"HECK YEAH!"!

This day was nothing but a series of awesome and amazing happenings resulting in a mommy cry of "HECK YEAH" over and over again. Days like this one are the reasons why homeschooling children is so rewarding. Once again both girls were receptive to being educated. Miriam who doesn't normally pay attention did everything she was asked. By the time our musical moment rolled around she was hot with learning and she was obviously ready for more! First I handed her a recorder, I put it in her hands had her move it to her lips and suddenly felt our day ending on a sour note because she went cold. But suddenly I had an idea, I put my mouth next to hers, we were cheek to cheek, put half of the recorder in her mouth and half in mine then I blew. I then put the recorder into her mouth and blew hard and long in her face. Suddenly Miriam got the idea and started blowing into the recorder all on her own. She was THRILLED and was eager to try out the harmonica which was even more successful than the recorder because without my even showing her she learned that if you breath the air back in after you blow you make a new sound. She played the harmonica for the entire musical moment. I can definitely see her learning to actually "play" the harmonica because I have never seen her so interested in an instrument before. This was HUGE!

Here are a few videos. The first being my favorite which is Miriam playing the harmonica. She is totally harmonizing and I love it!


___________________________________

Besides various worksheets we also did some wonderful and fun activities today. First we played a game I call "Macaroni Dice". Last night I made some special dice using white electrical tape, 2 wooden blocks and my favorite item in the world, puff paint. I wrapped the wooden blocks in the tape and used the paint to make raised numbers and dots on each side. Each girl took turns throwing the dice and adding together the numbers by recognizing the number & counting the dots. After they added up their total they would count out the same amount of macaroni. The first person to collect 25 macaroni won.


We made Sheep using cotton, pipe cleaner, construction paper and craft eyes for Arts & Crafts. Georgia was so excited to make these sheep that she came inside from recess WILLINGLY. Which is rare for her because she is an outdoor girl.

For our "sensory/tactile stimulation" period we did scratch drawings in which we covered various objects with construction paper and colored over them with crayons to make imprints. The idea for this we got from a blog called Special Needs Homeschool. I just love reading this blog, you should check out the post for other wonderful sensory activity ideas.


And for our shape/color lesson we cut and colored foam shapes. Pictures of these will come later because I plan on using them to make our sand shapes.

Honestly, I am not sure I could have asked for much more from this day. I am absolutely beside myself at how great it went!