Sept wk 1 day 2: Brain, heart, lungs

Another great day! We studied the brain, heart, and lungs, and spent an hour twenty in the room.

Again, we started out by reading books. Then we did a version of "Simon Says" (we used "my brain says") and the felt body organs. We blowed bubbles (well, I did, Nugget tried to) and listened to her heart with a stethoscope before and after she ran around. I demoed some three (well, four) part cards about the organs but it was way over her head and she blew it off. I'm not surprised; I'm going to simplify the cards a bit and try again tomorrow.

Then Nugget moved on to the typical Montessori work. I put out a lentil pouring activity which she dug in to, then tried the bead sorting (I simplified from yesterday) but didn't do it right.

She did puzzles, and when she started looking around, I suggested a Pink Tower game (she looks away, I remove one block and ask her where it was). Through our work with the Pink Tower, I'm certain she CAN do it, she just has more fun not doing it (the sly smile and "is that right?" when she put them in the wrong order).

She went back to the pouring and, for the first time, poured into two containers (tomorrow, I'm going to set out containers that are too small to fit all of the lentils). Then she sorted -- correctly, when I suggested that she was putting the animals (the beads are shaped like sea life) into their homes. She noticed that they were beads, and asked about threading them. The beads and holes are so small, the only way to do that was with a needle and thread. She worked so hard and so carefully! She threaded all 36 beads. I was very impressed with her work.

She finished up doing some sequencing work. Interesting note -- she'd been sequencing one of the stories -- a dad lifting a girl -- incorrectly. I'd thought last night to put stickers on the back so that she could check her work, but didn't. Today, in order to help her see her error, I asked her to tell me the story of each group she sequenced. And she wasn't wrong! Instead of seeing the story as "girl runs toward dad, dad starts to pick up girl, girl is in the air", she saw it as "girl runs toward dad, girl is up in the air, dad puts girl down". I'll totally give her credit for that answer -- it could be read that way! Another reason to love homeschooling. :)

Tomorrow -- digestion!