Ballerina Math

Although today is music day we just didn't get to it.  But I couldn't let a whole day go by without some mommy school lesson so today we did ballerina math with Miss. Lina.  

I've been wanting to do this with the girls for awhile and today I finally got my chance.  The girls were hot and over tired all day and I suppose I could have tried music class but I knew they wouldn't get as much out of it.  But they begged for mommy school and I knew this activity would be fun, quick and perfect for a before bedtime treat.

In a cozy white house, in the town of Messina

eight little girls studied dance with Miss. Lina.

Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina,

Katrina, Bettina, Marina and Nina

They danced at the market where they did their shopping.

In four lines of two, they danced without stopping.

Then one sunny morning, a girl named Regina 

arrived at the cozy white house in Messina.

Miss. Lina announced, in her elegant way,

"A new ballerina will join us today.  

This is Regina.  Her dancing is fine."

Miss. Lina is the one in pink

Miss. Lina's eight dancers had turned into nine.

Then eight ballerinas cried, "what shall we do?"

With nine, we no longer make four lines of two"

Annoyed and irate, distraught and distressed, 

the girls started dancing, and oh, what a mess!

Christina bumped into Regina and Nina,

who stepped on Edwina, who fell on Sabrina.  

Then down came Justina, and down came 

Katrina, Bettina, Marina, and even Miss Lina!

The girls were abashed, baffled, befuddled,

flummoxed and flustered, mixed-up and muddled.

"There, there," said Miss Lina.  "you will soon see

how delightful it is to be three rows of three."

In three rows of three,

they practiced all day -

plié, relevé, pirouette, and jeté.

So, everything's perfect now there are nine,

because dancing in three rows of three is divine.

The End

(to my summarized version)

The girls had fun using the dancers to form different formations.  How many ways can we make four rows or two or three rows of three?  We talked about forming windows on stage so every dancer could be seen and how in a corps de ballet the dancers will form different formations.  But most importantly we played with our numbers and maybe using these ballerina's will be a way to get Coppelia excited about math.

I also gave the girls a piece of paper and marker to make pictures of the formations, taking note how many dancers where being used.

I know this story is very girly and I used my girly army men

But you could change it up and use little green army men and re-write the story to read

"in four rows of two they marched without stopping."

ahhh the possibilites....

So that was our quick lesson for today but I do have to share with you what came in the mail today.

Handwriting Without Tears

I'm so excited to begin this.  It's a program geared for Kinesthetic learners and I've heard only great things about it.  It's also used by occupational therapists.