Thinking about BIG numbers with little kids

How Much? How long? How many? Answering ONE MILLION questions is par for the course with a 5 year old.

The questions come quickly, especially in the car, where I’m captive and nothing seems to make Claire happier than rambling on about all those things she wonders about.  

Claire: How long until I start Kindergarten?

Me: In September. It’s about 3 months away.

Claire: When will that be?

Me: About 90 days. 90 sleeps.

Claire: Ok.

[she counts to 90 methodically, seeming to count 14 twice because the “th” sound is a challenging one. The thirties are another interesting bump along the way; I work hard not to smile…]

I want to do it faster Mommy. How can I count it faster?

Me: Count to ten 9 times.

Claire: [racing through 1-10 in an unintelligible blur, but one that seems to satisfy her]. What about how many minutes and hours? Can you add them all up? Would it be like a million? Or more? What IS a million? 

Good of you to ask young grasshopper.

As luck would have it, I had checked out a book from the library about just that.

How Many Jelly Beans? By Andrew Menotti
Check it out on Amazon 

There are lots of counting books available for children, but many stop at 10 or 20 or even 100. Estimation, especially visual estimation is so valued in mathematics curriculums but it’s hard to find concrete examples of the larger numbers. Thank you Andrea Menotti bequeathing kids this book of BIG numbers. The story was sweet, the illustrations fantastic and the concept perfect for a math-curious kid.

Each page has simple line drawing of the main characters, but it is the brightly drawn jellybeans that take center stage as siblings Emma and Aiden decide just how many jellybeans is too many. 10? 20? 10,000? On and on to ONE MILLION.

Hoarder tendencies aside, my daughter claimed about 1,000 would be great, roughly three a day.

Seeing one million of something was impressive to even us adults. I mean, think about it. How much IS one million? Have you actually seen one million of anything? Claire poured over the illustrations wondering if there were indeed one million jellybeans on the huge gatefold conclusion page.

And my final answer, the one that seemed to satisfy my ever questioning 5 year old in regards to when Kindergarten is starting?

Corn. That’s right. Corn.

I showed her the cornfield at the end of our road and sounding quite wise, I informed her that the corn would be ready for harvest when she is ready for Kindergarten. Considering my daughter is going to be starting school about 33 minutes from downtown NYC I find this answer equal parts hilarious and sage-like.

I love finding math and literature connections - share favorite picture books related to math, number sense and counting in the comments.

Milestone Moment: Child's First Library Card

No craft or witty project today, just a proud kid showing off her very first library card! At 5 years old, our local public library lets the kids have there own card to check out materials and Claire couldn't be happier.

To help manage the LARGE amount of books, movies, video games and magazines I bring home myself, I've decided to limit Claire's checkouts to five items. This should keep me from having to pay too much for the "fines of shame" when books are inevitably late.

The librarians made a big deal of the card, coming over to offer handshakes and congratulations as well as a packet of new bookmarks and stickers. How sweet!

Garden Gnomes and Garden Toads

Getting dirty is a skill set Claire especially excels at.




The muddy project Claire is working on in the photo above was inspired by a book we checked out from the library about gnomes.  Claire was enthralled by it, and I must admit that I was as well. Growing up, I absolutely

Gnomes by Will Huygen

LOVED the Nickelodeon show "David the Gnome." Turns out the whole show was based on this book by Will Huygen. The illustrations were beautiful and I thought the premise of the story (and the gnome interviews) were endearing. The fact that we found this in the non-fiction section (it was in the oversized book collection) has convinced Claire that gnomes are really, truly, real. 

Forgetting the fairy houses of last week, Claire wanted to build a gnome house complete with a barn for a toad she found, surely the gnomes would enjoy transportation via hopping?

I think her construction technique was spot on. Lots of "logs," mud to glue them all together and a thatched roof made of leaves. The toads in the yard are quickly learning to avoid the grass when Claire is afoot, this little one was forced to "enjoy" the barn she built. He hopped away a while later, but I'm not sure he actually disliked the place.

While Claire played with mud, I worked on getting dirty myself. The side garden is almost finished. Lots of mulching left and a few more plants to go in the shady area and I'm done. I think I've personally planted about 95 shrubs and that's not counting the ones we put in during the fall months (thank you Lowes for the AWESOME clearance steals). Now I'm spraying them all with putrid smelling junk because the deer near my house pay zero attention to tags labelled, "deer resistant."

My freezer better be stocked with venison this year since I'm providing so much food for them.

Playing Show and Tell with a bunch of great blogs!

A Craft for Little Bookworms

These cute bookworms caught my eye and I just had to share! I know the knotting might be tough for little hands, but with a slight method change (glue on some legs or use pipe cleaners) it will be accessible to even the youngest crowd.

One of Claire's favorite Christmas gifts this year was a butterfly kit and we're getting ready to send off for our caterpillars. I think we'll try and make a few of these first, what a nice tie-in!

Head over to Impress Your Kids for the full tutorial.

Creepy Crawly Friends Weave Wondrous Textile

I've blogged before about Claire's love of many-legged critters and how we've observed them (to her grandparents horror) in our glass cake stand for a few days. When I came across this article in Wired Magazine on a spider silk textile project,  I immediately read it with Claire.

Of course I nearly snorted my coffee when I read the line, "Unlike silk worms, which are easy to raise in captivity, spiders have a habit of chomping off each other’s heads when housed together."

Oh. Dear.

What an interesting read about how the industrious folks in Madagascar collected wild golden orb spiders who were "milked" of silk and then released, unharmed, to resume their bug control duty back in the wild.


Of course Claire now wants a million (or twenty-teen) spiders of her own to weave a blanket for huggy bear. If my sister is reading this, I'm sure she's having flashbacks of the time Mom bought me an ant farm and the sleepy, half frozen ants woke up with a vengeance and swarmed the kitchen. Poor Laurie. I do believe she is scarred for life.

Nature is truly wondrous and I'm hoping to make the trip to NYC to check out this amazing textile, I just wish we could touch it!

I love the idea of sharing age-appropriate current events with young children and would love to hear how you incorporate recent news and science developments in your classroom or home!

Check out the article here:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/spider-silk/
Photos above from Wired

One {Counting} Pop Up Book to Add to Your Library

Vanessa of Silly Eagle Books recently wrote a post featuring children’s books about art and it got me thinking -- what about books that ARE art?

My local library is a treasure trove of awesome pop up books. I consider many of them superb examples of sculpture, and they are certainly accessible to and engaging for little hands. Due to their delicate nature they are not available for checking out, but our library trips are usually a 3 hour long event -- much of it is spent engrossed in these books.

     

One of the coolest counting books I’ve ever seen, "600 Black Spots" by David Carter is a celebration of color, shape and math. Now being three, Claire is not quite up to the 600th spot in her counting (she stops around eleven-teen which comes after seventeen and in her mind) but she loves hunting down the black spots in all the pages. This book is seriously gorgeous and it would probably be in my library even if I didn’t have kids. Every single page is different and it’s totally wacky and modern.



I’ve got a few more pop up books to share and will do so throughout the week. My original plan was to write an epic post about the coolest pop up books for ABCs and 123s, but we’re racing to get this house on the market and I have lots of painting and spackling to tackle. We’ve even got a few contractors coming in to lend a hand and I totally feel like we’re playing “Designed to Sell” at warp speed! Any staging advice?!



Do you and your children enjoy pop up books? Any favorites to share?

My 3 Year Old Reads Tolkien

My 3 year old adores JRR Tolkien. No really, she does! Most especially when Daddy reads "Mr. Bliss" to her.

Wandering around the stacks at the library (my favorite pastime) I noticed Claire swipe a book from one of the low shelves. As I was turning to unleash my stern voice, I realized she had picked up a children's book by JRR Tolkien! 

That's right, the guy who penned epic adventures of hobbits, wizards and one ring to rule them all, both wrote AND illustrated a children's book. The fact that Tolkien wrote this for his own children made the story that much more endearing. 

Mr. Bliss is the story of a man who wears tall, funny hats and while driving around in his new automobile has a series of silly mishaps. The illustrations are sweet and I love that Tolkein's handwritten version is preserved on the right-hand pages with a typeset translation on left. Mr. Bliss is a wordy read, but very fun.

Who knew we could find such a great children's book tucked right in between The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings! My husband and I really enjoyed reading this with Claire. What a great find!

Have any children's books taken you by surprise lately?

Easiest Letter Activity EVER

Earlier this morning, I was in desperate need of a quiet, mess free activity for Claire so I could nurse a cup of tea and fight off the cold my mother so kindly shared (thanks Ma). The fact that I managed to sneak in a little literacy lesson on Read Across America Day (happy birthday Dr. Seuss!) was an added bonus.



A random piece of package wrap compliments of IKEA and a bit of tracing…and voila! A matching activity and letter identification lesson rolled into one. Learn your letters kid, and one day you too will be reading Fox in Sox. I think this is my favorite use for those letter magnets everyone seems to have gathering dust on their fridge!

As Claire matched up the upper and lower case letters she practiced their sounds and joyfully sang the alphabet song to her cousin Jessica on the phone. Things don’t have to be visually perfect for a quality learning activity, sometimes something quickly whipped together and hand drawn is just as good as what you can buy in the store.



Good times this morning. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to find some chicken soup in the freezer.

Great Valentine's Reads In Books and Online

I visited my local library Monday, really sad that the due date had arrived for our Valentine's story books. After reading "Sweethearts" by Jan Carr every night for the past two weeks, I've grown rather attached to the sweet family of panda bears who inhabit its pages. Of all the holiday themed books we checked out, this was by far my favorite.

Full Size {FREE} Alphabet Chart!

I had a few requests for a larger version (8.5 x 11) of that little alphabet chart I created to show off the free font featured here. Well here you go, just print and color away! And thanks, but no you don't need to pay me for this LOL!

Here's the link to the full sized landscape version:
http://flic.kr/p/9ePSjP

And here's the link to the full sized portrait version:
http://flic.kr/p/9eSZBd

By the way - I didn't watermark this because what kid is going to want to color all over something labeled "Chalk In My Pocket" but I'd love if you'd link back or email me if you share this somewhere.

I'm linking this post up to:

http://www.abcand123learning.com -- http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com -- Tot Tuesdays

Lil’ Letter Caper

 

I strongly believe play is the most important learning a three year old can be doing. That said, I have a kid who is endlessly curious about letters and writing (and books obviously). Claire quickly learned all the sounds in our alphabet over the summer (short sounds for the vowels) and now I’ve introduced the letter names. I didn't follow any formal program -- I just wrote a few letters on the board before breakfast and pointed to them while speaking their sounds. That's it! Our phonics approach seems to be working because we were goofing around with some stick-on letters and I found this:

How to get your kid to LOVE nature: Ornithology 101

What do you get when you combine a snowy morning, tons of sunflower seeds and our very first non-fiction book checked out from kiddie section at the library?

This one's for the birds!

We just read "The Big Snow" by Elmer Hader and (if possible) Claire has become even more obsessed with birds. Having lots of wintry weather here like in the story, it was the perfect time to provide some sustenance to our feathered friends. Claire said I looked just like the old lady in the story when I through the remnants of the suet cakes in the garden...um, thanks sweetie.

I house all sorts of experiments in my fridge (both intentional and unintentional, green shrimp, anyone?) but this hodgepodge of lard, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, cheese and bird seed was a success, both in "cutifying" our backyard and keeping my three year old occupied. If birds could talk I'm sure they would be raving about this recipe, our feeding stations were swarming with visitors and the birdie cakes were the hottest thing there.

There are lots of tutorials for DIY bird suet on the web but I liked this one for two reasons, I had the ingredients on hand and the recipe came from reputed wildlife organization so I figured we wouldn't accidentally harm any wildlife.

The cast of characters, do NOT melt the lard. 

There are no ingredient ratios, so I randomly lopped everything into the bowl. The basic goal is to get everything to gel together in a firm enough package to mold, the freezer will take care of the rest. I wasn't sure how birds felt about Parmesan cheese so there's only a bit of that.

This is a kid friendly recipe, nothing to heat. I highly recommend limiting the distance from jar to bowl, or pouring the seed in. I was trying to make this project take up time on a cold morning and while Claire is very careful, there was still scattered seed from her scooping the seed little by little. Nothing intentional, but those little seeds kept rolling right off the spoon...maybe a scoop would work better?

 We tried a few different mixing options, of course hands won out. I had to dig in and help at this point because I intentionally left the lard pretty firm. We packed (squished might be a better description) the suet into cookie cutters, mini muffin tins and tupperware containers then froze for about 3 hours. I brought the tray of mini muffin bird cakes outsides and set them right in the snow with a cover to protect them from the squirrels. Easy peasy.

I know everyone else who blogged this project put little straws in to allow string to be passed through a hole after the were frozen. I found it just as effective to load a bit of the suet into the container and then have Claire put some yarn (birds love pink, it's a fact) in the center before loading the rest of the suet in. It might not be as cute, but we liked it just fine. The final product:

 

Reading...or listening as it may be!

Claire is devouring books lately, and while I adore reading to her I was happily surprised by the selection of audio books for the young child at our local library.

We've been listening to a fantastic recording of Winnie the Pooh narrated by Judi Dench featuring Stephen Fry as Pooh. There are a bunch of other well known British actors involved in the reading and it is so well put together, the actor reading for Christopher Robin has the sweetest voice and Eeyore, and his eternal misery is captured perfectly.

Since I've only seen the cartoon version of this tale myself (Disney?) I've been cracking up at the witty language...why was this all taken out?! We've been having great car rides listening along to the adventures of Christopher Robin and his "Edward Bear." I can't wait to see what else we dig up in the the coming weeks.

I've also been checking out read-a-long stories. I set Claire up at the kitchen table in the evenings and she is happily occupied for half and hour "reading" along with the narrator of various stories. Clifford is a big hit...it's short and sweet and Claire knows just where the repeat button is. Would you like me to recite "Clifford Takes a Trip?" Heehee! I remember cramming into the library audio booth at Elmont's public library on hot summer days sharing a headset with Michael Ponticello and listening to a bunch of stories. What fun!

I just wish some of the publishers would re-record many of the classics onto CD...the old magnetic tapes are worn out and there's nothing to replace them. The children's librarian shares the same sentiment...we might have to start a campaign! Move aside LeapFrog! We want our stories read by humans - not machines!

Because I've been told I'm not allowed to write posts without photos of Claire - here's a picture of her in our own hundred acre wood.

Wordless Storybooks

Because I love a good story and one told strictly though pictures intrigues me, this is what we're checking out from the library tomorrow:
There are quite a few other wordless picture books out there (Goodnight Gorilla is a Claire favorite) but this article on ohdeedoh had a number of titles new to me. I'll post Claire's version of the events in the book, I can't wait to listen to her tell the story.

Have I mentioned how great the online reservation system is at our local library? It's my personal netflix for books, I LOVE it!

Peaceful Mornings

I'm listening to Claire "read" to our cat, Ray. At least I think that's what is going on judging by the animal sounds (Dear Zoo, again?) . For the past few mornings Ray has woken Claire up and all I hear from the living room is "HII-EEE Ray Ray!" She's enjoying her time with the kitty and I'm enjoying some time roaming around the Internet and organizing some digital photos, here's one of Claire posing with favorite species, ROAR!

Books!

Since I left teaching 2 years ago to stay home with Claire the thing I miss most is being next door to the school's library. The computer lab was a prime piece of real estate - air conditioned, great software and nearby BOOKS! The books! I LOVE books! I nearly made it through the entire YA bookshelf in my time at Hilltop. In addition to having something to discuss with my pre-teen students, I often found the writing geared towards young adults more intelligent and challenging then the latest "bestseller."



I especially love beautifully illustrated books. Right now I'm drooling from afar since Claire likes the same three books over and over again. She's at the age where she's anticipating what is happening on each page and likes to see the same pictures over and over again. "Yook Mommy - lion rar!" I'm trying to live in the moment and enjoy each and every reading of "Dear Zoo," but really, I can't wait until we can dive into a new book everyday. I've mixed things up this week with "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" but it's the old favorites that Claire continuously grabs off the shelf.




Claire is way too young for this book below - I could see paper scraps strewn throughout my house, but isn't it so clever and beautiful?


These pics are all from the NY Times "Best Illustrated of 2009" list, check out their article to see the others. It's a really diverse lineup this year although I was surprised no collage type books made the cut. I'll resume my "Claire-centric" posts tomorrow, I just had to share these!

Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2009

By THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Every year since 1952, the Book Review has asked a panel of judges to select 10 books from among the several thousand children’s books published that year. The judges this time around were Adam Gopnik, who writes regularly for The New Yorker and is the author of two novels for children, “The King in the Window” and the forthcoming “Steps Across the Water”; Jillian Tamaki, a teacher at the School of Visual Arts and the recipient of a Society of Illustrators gold medal; and Lisa Von Drasek, the children’s librarian of the Bank Street College of Education.

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow...or not

I'm hoping the sun will shine again one day this month - I looked at the forecast and once again clouds and scattered t-storms are predicted for the next 10 days. Yesterday there was a thunderstorm that produced some amazing hail and thunder which shook the house. Claire kept saying "WOW!" and I scrambled around trying to locate some matches and flashlights just in case. A swift breeze seems to leave us without power here and with our well pump and stove running on electricity it's a bit of an inconvenience. Thankfully, the storm blew by quickly and left us with power. C'mon sun! We want to enjoy reading in the hammock again!

Caught Ya!

Dan stealing kisses in an attempt to distract Claire from her reading:

Our First Day of Storytime!

Eric Carle...you write the best stories. We love your colorful collage work. We especially love how our local librarian reads to all the children and uses puppets and songs!

What a great morning for the first day of story time at the library. Today we read:



We came home with a bunch of new books too! I'll have to add them to our Library widget over on the right so everyone can keep up with our reading adventures!