Learning By The Way

Elsie has lost her first tooth. She came down the stairs yesterday evening, frantic, blood streaming down her chin, sobbing “My tooth fell out. My tooth fell out.” I immediately realized that she had forgotten that this was a normal part of growing up, and in fact had forgotten that she had been looking forward to this rite of passage. I reminded her that baby teeth DO fall out, and her big tooth will grow in that spot. She calmed down considerably, but really brightened when Daddy brought a bottle of non alcoholic champagne. He popped the cork and led us in a toast to lost teeth and growing up. She gloried in her spotlight moment while her older siblings regaled her with their favorite lost teeth stories. Hurrah for Elsie and her newly gap toothed smile!

This morning, Toby worked a really looooong addition problem (”Mama, I can’t add numbers that big!” “Yes, you can. It’s just the same as when you add two numbers, only you keep going.”) and was quite pleased with himself when he completed it. He then did a graph of various dinosaur lengths. Moriah and Samuel held flashcards for each other to practice their multiplication. Elsie and Peter did a phonics worksheet on the letter ‘F’ and a counting worksheet.