A Creative Spelling Lesson

So it went like this:

Me: Divide the syllables, please.

Hero: The eruption goes.... here! Bwahahaha!!!

And there you have it! He's not wrong...

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Baby Steps Blog (@ritsumei_babysteps) on Oct 31, 2018 at 8:12am PDT

Number Play

One of the most unexpected things that has happened with homeschooling is the way that this second chance at learning math has really revolutionized the way that I understand and approach math: I always wondered why it is that kindergarten books start out with patterns, thinking that those had very little to do with math. Boy did I miss the boat:

Patterns are the heart and soul of math.
And they're fascinating.

So today, I'm helping Dragon with his math, and it's patterns, and they're driving him crazy.

I had a look at that third one, and saw that it's increaing by odd numbers:

1+3=4
4+5=9
9+7=16

So it's a pattern of "interval", I told him. And he was confused. So I asked him, "What's an interval?" And he said it's the space between. Yep. I also reminded him to get out his notebook so he's got some scratch paper to play around with, which he did.

And he noticed a different pattern, as he was looking over his multiplication chart:

2x2=4
3x3=9
4x4=16

So it's a multiplication pattern, squaring, and traveling diagonally down the center of the multiplication table. Which is cool. Both patterns fit.

5x5=25
6x6=36

He starts figuring out the next numbers in the sequence; it's pretty obvious, really, looking at the multiplication table. So I wondered what comes next when you do it my way. Maybe I should have predicted what happened, but I didn't:

16+9=25
25+11=36

It's pretty cool. I would never have predicted a relationship between this adding of odd numbers thing to square numbers. Makes me want to explore these numbers more, though I wouldn't know how to go about doing it. I love that our math program (we use MEP) sometimes causes these spontaneous discoveries that we can play with.

Numbers are so much cooler and more interesting than I ever suspected in school.

A Little Outside Time

We headed to our current favorite park yesterday. I misjudged how chilly it was, so we grabbed the leaves for our nature books and jumped back into the car to do the actual drawing. And then we took a walk. It was a breezy day, and there were all these fluffy white seeds flying everywhere. The kids assumed they were cottonwood seeds, and while I had my doubts (aren't those earlier in the year than this?) I couldn't say for sure that they weren't, so I didn't say anything. But I'm really glad we went on the walk, rather than just wimping out and going home. Turns out, it wasn't cottonwood fluff, it was from milkweed.

 And not only is it really soft, but we found one on the ground that had fallen out in a clump.