Decanomial - Sensorial and Bead

THE DECANOMIAL......dun dun dun......

 

Coincidentally, I showed Bubs the sensorial decanomial in the same week that Kui and I got to the bead decanomial (Well really we got to it because we finally got the beads in the mail!) 

 

I presented this to Bubs after I had shown him the short bead chains and he had worked with them for awhile.  He is quite aware of the different colors for each number.  For example, red is one, four is yellow, etc.  So when I started showing him this material he immediately pointed to the bead cabinet and said, "Mommy, it looks just like that!"  His shrill little excited voice encouraged me greatly in my homeschooling journey because all of these materials are quite time consuming to make.  Yes, there are quite a few materials that can be bought, but there are also quite a few that need to be made by the teacher (a.k.a. myself).  A great example of my hand made material can be seen in the third picture below.  Anyone see the wavy rectangles?!  Ha  Those got jammed in the laminator and when I tried to reprint them, my ink cartridge ran out and the blue squares looked more like a sky blue.  Needless to say that I wasn't going out to get ink any time soon and every day is precious in the wonderful world of Montessori learning.  So.....I decided to go ahead and present to him even though the materials were somewhat less than perfect.  (I do plan on fixing these, but for this presentation, it had to do.) 

 

I also need to make a storage container for all of these little rectangles.  Not sure where I will find that.....

Those wavy rectangles just add character right?!  This material is truly one of a kind.

 

Now for Kui's bead decanomial.  Wow, I definitely did not allow enough of the morning to complete this one!  I mean how long can it take to lay beads out in rows?  Clearly over an hour.  Ok maybe we had a few distractions like the table being bumped and beads messed up, T-man discovering that he can reach the top corners of the table and grab beads, snack time, etc.  Kui finally completed it though.  She was very proud of herself. 

Working diligently

 

In the picture above, Kui has already switched out her loose squares with the fixes squares on the diagonal.  If you click on the picture it will become larger.  Then you can see them in the top left hand corner and going diagonal to the bottom right hand corner.  Then she switched out the beads using the commutative law of multiplication.  2 x 3 is the same as 3 x 2 for example.  This is what gives you the pattern of the decanomial.

 

Her finished decanomial.  Phew!  It was a lot of work, but she discovered that it was the same thing that Bubs was working on and he thought that was pretty cool.  He looks up to his big sis and the fact that they were doing something so similar was cool to him.

Typical school day

Well, here are a few pictures from a typical school day around Our Lady of Good Counsel.  Don't mind the moving boxes in a few of the pictures.  I tried to not get them in there, but they are all over the house and they prove to be a great barrier for T-man entering the classroom, especially the one with heavy dishes.  However, you can see in the picture below, that someone had moved this great barrier and he had his way with the environment.  His first stop, Nito's chalkboard!

Oh did I forget to mention that he prefers to draw standing up and probably on one foot if he could manage!  This boy has no fear.

I presented the decimal checkerboard to Kui the other day and she picked it up right away.  It is very similar to the regular checkerboard. 

 

 

I showed the Zoology booklets to Nito and he really picked up on it quickly.  He did about 4 more and a few more the following day.  I am quite sure that he is ready for more materials, but I am finding a hard time giving him priority over Kui and Bubs at times.  There is just not enough time in the mornings to get to all of them.  Then you throw T-man into the mix, well....I'm not sure how I get anything done!

Bubs has zoomed his way through labeling the short chains and I can't quite keep up on the following presentations fast enough.  I am so happy though that he loves numbers so much, unlike his sister.  She is slowly coming along these days, but I hope to keep his interest as long as I can.  I just need to be more diligent in making sure I know what presentation comes next and having the material ready. 

 

Here is Bubs again with his numbers.  He insists on writing all the way to 20 and has begged me to let him use the marker board.  I gave in and told him that next week he was ready for paper though.  We'll see how that goes and hopefully there isn't a tantrum involved.  Stay tuned!