This Week's Symmetry Lesson

In one of our math lessons this week, we were studying symmetry.  This project was part of the lesson plan in our Saxon 2 curriculum, but I was really surprised by what a hit it was with the girls (and that there was no mess)!  This is what we did:

• Fold a piece of paper vertically.
• Open up the paper and spoon some paint on the center of the fold.  (The lesson plan called for poster paint, but we used finger paint.  I honestly don't know what poster paint is!)
• Fold the paper again, so that the paint is on the inside.  
• Press the paint with your hand, moving from the fold to the outer edges.
• Open up the paper again and allow the paper to dry.
• Voila!  You have a symmetrical design!

 The girls really had fun trying to figure out what design they had made.  We decided we had made a fish, a flower, a beetle, a squirrel, and a butterfly.  This is definitely an activity we'll be doing again!

Homeschool Resources We Love - Teddy Bear Counters

My girls LOVE these cute little teddy bear counters.  They came with the Saxon  K-3 manipulatives kit. At the time, I had no idea what a big hit these little teddy bears would be.  The Saxon Math program has students use these to act out stories to teach addition and subtraction (at least that's what we've used them for so far).  For example, you pretend that a piece of construction paper is the park.  There are five teddy bears at the park, so the student places five teddy bears on the paper.  Then, three more teddy bears come to the park, so the student places three more teddy bears on the paper.  How many bears are at the park now?  Five plus three is eight.

The girls love playing with these even when it's not math time!  These teddy bears go swimming and shopping.  They fly on the airplane.  They go to the zoo and the aquarium.  The girls also enjoy sorting them by color, making patterns with them, and lining them up in rows.  These teddy bears have even become toys for their baby dolls!  I am proud to say we have only lost one of these precious bears so far! Right now, I am wondering if they will be as big a hit with Matthew and Jonathan!

A Science Experiment Gone Awry

We tried to conduct a science experiment to see what kind of food the birds that visit our yard like more, the cheap wild bird mix or safflower seed.  We made two identical feeders with milk jugs and bamboo skewers, but the birds never found our homemade feeders.  Not to be intimidated, we decided to conduct our experiment by filling the seed in the fancy feeder we bought David for his birthday and comparing the number of days it took the birds to eat all the seed.  While not completely a scientific approach, we thought this was a pretty good alternative.  Looks like we failed to control for the Sarah variable, though!