H is for Hospital

Today was a special day for us.  First, we were back after the fall break.  The girls had a wonderful week in Nashville and did more field trips, crafts, nature walks, and projects than we do in a month!

Today, we started by name writing - we are going to try to do this every morning.  Lucy is making progress despite that tricky Y!

Lucy did some counting work (hippo starts with H, our letter this week).

Zoe read a new book and is improving her fluency all the time.  She is feeling confident which is so nice to see.  One of the things I found at a wonderful teacher store in San Antonio was a box of word family books.  We are working on moving beyond just sounding out words to looking for patterns and word families is a good way to build this awareness.  With these, you flip over one letter at a time and make new words.

We made some patterns in math and then... I showed the girls my new iPad!  I found an amazing Montessori number concept app (can you hear Maria Montessori turning in her grave?).  I gave each girl a turn to work with me on some harder work and each one a turn on the iPad.  It worked  really well.  Zoe did her first logic problem and Ms. Lickey's GT class came rushing back in a flash!

Then, it was time for science.  Our sweet buddy Avery is in the hospital for her first cystic fibrosis "tune-up" and has been there 9 days.  So we packed up our school and went to Ft. Worth for a visit!

When we got there, we met her friend Liam.  he was recently diagnosed with leukemia and was getting chemo during our lesson.

We began by talking about our lungs and how they work.  We breathed quickly and slowly and took big breaths with our hands on our chest to feel our lungs fill with air.

Then, we used straws and baggies to show how lungs fill up and empty with air.  We used a stethoscope to listen to our breathing and heart beat (and we got to watch as about 5 people came in over the hour to do the same to Avery).

Then, we looked at some lung diagrams as a reference and colored some pictures of lungs.

After that, it was time to talk about how we can keep our (and especially Avery's) lungs healthy.  We talked about how to cough and sneeze while covering our nose and mouth.  Then, we put some lotion on our hands and everyone got one color of "germs" after we pretended to cough and sneeze in our hands.

We shook hands with our friends and noticed all the colors!  We shared our germs!

We figured out that the only way to get all the germs off was to wash with soap and rub our hands together.  It was a fun lesson and very appropriate to our setting.

It was time for Avery's "puff and shakeys" so the girls snuggled up and played with blocks (Obviously, Avery didn't have anything contagious).

We love you Avery and can't wait until you are back to Fun Friday where you belong!