Sacramento Museum Day (2/6/10)

For my Sacramento Readers:

Twenty-five (25) greater Sacramento area museums will be offering free admission, all day long, during the 12th Annual Sacramento Museum Day. This event is presented by the Sacramento Association of Museums (SAM), and proudly supported by Umpqua Bank. Sacramento Museum Day takes place Saturday, February 6, 2010, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (all participating museums close at 5 p.m., with the last guests admitted at 4 p.m.).

Museum Day, a Sacramento cultural tradition, invites all members of the community to experience the Capital City’s incredible wealth of art, history, science and wildlife at numerous participating museums AT NO COST.

This info was taken directly from: (Thanks for the reminder from Heather :)
http://www.sacmuseums.org/museumday.html

Monday Math- Writing Numbers

My usual worksheet loving kiddo hasn't been in the mood lately- which works for me! (For some reason for a long time Ryan has LOVED doing worksheets!)

So, we have been using a variety of methods to learn how to write our numbers. Today we tried to make the digits out of pipe-cleaners. This was actually harder for Ryan's little fingers than I expected. But, nevertheless we had fun with it for a few minutes and mommy was there to help.

We've also used playdough and shaving cream in the last few days for some practice with writing our numbers. For when Ryan does want to do some handwriting practice I've put practice sheets into plastic page protectors. He has fun writing on them with an overhead marker (dry erase markers work too, but they smudge easily). His favorite part is when I take the paper out and the marker stays put! I love it because I don't have to make copies.

Our Giveaway is Still Going

Just a reminder that we are giving away four sets of books to our FaceBook Friends on 1/31.

Very few people emailed me after making it their Facebook Status: You can copy and paste this into your status bar: Check out this great blog: http://givinguponacleanhouse.blogspot.com/

I've added another way to win, blog about it! Blog about it and then post a comment on the original giveaway post!

Check out all the details at  http://givinguponacleanhouse.blogspot.com/2010/01/win-free-books-tell-friend-about-our.html

Giveaway for a Spanish DVD

I've found another great giveaway! It's for a Spanish DVD called Adentro y Afuera. Check it out TODAY at http://theadventuresofbear.blogspot.com/2010/01/adentro-y-afuera.html! Good Luck!

Teaching Odd and Even Numbers

I recently discovered an amazing series of books , Math Start, by Stuart J. Murphy. Having been a math teacher before having my kids,  I am always looking for good stories to introduce math concepts. I'm so excited that this collection of 63 books will keep us busy for quite a while!

Missing Mittens is an adorable story about Farmer Bill trying to solve the mystery of the odd number of mittens. Great prose,

Bill went to see the horses.

Both were shaking in their stall.

Each needed four warm mittens-

that's eight mittens in all.

and beautifully illustrated pictures make the concept of odd and even numbers easily grasped by children as young as three!

After reading the book several times over the course of a couple days, Ryan and I made our own mittens to play with. Using the mittens and the idea of pairs was a simple way for Ryan to grasp the concept of odd and even. I would tell him a number and he would use the mittens to lay out pairs and decide if it was odd or even.

On another day I briefly set a foundation for repeated addition (i.e. multiplication) by asking questions like, how many mittens would you need for four dogs? How about for three chickens. Ryan really likes these questions and enjoyed drawing pictures to solve them. This is just one of several great activities that are included in the back of every Math Start Book.

Later in the week we practiced our odd and even skills using a different manipulative, unifix cubes. Ryan and I sat down with a 1-20 chart. Ryan picked a color for the odd numbers, and a different color for the even numbers. Then we started laying different values out in rows to determine if the numbers were even or odd. We had only gotten to five when Ryan said, hey- it's a pattern. Developing a strong number sense through activities such as this is priceless!

This was as far as I went with the concept of odd and even numbers since Ryan is only 3. But, there were many great activities for older kids in Don Balka's accompanying resource: Hands-On Math and Literature with Mathstart.

The best news is that I contacted Stuart Murphy  last week to request some samples to review for our blog and he so generously obliged!!! So, look for more great Math Start activities to be posted soon! 

All of the materials that I receive to review, will be donated to our local elementary school, Garden Valley Elementary.

Don't Miss Dine Downtown Week!

For my Sacramento readers- this is one of downtown's best weeks! Dozens of great restaurants create special three-course dinner menus for only $30 per person. Just ask for the Dine Downtown menu at participating locations like, Mikuni's, Biba's, McCormick & Schmick's. You can see the full list and the menus at http://www.downtownsac.org/DSPAPP/V/promo/dine-downtown.html.

Losing TV Time

In the past few weeks Ryan has fallen into an old habit of getting out of bed constantly both at bedtime and during the night. We typically prefer to reward positive behavior, but a mama's gotta sleep!! So, I created this chart for Ryan. The 3 tv's are attached with velcro. Each time he comes out at bedtime or wakes us up during the night we will take a tv. If he doesn't have any tv's left in the morning he doesn't get any television time for that day. I'll let you know how it works...