Our Roxaboxen Adventures

#37-44/365 Mommytography Project

Hi friends...I've gotten a bit behind but we've been up to our usual- getting out & about, and living live to its fullest.

 Saturday- 2/5

Chinese New Years Festival

 

Sunday 2/6. We spend Sundays at Grandma's and the girls love playing dress up in her old clothes.

 

Monday 2/7- Kennedy enjoys pulling her wagon and chasing her shadow.

 

Tuesday 2/8- Jordan worked independently in her preschool book, while I cooked dinner.

Wednesday 2/9- Evidently, I failed to take a picture.

Thursday 2/10- Grandma & Jordan completed a mini-unit based on Gregory the Terrible Eater and made all these bags displaying the different food groups and healthy/junk foods. They cut out the pictures from the Sunday sales papers.

 

Friday 2/11- We went to see this improv  VCU troop  perform Jack & The Bean Stalk. Alex was pulled from the audience to be the Golden Goose.

 
 

Saturday 2/12: Jordan attended her first birthday party. A  fairy "spa party"for three year olds, how adorable.

Say Cheese for the camera...

 

and later that night, mommy & daddy were able to attend the Richmond Ballet's "Giselle", thanks to Macaroni Kids Richmond(Can you believe I won free tickets!).  It's a beautiful Ballet that follows a traditional storybook script : Boy of noble class pretending to be a farmer meets peasant girl and falls in love. Boy forgets he's engaged to another of noble class and hence the dilemma.  Peasant girl dies of heartbreak, Duke is love stricken.....and you can imagine the rest. If not, be sure to go when your local Ballet company performs Giselle. It's short enough for children and very easy for all who watches to fill in characters dialouge while viewing. Young and old alike will be mesmerized with the "floating on air" dance techniques and the amount of strength yet gracefulness required of its dancers.

 

 

 

Stolen photos, not taken by me, but doing the performance much more justice.

 more to come, I can't believe I still need to post dates from 2/13 til now....

Scenes from our Chinese New Year Celebrations

As I said earlier, I'm not one to create/organize/house a bunch of crafts. I'm much more likely to take the girls somewhere  else that's providing crafts /real life interactions and just throw in tons of themed books. So, here's what we did for Chinese New Years.

On Saturday we headed to the VMFA, who was hosting a Chinese New Years Festival.

 

Here the girls are doing all the crafts I don't want at home (painting/stamping) inked Chinese characters.

  

Painted a "year of the something- maybe it's a tiger?" porcelain plate

 

Little hand puppets.

 

Playing with tangrams

 

horoscope sign face-painting

On Sunday we went to the main festival put on the Richmond Chinese Community.

 
We missed the big dragon dance, but did get to see the masks/costumes,

 

beat on the huge drums.....

 
checked out a few traditional dances....

 
and some martial arts & musical performances....

 

and finished our morning with another craft - Chinese Firecrackers :)

 

We've done both these festivals before in past years and each time they turned out to be great real- world learning experiences for the family.

Email me if you're interested in our booklist for Chinese New Years.

 

#31-36/365 Mommytography Project

Here are my photos from the week.

Evidently, I failed to take a picture on 1/31 so I'm starting on 2/1 instead.

I came downstairs to find this.... see all those "things" over the doors?

 

Upon closer inspection, I realized someone ( a nameless 6 year old)  is very anxious for spring to arrive and started her planting early....

 

Tuesday was Groundhogs day. I wish I could say we were a really crafty family, but we're not. I read this book, this book, and this book to Jordan and had her do some shadow matching work.

 

Wednesday, we had some warm weather, so we played outdoors after school.

 

and played inside once it got dark... I Spy, Operation, Matching carpet samples, & Categorizing Space Cards

 

 

 

 


On Thursday, we had freezing rain in the evening. The girls wanted to play, so I gave them $2.50 each and 30 mins (I can only bare so much) to knock themselves out at Chuck-E-Cheese. They pretty much stayed on the virtual roller coasters, but mommy was able to sit and read a book in peace :)

 

 

 

How we do Math....with books

Well you probably already know- we use montessori materials primarily and the good books to learn math concepts.

So Alex informed me that she had a lesson recently on Triangles (which she remembered from last year, but I guess the teacher has to give the lesson anyway) and she wanted to do some more research. So at home, we'll be playing with our materials as well as reading through this book . This book I highly recommend for any child who  loves geometry. It does a great job using hands on materials to teach shapes, angles, degrees, and higher level (still elementary) geometry while always trying to give real life examples in science, math and nature, (just as the title suggests ).

 

Other  readers/activity books I checked out to go along with her Triangle book above:

This origami book.

 

This one we saw at the art museum...Shapes in Buildings

 
If You Were a Triangle- a quick fun read.

 

Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry

 

and this little book, Let's Draw A Fish with Triangles

 

You may wonder- how do I find books corresponding with math themes?

Well, I love this site,  and being a teacher I have access to countless math curriculum/magazines to pour over.

Thinking I'll write a separate post for Jordan's math books... a bunch of fun, simple counting stories.

I'm linking this post to "What My Child is Reading" , stop by.

 

 

#26-30/ 365 Mommytography Project

Another busy week.

Wednesday, both girls engaged in side math activities. Jordan counting cubes to 10. Alex sorting/researching Canadian coins & stamps .

 

 

Thursday the girls collected acorns outside and made this acorn stew & ground beans for the squirrels.

 

Friday, our American Girl bookclub at the library. This months girl- Kanani

 

 

 Saturday we spend at the science museum where the girls had a blast.

 

 

 

 

 

And on Sunday, Alex came down with Strep Throat. It's a good thing she had enough memories of fun from the week to get her through her day of bed/couch rest.