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How to teach math.
Ok, ok, Kim, you can stop laughing now. You are partly to blame for the bravado I now exhibit by daring to instruct others in the teaching of the horrid subject.
Stephanie? Oh Stephanie! Are you reading? This is for you. I have been pondering your question for 2 weeks now, and I just decided to share what we are doing, math-wise.
Some background.
Kim is a math whiz whose very math-ness scares me.
Stephanie has a daughter, her oldest, who is the same age as my youngest.
Kim and Stephanie are both real life friends of mine.
I am mathematically challenged. However, I have seen great math success in my children. Success that is NOT due to my diligent, brilliant teaching of math. I really think the success is more due to the fact that they are in a learning environment and don’t have undue academic pressure applied by myself, their dad or their siblings.
What we’re doing.
The Cap’n is starting Algebra 1 using the D.I.V.E. cd rom. Very cool resource loaned to us by some wonderful friends at church. Thanks Donna.
Calico and B.B. are both starting Algebra ½ with yours truly as their teacher. I’m shakin’ in my boots, but I have good support from my hubby, another math brain. They had both been using the Saxon 76, but I could see that it wasn’t challenging them at all, so we did the online placement tests and oh my, off we go. Yes, I know that they are skipping a whole book, whatever.
For Cannonball I am using an old Rod & Staff 3rd grade textbook. I am striving to find a level that will challenge him, yet not frustrate him. Cannonball is one of those kids who learns by great leaps and bounds interspersed with huge plateaus. Very hard to stay with him.
The Squid is working on subtraction concepts and addition with carrying. I am using a little from the Rod & Staff 3rd grade book and a little from the Ray’s Arithmetic. I write problems for him in a composition book. I need to be able to look at what he has done in order to decide what to do next. I’m using these books as a loose framework and just keeping him moving forward.
The Princess is one of those kids who almost seem born knowing it already. Not just in math but in everything in the world. Just ask her, she has an opinion. We just play around with numbers. Some days we work some simple addition. Some days we just play with number recognition. Somedays we do nothing. Not that there is no math, she is always counting and adding things, just that some days I don’t direct it. The resources I am using with her are mostly in my head, but I have found the set of Unifix Cubes has great appeal and value. She loves them. I like that there are ten of each color and they are uniform, that seems to help. I’m more of a ‘buttons in a muffin tin’ kinda gal, but there is some value in the orderliness of the Unifix Cube set. We also use a set of flash-cards that teach numbers 0 through 25, and a hundred chart. Sometimes I get out the Ruth Beechick Arithmetic book and we have some fun with the games and activities therein.
There are also other activities like playing board games and working on projects that require and enhance math skills, for all of the family. I also employ flash-cards for memorizing the facts, but once the facts are memorized part of the pay-off (for me and my child) is not having to do the flash-cards every day.
We have a MathShark, and they like to fool with it sometimes. We use some of the free online math drill resources, but I don’t insist on daily use of any of them. None have been the utopia of math drill, so we play them sometimes and kind of as needed. I like the Table Trees for multiplication practice and Place Value Pirates best.
So, there ya go. If it seems way too loosey-goosey to be effective, I probably would have agreed with you once upon a time. But I am not a math person, and yet, one by one, my kids are becoming proficient.
If your goal is to teach math in an orderly, rigid manner, don’t do what I do. However, my goal is to have kids who know their math, that’s all.
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Well, we are fortunate enough to live in the great state of Texas, where the homeschoolin’ is easy, the laws are not oppressive and I am free to choose when and how to homeschool my kids. I think that a four year old needs lots of real life learning. Doin’ stuff with Mama. But if you “need” curriculum I would say take a hard look at Five in a Row. Really for a 4 yo you should look at Before Five in a Row. All you need to add to that is some number practice, and you don’t need curriculum for that. Just count stuff. Make a hundred chart. Sort things, like buttons in the muffin tin. You and your child should be having fun. And that is not code for TEACH, TEACH, TEACH, and then have 3 minutes of fun. Just play and have fun and count stuff.
LOL! Math is certainly not my strength, but I do hope to homeschool my children as well. Its good to know there is hope for me:) BTW: At what age do you begin homeschool with them? My oldest will be four in November and I hope to “have a plan” by the fall.