The good news is I didn’t throw up in the bowl of jewels in front of ten innocent children. I waited until they were busy with outdoor game with my partner, James and scavenger hunt with my daughter, Hope. That’s when one mother suggested it would be a good idea if I got some fresh air. On the way to the bathroom, I settled for a planter near the library. My migraine started earlier that morning and grew. I’ll blame it on my ex husband, but that’s an excuse. (Seriously, everyone should have an ex husband for this sole purpose). I did finish the class (with surprising enthusiasm, I may add) and went straight to bed.
In my eagerness to have enough to do, I had too much to do and not enough time to seriously address some mathematical issues with the older children, namely borrowing. I feel my goals were met for the younger children and I am very happy with the games I created.
The children enjoyed the “Linus Minus” shake down game. They took as many jewels as they wanted out of a bowl told us all how many they had. Then they twirled, flipped, and twisted to loose as many jewels as the could. The audience did the math for them. Cartwheels were a favorite.
On the concrete outside, we drew a game board. (James, myself and two children who appeared early) There was a castle with 6 trails of 19 steps leading to the castle from every direction. The children started on the tenth circle (which was drawn bigger). They had two dice to roll, one showed a color- orange for Polly and blue for Linus. The second die had numbers. If a child rolled orange 3 they went up three spaces, if they rolled 4 blue, they went back four. The first one to the castle won.
I also created a similar board game the night before with my children which turned out quite cute. We ran out of time to play. (I’ll save it for another day.)
For the book project, I had all of the pages of Linus Minus and the children were to put it in chronological order. I thought this was quite clever, but it completely missed the mark. The younger children were at a complete loss, so parents put them together while they played something else. The older children would have understood if I had explained it better and set it up more like a puzzle. (My health impeded my communication skills at this point.)
I think I will offer another hour after the course with a few of the older children to concentrate on developing more skills with higher concepts.
Right now thankful I have had some sleep and am turning my attention to Tina Times..:)