I feel a little better about math

So we are starting homeschool kindergarten 3 weeks from today! How do I have a kindergartner already!?!?

I've been really worried for a few years about teaching math. Yeah I know kindergarten math should be easy, right? But I was more worried about giving her a bad start... Her not really getting it, which is what happened to me. How I coasted through math for 14 years I'll never understand. I never understood anything. I remember nothing I learned. I know I'll have to relearn everything along with Madeleine.
So my friend Rebecca (shovedtothem.blogspot.com) has been "talking me down" since I confessed this to her. She pointed me in the direction of Miquon math, which teaches math as a language in a way kids can understand. I went ahead and ordered the first book and the teachers manual then had a mini breakdown the day I got em in the mail. Then Rebecca wrote this awesome blog post:

http://shovedtothem.blogspot.com/2012/07/i-blame-math-teachers.html?m=1

(you're welcome for inspiring that post, Rebecca! :)

So I just figured I'd follow along with the program and see how it goes. Miquon uses cuisinaire rods as a manipulative. Rebecca told me to go ahead and let Madeleine play with them and see what happens. I showed her the rods (each one is a different length and color and represents a different number.) I told her which rod went with which number and she had em memorized in about 2 minutes. Then I showed her the "10" rod and asked her to see how many ways she could figure out to make 10.

She figured it out immediately! She was saying, "1 and 1 and 8 make 10!"
And
"2 and 3 and 5 make 10!"

She probably found 20 different ways to make 10. I was amazed! Then she started building other structures with the rods so I thought she was just messing around. But then I heard her talking, saying things like,
"I don't have any more 5s, so I'll just use a 2 and a 3 to make 5."

She blows me away on a daily basis. And I feel better about teaching (and learning) math... For kindergarten anyway :)

Thanks Rebecca!!!

Beautiful baby girl

Placenta moved out of the way and she looks good! So thrilled I will not need a c section (unless there's some other unforeseen circumstance.)

She's measuring about 5 days ahead of schedule, so just over 20 weeks. About par for the course with our kids.

Oh and she's super cute! We gave Madeleine her own picture to keep and she kept kissing it! She's soooo excited for her baby sister. She told the ultrasound tech that she had asked God for a baby sister and He answered her prayer :)

Madeleine's favorite day of the year

Farm day with Nicole C!
She loves the baby pigs and may have kissed a few! She was telling ken all about it at supper and I was joking about her marrying Jack and being a farmers wife. She said, "will you tell me when Jack is grown up so I can marry him?" lol

Oh and someone was terrified of the pigs...

Annual first steps evaluation

Leo had his annual eval yesterday to see if he still qualified for speech and feeding therapy. We love our speech therapist and want to keep her once a week til he ages out of the program at age 3. They had an occupational therapist and a speech therapist evaluate him for about an hour. He does say several words now but still qualifies for therapy (wooooo!!!)

So his speech therapist read the report and said it said he has above average intelligence, cognitive ability and understanding :)
I knew it! Lol

We are thrilled we get to keep our therapy!

And yesterday he built a big block tower. I'm very happy he's starting to be able to entertain himself for short periods of time. This could make my meal preparation go much more smoothly :)

Typical family gathering

My cousins clinging to guns and religion.

John Paul isms from today

Leo starts crying in the yard. John Paul runs up and says, "Mommy did you SEE me do anything to Weo??"

In the bathtub with Madeleine. She's saying, "you have to scrub your back, legs, feet, tummy...."
John Paul, "Don't forget your PEEnee!"

Very late July 4 pics

And we aren't making much progress on baby girl names over here!

If you had a baby girl....

What would you name her?