Math, Math, Math

What a difference a few weeks makes! A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to determine if our math curriculum (Singapore) was a good fit for Kiddo, and ME. Mostly me. Math-U-See was looking attractive, thinking maybe I just needed someone else to explain things to Kiddo. We may still look at Math-U-See, but for the moment, things are going much more smoothly. And Kiddo? Kiddo has been bounding around the house for the last few days saying math is his favorite subject.

He has also been doing this:



Those are all math problems. Most of them he has made up himself. He carries the clipboard around the house, writing problems, solving them, then checking with Daddy or I to make sure he has done the problem correctly. I did make an effort to spend a bit more time just hanging out with Kiddo at the table this week. We had no outside activities (other than our trip to the doctor for Kutey) which left lots and lots of time for Kiddo to process new concepts. Big wall, crumbles down. Love it.

Fall Curriculum

We are making few changes this fall in our curriculum. We are using mostly stuff we have used in the past. We are perhaps focusing a bit more on getting through some things (Story of the World!), but overall, there are few new surprises this year. The big additions are a more formal science curriculum and more specific geography study.

Here is what we are using:

Math
We are continuing with Singapore, and adding Miquon. Kutey will be participating at whatever level she can. We will also add in a bunch of math games. Kiddo claims he doesn't like math and that it is hard. That just means to me that I haven't done my job. We'll see if we can't get get him liking math a bit more.....

Science
We are using R.E.A.L Science Odyssey: Life level 1 this year. We are really enjoying it (I mentioned we school year-round, right?). I like that everything is laid out clearly for me. I like that the supplies are generally easy to come by (or I already have them). I love that the author spells out the big idea, small idea--makes it easy for me to assess whether or not we are getting what we should be out of each lesson. I love that I could try it before I buy it. We are still working through the first units, so I haven't had to buy it yet, but I will in the coming weeks.

I have also downloaded Earth and Space Level 1. I was a bit torn about which one to do, but since Kiddo has already studied quite a bit about space (but wants more) and had asked to study the human body (which is in the Life curriculum, right away) I opted for that one first.

I am also hoping to throw in some fun science stuff, including experiments from The Magic School Bus Simple Science page. The kids love The Magic School Bus. We'll be watching a number of videos and reading a number of books to go along side our science curriculum.

History
Kiddo adores history. We have volumes 1 and 2 of Story of the World--the book, the activity guide, and the CDs. Kiddo has listened to both volumes all the way through numerous times. He knows a lot, but I want to be a bit more deliberate with this, since he is so interested in history. We have started reading the first book, one chapter at a time, doing discussion, and activities. Because I bought my copy of volume 1 used, I purchased the student pages download. Kiddo will be putting together a history notebook as we go. He adores the maps!

We will also be attempting to add in early American history. For that we will be using library resources--I hope. We started with Columbus, and we'll work our way onward. If you know of a great resource for this, let me know! I am not entirely fond of the thought of muddling my way through, but that is where I am right now.

Reading/Phonics/Spelling
Both kids are working through Explode the Code right now. For Kiddo, this is review, which means he is flying through the books. For him, this is good. He needs the confidence! It is also helping reinforce some spelling rules, which is great! I bought the first Beyond the Code book for Kiddo, but I am not sure how much we will use it. Kutey is just starting out in this. She is going very slowly through Book 1 right now. We skipped the Ready Set Go books, she just didn't need them.

If you are wondering if the teacher's guide is worth buying, let me say that I love it. It gives me so many new ideas! It extends the lessons a bit, reinforcing things a bit more, and gives more explanation of the RULES! I love the rules. I just don't know them all. The teachers guide fills me in.

In addition, each child has reading goals. It isn't so much about number of pages or number of books, or even amount of time. I just want them reading and improving, and challenging themselves. So they will each be reading a variety of books.

Geography
I haven't firmed this one up yet. I am currently thinking I will use this framework from Homeschool Creations (Thanks, T and C for reminding me about this site! I had totally forgotten about it!) We'll give it a go with Egypt, as we study it in history. Then I'll know better if it needs any tweaking or not.

That is what I have planned for the big things right now! We'll continue to do our weekly homeschool group gatherings, and our monthly trips to the Works and hopefully the monthly art class (it is up in the air right now. Not sure if she is offering it or not!)

This is a lot more structure than I have had for the last 2 years. I am not a structure person, but I am finding that if left to my own devices, we get less done than I would like and I spend too much time thinking, not enough doing. Hopefully this means we will spend more time doing!

Valentine math--a little late

I bought conversation hearts before Valentine's day with the intention of using them for all sorts of fun school things, math specifically. But, well, we never got to it. Our playgroup was canceled today, so we had more free time than usual. So we played with some hearts!


I gave Kiddo and Kutey each a bowl of hearts (about 25 each). They sorted them onto their papers. I gave them some room to decide how they wanted to do it, as long as the general idea was followed. Kiddo made lines between his and put a stamp in each space to represent each candy. Kutey had hers all on her paper, then did the lines like her brother. Notice that one pink heart in the purple column? She didn't like the empty column, so she told me she was going to put the pink one there. She knew it wasn't right, but the empty column wasn't either. Then we did some math, compared columns, figured out which columns added together to equal which other columns, etc. Then, of course, we ate some hearts--though not all of them. Kiddo loved this activity. He asked if we could do this everyday!

You can download the heart graphing sheet here.

A little fun

A few weeks ago, Kiddo asked me how many Dixie Cups I thought it would take to equal a "big kid" cup. I asked him what he thought. He didn't know (hence he was asking me, duh, mom!). Then I asked him how he thought we might be able to find out. He didn't know, so I told him to think about it.

He thought about it for a while. He came up with a couple of ideas, but as we talked about them, it didn't seem as though they would get us to the information we were looking for. He brought it up again last weekend. We talked about it a little, and then decided it might be easier to try some ideas!

We first gathered our materials. I had Kiddo write down what we needed. I used the cake pan as a tray to catch the water spills, which are inevitable with this kind of thing! I filled the watering can with water and we went to work. I wrote down several questions that we wanted to answer such as "How many Dixie cups does it take to fill a "big kid" cup (the "big kid" cup is the small green one)? I then had Kiddo estimate before we started. Then we tested his estimation. We also got to compare the big green cup and the Tigger cup. Which is bigger? And we got to talk about surface tension of water. We even floated a paper clip on the water. We made a mess, spilled lots of water (mostly inside the pan, but a little did manage to escape), and learned something. There was no cost to this project. Everything we used we had on hand.

Not bad for a sort of spur of the moment kid-directed science and math lesson!

A great new game!

We received an unexpected package in the mail last week. We have a relative who occasionally sends us fun packages and we never know they are coming. We opened it and found this inside:



I had never heard of Shut the Box, but it is such a great game! It says for ages 8 and up, but Kiddo loves it. Basically you roll the dice and then flip down shutters to total the total of the dice. The objective is to flip down all the shutters. There is a bit more to it than that, but that is the general idea. We play a little bit modified for Kiddo, we only add two numbers together to get the total..more than that is just too confusing for him right now.

I have been adding this into our school day as fun math practice. Kiddo will play several rounds of it without tiring of it. I am anticipating a travel version with cards (lay down cards 9 to 1, then lay cards 1 to 9 on top of them). It would also work really well for a workbox, I would bet!

Math!

I think I may have found a math curriculum that will work for us! It has been a long search. And there is no guarantee that I won't change my mind 12 times, but...

The hardest thing about selecting a curriculum has been not being able to see it first hand. I wanted to try Miquon, but I haven't been able to see it. Math Mammoth showed promise and did actually have samples on their website, so I could get an idea of what it was like, but that isn't the same as seeing the entire thing. McRuffy also showed promise, and I liked the idea of using multiple things form one place (makes it a little easier), but I couldn't see it first hand, either.

Then on Monday we went to N's house. N is a homeschooler also, she has 3 kids and lives very close to me. We had talked about curriculum at a gathering of our homeschool group and she invited me over to take a look at what they use. Thank you, N! I really wanted to look at Five in a Row, which I did (and even borrowed volume 1, YAY!) but she also showed me what they use for math: Singapore. Now, I had heard about Singapore, obviously, but I never really looked into it. I thought, and I don't know where I got this idea, that it was one of those extra expensive curricula that were overly cumbersome. What I found was a lovely set of two books, textbook and workbook, that I think would work very well for Kiddo. I pulled the placement "test" and Kiddo work through it, so I'll be ordering those with my Explode the Code. I am very excited to have finally found something that I could hold in my hands and look at! And even better, it was something that I think will work for us.

I'll keep you posted!

Math Fact Cafe

Have you heard of Math Fact Cafe? It is a wonderful site that has a worksheet generator on it for addition, subtraction (take aways, as Kiddo calls them), multiplication, and division. I have been using it to generate problems for Kiddo (who for some reason actually likes to do worksheets...maybe only because it is his choice). Occasionally I get a "bad" worksheet, like the one that had the same two problems repeated in the first 5. I have found, however, that I just need to preview it before I print it. If it isn't what I want, I just reshuffle it and generate a new one. The best part? It is FREE. So check it out!

Math helps

Freely Educate has become one of my favorite sites for discovering new and interesting sites and tools for homeschooling. My recent favorite is Khan Academy. They have math videos for a variety of things. Much of it is far more advanced than we are doing right now, but there are a few videos for arithmetic. I pulled up the one on basic addition, and Kiddo was instantly on my lap. That was Sunday. Since then, he has been happily working addition problems using a number line, with no more assistance from me. Do I think we are done with manipulatives? Hardly. I am just happy to see him working so diligently at math problems and gaining confidence.

The video is basically a blackboard where the narrator demonstrates concepts. He is very clear in his instruction, does enough problems to thoroughly explain the material, and is actually somewhat entertaining in the process.

Check out the website, though. Lots and lots of videos. I have only watched the one, but they have calculus, they have linear algebra, trigonometry, everything! They also have a section on banking and money, the credit crisis, and finance. There is even a section on physics! I might spend more time watching videos there than necessary at this point in our homeschooling.....

Math with pom-poms

No, I haven't turned into a math cheerleader, though if it would make Kiddo interested in math, I might try it. It isn't that he is not interested, I guess, more that I haven't put in a serious, concerted effort in teaching math. We do some math everyday, but what that is varies and how much we do varies. There were a few weeks where we focused fairly intently on being able to count to 100 (and then PAST 100, which was a HUGE deal in kiddo's mind), but then we sort of backed off again. We have been using this curriculum, well at least the workbooks, since January and it has at least given us a focus, though Kiddo is only moderately interested. It focuses a great deal on greater than, less than, and equal to. Great concepts, but I think Kiddo wants some more meat to his math. The last few days, he has actually ASKED me to drill him in math. Maybe he just thinks it takes less time, so he'll get to legos/K'nex faster. But I oblige.

Today we had a little fun with the drilling. We used craft pom-poms in three colors (red, green, and white, because that is what I had) to do math with 12. We added up to 12, we subtracted from 12, we divided 12, then we did it all over again. And again. And again. Honestly, I lost track of the actual number of times we went through the drills, but we were having fun. Kiddo was finding creative ways to take the number of pom-poms away, divide them into groups, pair them, etc. I guess my math curriculum of choice should have some manipulatives to it. It really is much more fun that way!