Counting is Taking Off

When I post stuff like the following updates on our homeschool, my sincere hope is that it does not seem that I am bragging or boasting. Really, it is just helpful for me to remind myself that we are actually accomplishing anything each week and that I can, in fact, help my children learn. My confidence in that comes and goes. And I should re-emphasize the "helping" aspect of homeschooling; for the most part the kids are learning a ton on their own and I follow their lead.

Tey has been enjoying counting to 100. Sometimes he just counts out loud, but when he has the numbers in front of him, even if not in order, he can do it without error. One day he counted while jumping, which was a fun way to get sillies out too. Of course, with rockets, it is always fun to count backwards! We've been doing that a lot just because the kids enact shuttle launches all the time. Props to Bo for finding this counting maze that gets a space shuttle into outer space. I love when we can build on our nocturnal theme. He actually printed it for Bean, who then pushed it aside thinking it was too hard. Sneaky Mommy then introduced it to Tey who finished it with a little scaffolding. ;)

Bean attempted it today and completed with without any help though he wanted me to sit next to him. I knew seeing Tey do it would ease his reservations. I can see that we have made some strides with him as far as overcoming his fear of failure, but we still have a ways to go. Relating a task to something he knows really boosts his confidence. In this case, I related it to dot-to-dot, but told him it was squares. I dunno what he was afraid of, he can do dot-to-dot counting by threes! It's all about presentation with him. I need to remember that. Bean's made great strides in math and we actually finished his Singapore math kindergarten curriculum, so we are doing first grade now. Contrary to my expectations he writes in his workbooks all the time. Our oral mathematics and real life mathematics complement the workbook/curriculum stuff well but there is comfort in knowing that we are learning systematically with the curriculum. Number bonds are his favorite and I'm going to try to slow down and really reinforce it to really make sure he's got that down pat because I know it's the foundation for later material.

Mei has picked up on counting too. She generally does not enunciate most of her words, but I can tell the gears are turning in her little head. For her counting, she points and goes "Hmm, hmm, hmm" and it sounds a lot like "1, 2, 3." Similarly, when she says "Bean Bean" is sounds like she is "Ga Ga" but as if you had your mouth closed. It's like she keeps the back of her mouth closed or something. I'm thinking she'll soon come around to more actual words, especially since she picked up "owl" in just one day of us trying to teach her it.

Update: Today Bean also did similar space counting worksheets, one counting from 5 to 500 by 5's and one counting from 2 to 200 counting by 2's.