Eyepatch pictures

Got my buddy to wear an eye patch (for a minute) and am doing a little dance

Just jotting down some notes in my notebook

Twins!

Vivi's Mathematical Thinking

I was talking to a visiting math education professor a few weeks ago and he told me he regularly asks his young daughter math questions to practice mathematical thinking. I know that Vivi can reliably say the numbers in order up to 15, and she can only reliably count about 6 things. But that's pretty much all I knew about her mathematical thinking. Since that conversation, I've paid more attention to what Vivi can do mathematically.

1. She can reason about the number of things per something else (proportional reasoning).
When looking a picture in a book where there were three dog bowls of different colors and four dogs drinking out of them (2 at one bowl, and 1 at each of the other bowls).
Me: How many dogs are there?
Vivi: (counts) 1, 2 , 3, 4.
Me: How many bowls?
Vivi: 3
Me: How many dogs would there be if there were two at every bowl?
Vivi: 6 (without counting out loud).

2. She can divide four items by two.
Me: If you had four goldfish crackers and wanted to share with your friend, how many would your friend get?
Vivi: 2

3. She knows the word "half" and knows what it means.
(While Vivi is making a pizza out of playdoh)
Me: Can you cut that in half?
Vivi: (cuts it in half).
Me: Can you cut that in three pieces
Vivi: (makes a lot of pieces).

4. She can think about comparing measurement beyond direct comparison.
Me: Who is taller, Mommy or Vivi?
Vivi: Mommy. (unprompted-) But if mommy sits down, Vivi is taller.

I have no idea what she "should" be able to do at age three. My guess is that she is not particularly unusual - some of her classmates have been able to count much higher than Vivi for a long time - but I didn't know that she could do these things until I started paying attention.

edit: Found this page
http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/three/mathematics.html
It has some good ideas about what she might be able to do. Just putting it here so I can find it later.

Sink or Float?

An activity that my students (prospective elementary school teachers) do is to interview elementary school children about their ideas about whether things would sink or float. They gather a bunch of objects and ask children to make predictions about whether each object will sink or float. They also ask children to explain their reasoning. Density is a pretty complex topic for children because density is mass per unit volume (or how heavy something is for its size), but children tend to focus on either volume (size) or mass (weight). They might say things like "A log floats because it is big" and "A penny sinks because it is little" or they might think big things sink and little things float or heavy things sink and light things float. After their interviews we discuss children's ideas and talk about the difference between kindergartners and 6th graders' ideas and everything in between.

This year, one of my students asked, "What ideas does your daughter have?"  -- an excellent question. Vivi is quite a bit younger than a kindergartener, so I didn't know what to expect. I didn't even know how easy it would be for her to make predictions or if she knew the words sink and float.  So I did a similar interview with her. I gathered some objects she would be familiar with (some that would sink and some that would float) and asked her to make predictions.

Here is the video...

She had a hard time with the question "Why do you think that?" - in fact she just ignored the question. She was able to make predictions about whether things would sink or float but was learning the vocabulary as we went. In one case she says that something "floated to the bottom." Her favorite part was putting the objects in water.

3rd Birthday

Happy Birthday Vivi! Vivi's friends from school came to a beach party. We were also supposed to ride the boat taxi. Unfortunately, it broke. So instead, we got to stand on the boat and pretend to drive it.

The end of an era -- moving to the pre-school

Almost two and a half years ago to the day (Aug 19), Vivi started daycare at the on campus facility.
Here is the post (with pictures) from her very first day in the infant room ... http://a-grand-adventure-2011.blogspot.com/2011/08/first-day-of-daycare.html

Today is her last day at the on-campus facility and she'll be moving to the pre-school on Tuesday.

Vivi is so excited to start at the "big kid" school. I will miss her little kid school. She has had a fantastic two and a half years with wonderful teachers and friends.

Making Sunprints

I had some very old solar paper laying around. It says to use within six months, but we thought it still might be good after six years of sitting on a shelf. Solar paper allows you to record images of shadows. We did this early in the morning in February - the sun was very low in the sky so we got very long shadows. This meant when we first tried to make sunprints of Vivi's blocks, the shadows were so big that they covered the whole paper. So, we went looking for some flatter objects.

We tried lots of different materials for making sunprints. The box of fasteners was by far the most interesting

Laying everything out and looking at the shadows.

When the blue paper turned white, it was time to bring it inside and put it in water.

Finished sunprint after developing in water -- notice how the shadows look 3-D - white areas were where no sun hit and the lighter areas are where the shadows were (but some indirect sunlight hit the paper)

Then Vivi just played with the pieces.

I have read that other people have used solar paper covered in a clear plate (e.g., flat glass baking dish) to show how well different spf's of sunscreen block light. Maybe something to try when Vivi is a bit older.

Planting a rainbow

A few weeks ago, when reading the book "Planting a Rainbow," Vivi decided to plant her own rainbow. Mom drew out pots and Vivi colored them in the colors of the rainbow -- we had our plan.

The next weekend we bought some little pots -- one for each color of the rainbow -- and painted them as colorfully as possible.

After two full days of drying, they were ready to plant. We went to the garden store and bought some flowers and seeds.

Vivi's rainbow of flowers - red, orange, yellow, (green leaves) and blue-purple.  

gold balloons

Singing in the rain...

February photos

Need some safety goggles

Went to Staples with Mom. They had put a bunch of paper towel rolls out for me to play with.

We went to the garden store. I thought these plants looked like the ones at Bapa's house.

We made lanterns for Chinese New Year in my pre-school class