Patterns in Nature

We recently borrowed the wonderful book Patterns In Nature by Jennifer Rozines Roy from the library.  It explains all about different types of patterns and how they are all around us.  It also shows how we can make our own patterns from things outdoors and in our backyard. 

 

After reading the book together L was all set to go.  She grabbed her journal and a pencil and we headed out to the back yard.

Here she is copying down her big, little apple pattern into her journal.

 While L was busy with her journal I made this pattern on the clothesline then asked her if she could continue it which she did no problem.  She had a bit of a harder time copying it into her journal as she needed help with the spaces between the clothes pegs.



 We then moved out of the backyard and went on a nature walk around the neighbourhood finding patterns in ferns and other things as well as making our own.

Reading this book and talking about patterns opened up a whole new world to L and she is loving discovering patterns wherever we go now!



Money Work

L has been saving her coins in her piggy bank for ages now and we decided it was time to roll them so she could take them to the bank.  L gets spare coins from us and also gets to keep the money from helping to return the bottles to the bottle depot.

The last time we did this L just helped to sort the coins and put them in the rollers.  This time we added all the steps and also turned it into a lesson about money.

First step.  Sort the coins.  Turns out we had quite a few American coins as well so we had to talk about the difference and the fact that our banks will take American coins(although I'm pretty sure it doesn't work the other way around!)

While we were doing this we looked at the Canadian coin sheet I printed out and talked about the names of the coins and what was on each one.

Once we had finished sorting L found each of the coins to match the amounts I wrote out on another piece of paper and we talked about how much each coin was worth.

 We started with the pennies.  I made this sheet for her with columns in tens to help her count out the 50 pennies needed to go into the roller.

 The most rewarding part.  Putting the pennies into the roller.  She was so proud that she'd done it all herself this time!  She then moved on to the dimes and used the same sheet for $5.00 this time.

We didn't get through all of the coins so we will continue this work another day and then L will take all of her rolled coin to the bank to deposit into her account.  She knows we use this money to pay for dancing, skating and swimming lessons and for skiing.  I think it's great that she is learning to contribute to pay for the things she likes to do.