Pedigreed Housewife World

Valentines Day at our house is all about construction paper. Making hearts and cards and decorations take over free time. That excitement extends well beyond when the candy is all eaten. I’m all about short cuts and time savers after the holiday, so I show the kids that if they fold their papers in half then they only have to cut out half of the heart to get a full heart. Of course they ask why - the question that rules every house with preschoolers. So I explain and we veer off into an adventure about symmetry. A heart is a symmetric shape. That means that one side is the exact same as the other side. Said another way, if you fold it in half on top of itself, the sides will match up. In the case of a heart, it is vertically symmetric. I refrain at this point to show them that it is not symmetric about a horizontal axis and I’m glad I did (we’ll get there in a second…) “Is anything else symmetric” they both want to know. Rather than telling them, I ask them to...

Flashlights fascinate my kids. Lately they have discovered the many varieties of flashlights we have around the house and they can spend hours of nighttime fun with them. One night we were all on Briana’s bed with the lights off, sending sparks of light across the room by flashing the lights on and off. I shone mine right into her mirror and showed the kids how the light was bent onto the ceiling. They were so excited. We did this every night for a week until I decided to show them some more cool light tricks. Today we will bend light, absorb light, reflect light, and shine light. Bending light I start by asking the kids if they think they can bend light? “Yes. If I put my hand on it.” Says Briana unimpressed. “Well, do you know what it is called when you bend light? It is called refraction. You know what else, water refracts light very well.” I say trying to excite her. “That means that when the light comes into a transparent surface (that you can see...

My husband spent weekend on a guys weekend in Vegas with his buddies from law school and the kids have been fascinated with what Daddy and his friends are doing. What better time to work on math!! I get out the poker chips, regular cards, Uno cards, and Bingo cards and we get to work playing at our own Vegas GIRLS weekend. Abby after a sweet victory! (And why not polar bear ears – we’re in Vegas) Value Card games are full of math and logic components. Add betting to the mix and you are really enhancing the learning…and the fun. First we talk about what value means. Value means how important something is to you or how much you can get for it if you trade it. Then we reinforce our understanding of currency – which has more value, a dollar or a quarter? A quarter or a dime? A nickel or a penny? These poker chips have value too. The white ones have the least value. The red ones have the most. They are worth 3 white ones. The blue ones are w...