monday: numbers, shapes, patterns

Today we made a number line - 1 to 100 - in chalk in the thin November sunlight (we'll take it). Challenges abound - jump the threes. Backwards from 100.  Sevens forward. 

None of us could quite jump the 10's - too far! - but we hop-skipped them.

Slow stroll down the evens...

Movement plus math equals so much more fun.

Today there were pomegranates - again, in the sun.  Hadn't ever noticed that the jewels sit in small hexagons, like honeycomb. So beautiful.

Today we started a project that I read about when Eliza was something like 2. I have been waiting a loooong time for this one!  It is a multiplication "clock", which I think was created by an artist, Robinsunne, who does not currently have a live link to the instructions but assured me that it will be back up soon.  I will try to remember to post it when we are all done, so we can share in this goodness. 

I think the most awesome part is the making and using of a cardboard compass (think geometry, not navigation).  So simple and it works so well.

Then we get to the filling-in.  Ani is amazed by all the numbers she does know - her 5's, her 10's, her 2's and those crazy 11's - and I watch as her sixes slowly come around to facing the same way as the rest of the numbers and her twos grow more graceful and precise.  She is pleased.  Filling this out is a lot of practice!!

I will share more photos and how-to as we get more done, but each radius takes a different set of multiples, as does each concentric ring.  Woweee, was that fun to discover! Ani finished rings one through five and started coloring them in...This is going to be beautiful!

And today you get to see what dinner sometimes looks like when Dan stays late at school.  Eliza zipped through Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller while Ani read Jane Yolen's My Uncle Emily, about Emily Dickinson. Then I think they swapped. 

It's all a good start to the week.  Happy Monday!