlands.  Philip inherited Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.  Philip was a catholic.  William was a nobleman in the Netherlands.  He was a protestant.  William didn't like the way Philip ruled the Netherlands, because he made laws without asking the people.  Philip wanted William killed.  So William went back to Germany, he made an army and knocked down the dikes that were holding the water back turning the land war into a sea war.  William won the war and his Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Granddaughter, Beatrix ruled for 33 years.

Mom's Note: This was of interest to us, since we have been studying the history of how "William The Silent" came to rule the Netherlands.  Love it, when we can apply what we have learned to real life current events :)

CUPCAKES BY ABBY

I really like baking cupcakes so I thought that making my own recipe would be a good way to challenge myself. I thought that adding this little twist would make the cupcake a little sweeter, and switching the bleached flour for the unbleached flour would make this recipe a little healthier.

Recipe :

  1  1/2 sticks of butter

1   1/2 cups brown sugar

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cups egg whites about 6 eggs

3 teaspoons of vanilla extract 

3/4  cup of milk

1 banana

1. Set a rack in the middle level of your oven and preheat to 350 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar for about 5  mins until light and fluffy.

3. In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

4. In a third bowl combine the egg whites, milk and vanilla extract. Add a third of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, and then half of the milk mixture. Continue to alternate the  ingredients.  Scrape the bowl and beater often. 

5. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake pan, bake the cupcakes for 25-30 mins or until a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean.

6. Cool the pan on a rack for about 5 mins, then take the cupcakes out of the pan and let cool completely.

7. Once the cupcakes are frosted you can add a slice of banana and a sprinkle of cinnamon!

I thought the cupcakes were delicious!  My brother and sister did too, my mom thought they were a little sweet with the cream cheese frosting I used. I brought some to my nana and papa's house, they said that they were delicious and really moist.