Vacation Mode

Am I the only one who gets into vacation mode around the holiday season?  We don't get into all the festivities of celebrating Thanksgiving but we do have the big turkey day feast.  All this week, I've been so slack and unfocused.  I've kept up our scheduling but I've relaxed my teacher role a lot this week.  My focus is on all the prep work and feasting we'll do next week! lol  I really can't wait.

The kids are moving right along with their studies.  E(11) has moved on to decimals. He worked on Khan Academy this week to refresh his memory. (He started working with decimals last year, but eventually the teachers started teaching for the state exams so it wasn't a necessity for his grade level.)  He was so happy to finally be done with the fractions unit.  A lot of it was a repeat from last year but dividing fractions kicked his butt.  He stuck with it and made it through.  I expect this decimal unit to last throughout the month of December and then after the new year, we'll move on to ratios, percent and conversions.  What fun!
 

T(8) has finished her review of addition up to 4-digit numbers.  She struggled a bit with her math facts but she remembered the rules for carrying (regrouping) and borrowing.  Her next unit is multiplication.  We've discussed it previously so she's familiar with how it works.  She determined that it is just like skip counting.  We'll start the unit in December.

  

A(7) has just learned how to regroup 2-digit numbers!  I'm so proud of my baby.  She fought me so hard when I introduced this new skill!  Oh my goodness, that girl is tough!  She insisted it was too hard... she would never learn it... she didn't need to learn it.... I took the whole week to go through the problems in the first lesson.  It was about 25-30 problems.  We started with doing five a day using base tens rods.  By the third day she said she didn't need the rods.  Day 4 she was doing the problems on the whiteboard with my confirmation of a right answer.  On Friday, she was doing the remaining problems in the lesson by herself.  My girl!  She proclaimed she is now a pro at regrouping.  We'll do another lesson of problems and then we'll move on.  I'm not sure if we'll do larger numbers with regrouping or learn borrowing with subtraction.  Either way, it will begin in December.


Next week, is a short work week for us.  We'll do fun stuff on Monday & Tuesday and then take off the rest of the week to enjoy some much needed rest and family time.  Whatever your plans, have a fantastic time!!