Where do you go when you don't know what a word means?

We were driving home from Becca's choir concert and talking about Word Girl. DH asked Becca, "If you don't know what a word means, where can you go to find out?"

I knew her response a split second before she said it.

"A computer?"

Yep... 21st century kid alright! Don't get on me, we do have and USE a dictionary, but we haven't gotten to full-on dictionary skills yet.


Becca won two silver medals (floor and balance beam) and two bronze medals (bars and trampoline/vault) at her gymnastics competition. She was great at choir, sang beautifully and had a short solo part. Sylvia had her first gymnastics exhibition and was beyond adorable. She did a great job - I was pleased with how well she did, given that this was her first semester in class!

That boring math

We're 17 lessons from the end of RightStart A. Becca was showing a little impatience with it today (it's a K level math) and I asked her if it was too easy. "Well, not too easy..." Uh huh. It's a little too easy but math sometimes freaks her out, so she likes it a little easy. I tried to gently talk to her and tell her that we were going to move on and it might get a little more challenging soon. She said she didn't want to go back to "that boring math that we used to do" (Singapore Math) and I reassured her that she'd still get to use the abacus, play card games, and have a lot of fun. She was so excited she wanted to do the remaining 17 lessons today! I guess she really hated Singapore - it moved quickly but wasn't fun enough or something. I liked it, but that was the parental perspective, and if she's not learning from it that's a moot point. She wanted to know if RightStart went up to Level Z and was worried to find out that it only went up to E and then Geometry. I assured her that they'd probably make more books as she advanced and it would probably take her to high school level math. High school seems far enough away for her to not be too worried about it. Maybe I'll try to pick up the pace for our last few RS lessons and go on into Level B. I'm just nervous about hitting a wall again like we did with Singapore.

She's also enjoying some fun math supplementation from MEP (Mathematics Enrichment Programme). This is adapted from some Hungarian model... something like that. Exotic countries have the best math, apparently. It's getting a lot of play on the WTM boards right now, so I've printed off the early sheets for Becca to play with since RS doesn't have many worksheets. Oh - MEP is free. Don't all stampede over there at once! She shows a real interest in these sheets - they help her thinking and logic skills too, and she gets to use colored pencils and draw pictures. Here's the link: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm

It's not a science book, sweetie.

Headed to the library today to grab some African folktales for our next unit and more reading material for Sylvia. I got a ton of Anansi tales, including one retelling titled Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. Becca helped me put the books in the bag, noticed the title, and asked to read it in the car. So I handed it to her and we drove home. The library (tiny though it is) is very close to our house. When we got home, Becca said, "This book doesn't tell us why mosquitoes really buzz in people's ears!" She was about halfway through and I had to explain that this wasn't a scientific text, but a folktale!

We made paper today (actually, we recycled it, but it's close enough) and Becca finally got to have free rein with her Ancient China box! Heaven!

"How do you say ice cream in Latin?"

That's what Sylvia asked me last night during her pre-sleep snuggle. I promised her I'd look it up and tell her tomorrow.

By the way, it's gelidum cremum. Sylvia was tickled when I told her!