Dominoes, your in home math tutor

C found a hand me down toy a few weeks ago that I had put away several months ago because it just kept getting stepped on. It was a toy computer thing with educational games. The simple addition games REALLy caught his attention and he is now always asking questions like "Mom, what's plus seven plus five?"

Well the other day he asked me to play a game with him an I promised to play dominoes with him after I put E down for his nap. When I came down he had a line of dominoes set up. After we knocked them down we started noticing the colored dots and I showed him how to add each side up. We went throught the whole box of double twelve dominoes adding all the sides up. We didn't do many 10s, 11s, or 12s. He really caught on to adding 0 to any number, also 1s and 2s. In fact there were quite a few sums that he could do in his head. I was really impressed with what he could do quickly. It never seemed like a chore (except when I pressed a few of the "too hard" sums like 7,8,9's added with each other) and it really felt like a game. C was a little sad when they were all done, but he decided he didn't want to do them all over again.

I love it when things just happen like they did with the dominoes. Now C had math as a concept not as a subject. We try to do little sums in our daily life. I love homeschooling, I love watching him learn and I love how sometimes it all just happens.

Banana Trap

Somehow I managed to let a batch of fruitflies invade my house. I think it was the really really ripe banana a couple of weeks ago. The funny thing is they didn't just hang out in the kitchen with the food - they were everywhere. Well yesterday I decided to leave a plate out with a tomato and really ripe banana to see if I could get them all to congregate in one place...and then get them some how. I really didn't think too hard about it. But C came up with the idea to get them in a jar... I thought it was unlikely but let him get a jar and a lid and put the banana in there. He kept watching it and putting the lid on every 5 seconds and only managed to catch one or two which escaped when he took off the lid.

Once he forgot about it the trap really started working. I go check it every half hour or so and there are lots of flies inside, then I quickly put on the lid and take the flies outside and release them. Then I bring the jar back in and collect more flies. Overnight they left the other parts of the house and are now thick in the the kitchen - which is good because that is where the trap is. I am getting rid of them about 30 at a time a I suppose - and my 5 year old thought up the way.