The Long and the Short of It

Today after school we busied ourselves with measuring dinosaurs. Like ya do.

One of the things we do, one of the things we have to do, is modify homework so that it's challenging and interesting for Kiernan. Worksheets that ask "What number comes next?" and involve single digit addition or subtraction aren't really going to be very helpful. So, with Kiernan's teacher's blessing, we modify. Sometimes modification means creation. As it did today.

Yesterday Kiernan pulled out his huge dinosaur encyclopedia and started reading up on dinosaurs again. In short order he asked for a ruler. So I grabbed our tape measure and we started measuring out dinosaur lengths. When we got home from school today he wanted to jump back into that. So, inspired by Wendy's suggestion last night, we just made this into homework, replacing a couple of the homework packet worksheets. We spent a couple of hours measuring off dinosaur lengths and heights on the sidewalk and driveway. We marked them off with chalk and recorded them on a legal pad. Then we worked on converting feet to inches, just for fun. In this way, and others, he's starting to learn multiple step arithmetic and even some low level multiplication.

Plus it was fun to run outside and measure stuff off and write on the ground in chalk then run back inside and look at dinosaur pictures.

He loves to learn, and he's so active. It's great to get to combine those aspects of his personality.

One of the first dinosaurs we measured off was Barapasaurus, which is fifty feet long. Or fifty feet tall. Or something. I don't know. Just ask Kiernan the next time you see him.