Math We've Been Loving

In this season, this week, this moment, we've been loving:

puzzles

Base 10 blocks and stamps

magnetic Fractiles (thank you, Santa!)

answering prompts and recording work in the girlies' math journals (thank goodness that they love these, because they've been incredibly effective!)

anything ipad app or CD-Rom. Anything.

doing chores to earn more money to buy more ipad apps (I'm a mean Momma, and I make them do the math to figure out how much tax they have to pay me back for each app, too)

computation--addition and subtraction and math facts up to ten!

computation--triple-digit addition and subtraction with borrowing and regrouping!

Khan Academy--finally I understand the concepts of borrowing and regrouping!

LEGOs

making recipes, almost always involving delicious sweetness (because who doesn't need a little more sugar in their diet?)

calendars--what's the day? What's the date? Is it still January? Will it be Spring tomorrow? No? Why not?

pogo stick and jump rope, and the oh-so-important Counting of the Jumps

Sometimes my girlies' minds are fairly quiet and restful--lots of quiet pretend play, lots of lounging with a lovey and listening to audiobooks, lots of looking at books and picture books and relaxing sorts of stuff. Lately, though, it's like both their little brains are exploding into new stuff all at once--it's lots of math, Ancient Egypt AND Ancient China AND Paleolithic peoples, Magic Tree House and Tales of the Frog Princess being played on two different CD players in two different rooms while one child also reads a different Tale of the Frog Princess and the other child works at a Dr. Seuss Kindgergarten CD-Rom, hiking and walking and hiking some more, swimming and ice skating and gymnastics and ballet, a playdate in the morning and a playdate in the afternoon, a documentary on the Great Pyramid before bedtime, the little one learning to read, the bigger one learning to borrow and regroup, making clay terra-cotta warriors and salt dough maps of the Fertile Crescent, chess club, and they both seem to have grown inches in days, so that all their brand-new fleece pants are just almost too short, sigh.

It's thrilling, and a privilege, a little startling, and a teeny-tiny little bit sad (where have my babies gone?) to watch these minds at work.