Monday — Games and Scribbling

Marie is still really sick, and probably would’ve had to miss school today, so it was fortunate that it snowed! School was canceled, and we settled in to hibernate for the day.

After a period of moping, because I had to cancel the sleepover he had planned tonight, Marty went out to play in the snow. He came in snowy and soaked, claiming he had “frostbite.” Apparently, the poor kid even had snow in the crack of his behind. Don’t ask. I didn’t!

Missy and I played several rounds of Art Memo. She knows the names of many of the famous paintings in the collection. It’s a great visual memory exercise, of course. When Marie had her massive round of neuropsychological testing, they used an almost identical activity to assess her visual memory. The expert-in-residence told me her score was abysmal — in the 1st percentile for her age. Ironically, she’d been playing memory games at home, and doing great, for years. That tells you something about testing, doesn’t it? But I digress.

Art Memo also gives Missy a chance to practice comparing numbers, since we count our matches, at the end of the game, to see who has the most. I sometimes ask, how many more matches do you have than I do? (Number Sense (Comparing Numbers) & Subtraction Concepts)

We played Arctic Animals Concentration (a game I made, same concept as art memo, but with animals who live in an arctic habitat) with Marty. Missy, Martin and I also played Mille Bornes, and he was scorekeeper. (Addition Through Thousands)

Then Missy and I played Rat-a-Tat-Cat. This game involves comparing numbers (number sense), because you’re trying to get the lowest possible cards. It also involves simple addition of up to 4 numbers, but Missy doesn’t know how to do that yet.

This time we kept score. The winner counted the loser’s points (you’re trying to get as close to zero as possible). For example, if Missy won the hand and I had 25 points, she received 25 points for that round. We kept track of points with base ten blocks and cubes. (Introducing Base 10 System & Counting by Tens)

At this point, we’d played all the games Missy’d wanted to play, but she still wasn’t satiated. So we started a new literature study. We read The Art Lesson by Tomie DePaola (a GREAT story for anyone who has ever been disappointed with institutional education) and Purple, Green and Yellow by Robert Munsch (Hat Tip to my friend Andrea). We talked about the concept of disappointment (Tommy was disappointed in the “real” art lessons offered in school).

I pulled out a bunch of new markers that I’d been saving for this occasion. (I got them, around Christmas, from Discount School Supply)

In The Art Lesson, Tommy gets caught scribbling on the sheets, and Brigid, in Purple, Green and Yellow, colors on herself (and her dad). I thought it would be fun for Missy to have the chance to color on things that are normally off-limits.

So I offered her fabric markers and a couple of pillowcases I thought we could part with. All the kids, including the sick teenager and the 42-year-old mama, wanted to give it a try. The fabric markers work really well.

I also offered them window markers. And there was a new set of scented markers, kind of like the ones Brigid had — except ours didn’t come complete with a cow flop scented marker. Well, you can’t have everything, right? Marty really got a kick out of the scented markers.