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.  

The Netherlands Project ~ By Emma

           We made the Netherlands  so we would know what it was like for the people that lived there when the dikes broke. We used air-dry-clay to build the dikes ,people and land . We also used blue water to put in the bin on the other side of the dike to see if the water would hold on the side the water is suposed to be on. 

          I think this was a fun project in history, It was fun to play in the clay and watch the water brake into the the Netherlands, Then we broke the dikes.
        This is just like what happened to New Orleans in hurricane Katrina.


                    

          

A brand new hot dog ~ by Emma

Today's Journal Prompt:

April 24th is “Pigs-in-a-Blanket” day.  Create a new dish using hot dogs as the main ingredient.  Or describe your favorite hot dog dish.

Here is Emma's entry:

My hotdog is inside the bun. On the hotdog I put steak, steak juice, mashed potatoes, and haricot verts (green beans) cut into tiny bits. Yummy, yummy!  Sounds delicious to me, I can't wait to try it someday.