Math Notebook:
Fibonacci Sequences are amazing! I can't remember learning about this in my youth. ("Score one for public school," says Stephen. That's okay...his children will learn about this.)
Nature Notebook:
Last week's two storms brought the accumulated snowfall for the winter to over four meters in Charlottetown. Here's a neat little chart showing how much we got. (Please note that this chart does not include April's snowfall.)
Despite the fact that it is not unusual to get a bit of snow in April, this does feel like a lot. I think because we got so much in December, and it is still not gone, it really is feeling like a long winter. We were glad to get outside for hours three days in a row once the stormy weather was gone. We made a snowman, had snowball fights, played fox and geese, shoveled snow, and walked over to the school playground to play.
Homeschooling Notebook:
It surprised me this week what a difference there can be in ease of memorization between different passages. After spending more than six weeks on the Beatitudes and the boys still could not say them, we moved on to a parable (Build Your House on the Rock). After just one week of repetition, both SA and JJ surprised me by reciting it from beginning to end. Why is this?
I love the way SA attacks problems. We started making a multiplication chart this week with the times tables from 1-10. He filled in the 1 times table first, because it was easy. Then he started working away at the 2's. He noticed the 5's next, and filled them out. Then he started working on the 10's column. He noticed the 50 and the 100 at the bottom of the 5 and 10 columns, and realized he could count by 10's across as well. So he filled that row in. He was thrilled that they were the same across and down. Then he knuckled down and started figuring out some of the harder numbers. We actually got about half-way through filling in the chart that day. (He didn't want to stop.) It makes so much sense to attack it this way! Me, I would have started at one corner and worked methodically through the whole chart until it was done. He does the easy stuff first, and there is very little left to actually do the hard work on.
I know JJ said something awfully cute this week, and for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Oh well, I'm sure he'll come out with something else next week.
Have a good week, everyone!
