I’m having another go at these learning notes. I am frightfully disorganized and inconsistent , but at least I’m tenacious. These notes are for Patricia (age 5).

Monday (11/16/09) I was loading the dishwasher just before taking Trishy to school. She decided she wanted to play “I Spy” with me, so we did (“I spy something that’s rectangle shaped and black …”) using shapes, colors, and size to give clues about the objects we had in mind. (Logic; Math: Geometry: Shapes) One of the objects I described was a translucent cooking oil container. We talked a bit about the difference between “transparent” and “translucent.”

Then we left for school; she had a red cardboard cardinal, on a string, dangling from her hand. It was a gift from her granddad. We talked about why male cardinals are bright red, to attract mates, and female cardinals are dull brown, to be camouflaged in trees as they guard their nests. We also talked a little about what nests are made of (twigs? hay?) and whether they’re camouflaged in trees. (Science/Nature: Adaptations) That led to the question “what is hay?” We talked about how farmers prepare to take care of their animals during the winter. This reminded her of a recent field trip to Polyface Farms.

Photo lifted from Lisa Spector’s Facebook — Thanks!

She told me she had learned that cows can cope with cold the longest, pigs are second, and chickens can survive the least cold. (Science/Nature and Social Studies: Adapting to Winter; Farms) I asked her, “How do wild animals survive in winter?” and she said, “I don’t know.”

Trishy also asked me whether there is summer in the Arctic and Antarctic, so we talked about that a bit. (Science/Nature: Habitats)

When we got to school, I spun her around on the tire swing (Sensory Development: Vestibular) and she played with Moon Sand with some of her friends (Sensory Development: Tactile).

It sounds like she had a lot of fun at school that morning playing with her friends, with lots of imaginative play. (Social and Emotional Development: Cooperative Play; Imaginative Play) “Cat and mouse” role plays were a big hit.

That afternoon, the weather was gloriously mild, so she asked to go to the park. We did, dragging her siblings along with us. She did some swinging (Sensory Development: Vestibular) and played with a shovel with levers, though she didn’t quite have the strength and coordination to maneuver it. (Sensory Development: Proprioceptive; Strength; Bilateral Coordination) She was afraid to climb a small ladder or try any of the slides.

She also played in the leaves a bit. (Sensory Development: Tactile).

Tuesday (11/17/09) She went on a field trip to the JMU Planetarium where they “had T.V. on the ceiling” and to the Harrisonburg Children’s Museum. As far as I can tell, she didn’t really glean any astronomy from the experience, but maybe it put up a “coathook” on which to hang future learning. Perhaps at some point in the future, she’ll see a book on stars and the memory of this field trip will spark an interest in reading it, or she’ll want to go to the planetarium again. Who knows? In any case she had fun with her beloved teacher, Gleamer, and her buddies at school. Gleamer helped her count all her money, which was stashed in her purse ($24 and some change) and she chose a goodie from the gift shop at the HCM. (Math: Computation: Counting; Money Skills)

When she got home, she wanted to “do school,” so I got out a puzzle and some games. We put together a 33-piece puzzle of the world (Geography; Sensory Development: Fine Motor Skills; Visual Spatial Reasoning), played dominoes (Math: Computation: Counting) and played Mastermind (Logic: Deductive Reasoning). We did a “treasure hunt,” where the child follows a trail of flash cards to the hidden prize, which is generally a small toy. Her “flash cards” were cards with numerals on them — apparently she has no trouble identifying numerals 1-29. (Math: Computation)

We also played Ten Days in Europe (Geography; Strategic Thinking)

Later, we had Family Writer’s Group, and she had dictated this to me:

A dog runs to the door and chews on a boot. He plays with his brothers and makes the door swing and hits in view a dog. As it hits the dog, the dog goes flinging through the room. As one of the dogs runs upstairs, the house lights up and horses start running toward the house. With a boy running, he runs into a tree and a leaf goes flinging through the air. It hits a little light that’s making the sun. The boy runs back to the house and runs so fast that he gets dizzy.

What is it? Poetry? Prose? Random ramblings? Whatever … she seemed to have fun coming up with it.   (Prewriting Skills)

Wednesday (11/18/09) We went to Raw Learning, where there was more imaginative play.(Social and Emotional Development: Cooperative Play; Imaginative Play) One of the kids wanted to make a mini-garden on a plate, so we took a short nature walk to gather materials like small stones, weeds, sticks and lichens. As I was walking with Trishy and Riesling, Riesling pointed out what appeared to be a tiny tree emerging from a crack in the asphalt. We wondered whether it would grow big, and we discussed the fact that a plant needs plenty of soil to spread out roots which will collect water. (Science/Nature: Plants) The kids also watched a cement mixer and other construction trucks at work.

Later, Trishy, Riesling, and I pretended to be birds migrating; Trishy used a globe to point out where we were going (to Africa!) We talked about migration. An employee of the church where we attend school came along and saw the girls with the globe. He pointed out some points of interest (he’s worked in the Caribbean and in Africa) and talked to them about it a bit.  (Science/Nature: Adapting to Winter; Geography)

Trishy also glued some dirt and stones to a plate, handling a bottle of Elmer’s with minimal help, and Gleamer helped her unbutton her coat with minimal help. (Sensory Development: Fine Motor Skills)