Toronto Reptile Zoo-Turtles and Cobras and Nile Crocodiles, Oh My!

When I saw an advertisement in my local paper for discount tickets to the Toronto Reptile Zoo, I immediately thought of the easy connection that could be made to the Grade 1 and Grade 2 Science and Technology Curriculum: "Understanding Life Systems" Strand. In this science teacher's opinion, if you have never been to the Toronto Reptile Zoo, it is definitely worth the trip! I must admit, I was a little skeptical as to how amazing a zoo located inside what is essentially a large commercial building in a industrial strip mall type setting could be; but after going through their website and visiting the place, my skepticism was laid to rest. They cater to those who do home school and offer sessions that directly teach aspects of the Ontario Science and Technology 1-8 Curriculum in a hands-on, interactive manner. They offer live feedings and live shows every hour on the hour that discuss aspects such as cold-blooded versus warm blooded, the food chain and food web, habitat, diet and mating, along with characteristics specific to each reptile and reptile family. Although I truly expected a show focusing on the "wow" factor of these scary things that creeped, crawled and swam, the focus was completely educational-a 15 minute (roughly) blurb about the reptile, at least 15 minutes devoted to questions, and, the best part, 15 minutes devoted to actually being able to touch, smell and watch the reptile move without the separation of a pane of thick glass!

To prepare for our visit, we spent some time learning about some of the different reptiles that were at the Toronto Reptile Zoo using a variety of different media. We read dictionaries and encyclopedias, devoured National Geographic's website and watched videos of reptiles in action. I created a little worksheet for a few of them and had both the littlest and not-so-littlest one answer questions about diet, habitat and characteristics in order for them to practice both their printing skills and more importantly, their ability to digest information, analyze and make sense of it, and then communicate their understanding through writing:

When we discussed habitat, we used a globe and discussed where each reptile was found in the world and what characteristics of that particular place made it an ideal place for that reptile to flourish, and, in some cases, even went as far as to discuss the similarities and differences in locations in the event a species was found in more than one part of the world.

When we returned home, we talked about the "habitats" that existed in the reptile zoo for the species we focused on and how they resembled (or didn't resemble) the natural habitat we learned about. I decided, due to the sheer volume of diverse species found at the Toronto Reptile Zoo along with the sheer amount of different ways I could connect this zoo to the Ontario curriculum using a multidisciplinary approach-science and technology, geography, history, sustainability, and even mathematics (think graphing, Venn diagrams and percentage)-to pick up a few more discount tickets...stay turned!

Chore Charts, Money and Decimals

About a month ago the kids started asking about money and how much things cost, so we decided as a family to introduce the concept of an allowance and of chore charts. I know there does exist some controversy around the idea of chore charts and an allowance-that introducing a monetary reward for tasks around the house may contradict the idea that tasks around the house are to be done as part of familial upkeep, leading to the possibility of children only helping out around the house if money is the end result. I am keeping this thought in the back of my mind as we try out this idea, but for our family personally, I see it as a way to introduce the concept of income and reinforce all mathematical concepts associated with money by using it as a application platform for counting, addition, subtracting, grouping, multiplication, number scales and even decimals as their knowledge builds.

There are numerous free chore charts online that anyone can use and we choose a different one every week depending on the mood of my children at that particular moment. I then print them out and have them print out their chores for the week:

I have found that my son is a "reluctant printer". That is to say that he truly detests any sort of worksheet making him rewrite the same letter or word over and over again-as do I. So I try to find ways (at least one) on a daily basis to incorporate printing into something he enjoys doing-in this case, getting set up to make more money.

When we put them up on the wall, they are accompanied by a second sheet that has the value of each chore on a per day basis:

They have a visual to look at every single time they go near their chore chart that contains the image of the coin, the written denomination, the name of the coin and its decimal or numerical value. Although neither child understands the concept of decimals, they do understand that "after the dot means cents, before the dot means dollars". In other words, they are gaining some prior knowledge based in a mathematical application that will fair them well when they are ready to learn all about number scales and decimals.

At the end of every week, we add up how much money they have made, denomination by denomination and then as a sum. Depending on how the day is going, we also group them, stack them, and play a game called "trade you" where they cash in their denominations for another type of coin-right now they are both obsesses with Toonies, so they count their allowance up until they reach $2 and then trade me for a Toonie.

I know it may seem like an awful lot of work both for them and for me-typically there are around 10 lessons surrounding the concept the numerical skills associated with operations of money up to $100 and 8-10 lessons on decimals (including fractions) in the grade 4 Ontario curriculum (Number and Numeration Strand)-and of course there is some introduction in grade 3 and building on concepts in grade 5 and onward. However, one of the biggest complaints surrounding the public school curriculum is the lack of time allotted to teaching key concepts in a inquiry-based deeper understanding kind of way. I figure if they even grasp some of what we are doing week after week, month after month then they may have, at the very least, the prior knowledge and experience needed to navigate through this rapid-fire curriculum they may encounter in the future if public school becomes part of their educational pathway! So as long as they enjoy it-and they really do right now-then I will continue to cash in their interest!

To The Toy Store We Went!

Much to my dismay, my children decided that this beautiful sunny day was the day we would go to the store and spend the money they made from their freezie stand. I figured that since they may be counting up to $40 in mostly quarters, we should probably go very early in the morning.

They spent approximately 2 hours deciding what to buy. During that time they learned a few harsh lessons:

1. Toys cost a lot of money
2. The amount of money they had was finite
3. They could not buy the whole store and had to choose what they truly wanted

...and finally

4. That Mommy would not "top-up" the amount they needed for a toy that cost more than the amount they had!

They took their time picking and choosing, adding and subtracting as they figured out how much they wanted to spend. My son wanted to spend as little as possible because, as he so eloquently put it, "I still want to have lots of money" while my daughter was quite content to spend every last cent she had earned.

When we finally arrived at the cash with our very, very, very, carefully chosen toys, I warned the cashier that they would be giving her the money. She gave them a look and then me, one mixed with slight annoyance and disbelief, but I chose to ignore it in favour of my children having the full experience of choosing and then paying for something they earned themselves, by themselves.

I don't know what was more thought provoking for me, the fact that no one seemed to mind the line getting progressively longer and longer as each of my children counted out almost 30 dollars in mostly quarters or the fact that the high school cashier needed to count each one twice as she messed up the first time for each child respectively. She joked that no one uses cash anymore, I joked that it was because no one knew how to count anymore.

We were there for 2 hours and 37 minutes in total before we finally left the store.

I buckled my son into his car seat with his chosen prize-a great white shark made by Animal Planet-and then went around to buckle my daughter in, only to hear a sad little voice say "mommy, my shark has a tear in its mouth"

F***!

He said that it would be fine and he would play with it anyway, but then I asked him if he would be truly happy with his shark or if we should go in and exchange it for a new one. Now my son is the type of person who will do just about anything to avoid confrontation, including accepting something that he is not happy with, so this became yet another learning opportunity along with a way to round out the total time at the toy store to a good 3 hours.

So back in we went, him clutching his shark and his receipt, begging me to deal with it for him. I refused, not because I was tired, hungry and sick of the toy store, but because I wanted him to learn that he can stand up for himself and be okay.

He went up to the man and said "I bought this 5 minutes ago and noticed in the car that its mouth was ripped. Can I get one that is not ripped"?

And the man was so surprised with the little boy who could barely reach the counter that he offered to go with my son to find a perfect one.

And they did.

And my son was happy, "100 percent".

And so was I, because just as its important to learn numeracy, it is also important to learn how to stand up for yourself and be comfortable in confrontation with the goal of amicable resolution in mind-a lesson my son learned today that made him stand a little taller and walk with a little more swagger.

Counting our Freezie Stand Money!

After our month of freezie stand sales, it was time to finally determine the fruits of our labor! They grabbed their piggy banks and eagerly ripped the bottoms open knowing that once they knew how much money they had, they could finally buy their own toys.

They first grouped them into their respective denominations-reinforcing the physical characteristics of money grouping and discriminating for both:

For each one, I made a table so they had access to a visible numerical value as we were counting in order to continue to make the connection between the coins and the numbers they represent:

I know that they are both a little young to grasp the concepts of decimals just yet, but just by having them there to see it becomes an informal introduction to decimals with the association of money-theoretically making it easier to introduce formally later on as they have some sort of previous knowledge of them going in-even if it is as simple as seeing them before!

Although I recognize that my littlest one may still be working on the actual concrete representation of adding 5 more or counting by 5's (or 10's etc.), this activity is, at the very least, numerical pattern recognition for her along with the concept that objects can hold numerical value:

For the not-so-littlest one, he is still working on counting quarters but has just reached the point where he does not need to group them into 4 to count by dollars. The rest he can no do with ease, so we are working on adding multiple sums both verbally and on paper. We do them one after the other, so the numbers on paper hold a concrete physical representation in his head.

The verdict?
Littlest one-$39.80 and Not-so-littlest one-$41.09

This included their allowance, maybe a few dollars if that, him a little more than her by nature of their responsibilities.

The conclusion they ended up coming too?

"We make way more with the freezie stand, you should give us more money for allowance or we should just do freezie stands and not chores"

Dammit.

The Monthly Calendar-Better Late Than Never!

The "feels like 34" forecast of today made it the perfect day to make our monthly calendar-that and the fact that it was 3 days overdue. The littlest one picked out her favorite "summer colours" while the not-so-littlest one grouped them into groups of 2, 4 and 8 when she wasn't looking. Being a science teacher with a very strong math background, when I see him doing things like that it makes me think that sometimes I may overdo the "math is in everything" mantra, although I must admit it always makes me smile!

Starting:

The reason I like doing the calendar every month is for the sheer amount of teacher opportunities it presents. Not only does it reinforce the days of the week and months of the year but they also get to practice printing all the words and letters (JK-Grade 1 Language and Math Curriculum). Not to have a single day without some sort of numeracy skills, today we had the littlest one practicing counting by 2's writing the even days in July and the not-so-littlest one counting by 2's writing the odd days. I will admit that it takes a good hour and that when we started it took more like two and a half, but it was the dead of winter so it became a great way to pass the time! We finished it all off by drawing all the plants we see in July (SK Science and Technology Curriculum)

Finished Product:

Bike Riding, Measuring and Mud Chicken!

So its the 2nd of July and I have started full throttle with my campaign to start the most fun "educational" summer ever! We started the morning off as per usual:

Me: "what do you guys feel like doing today"?

Them: "Dunno, bike ride, something fun, a field trip"

Me: "Dammit, I really should have planned something"

So I did what any good parent/teacher would do..incorporated their suggestions into an on-the-fly day focused on measurement and plants and of course, the necessary D.P.A.-bike riding.

We grabbed a bottle of water, 2 rulers, post it notes and a pencil and headed out.

For the littlest one, I decided to focus on getting comfortable using a ruler, assigning a numerical value to objects, organizing objects from biggest to smallest and connecting the numbers associated with those objects to the concept of ordering numbers (SK Numeracy Curriculum).

For the bigger one, we focused on measurement in cm versus inches, assigning a measurement to objects, ordering objects based on measured size and graphing the resulting numbers (Grade 1/2 Math Curriculum).

The objects they chose were the bike seat (22cm), leaf of a willow tree (9.5cm), a dandelion (11cm including stem) and a stick (16cm). We discussed living versus non-living things (SK Science and Technology curriculum), dandelion goo and brown sticks versus greeny/brown branches.

We then finished off the day by stopping off at our favorite restaurant (a set of bleachers belonging to a beat-up old baseball diamond) for some mud "chicken" which I paid for by counting by 5's, 10's and 2's...

Tomorrow's lesson? The power of bleach?