Have you been following my math saga?  I must be getting old.  I don’t think I had such drama teaching the older kids their math.  Especially on Mondays.  Especially on Mondays after having taken any time off for illness or any reason.

Do any of y’all have that problem too?

Grrr!  I have started to abhor Math on Mondays!

Especially with Slim.  I think he knows I’m a sucker for a cute Cowboy with a super smile.  The boy plays me with the math.  He really plays me on Mondays with the math.  That boy.  I am a sucker!

I think I told you about the feigning of a tummy ache to get out of the math.  That was on a Monday.

Well, folks, there have just been too many Mondays!

Cute smile be hanged!  That Cowboy needs to do his math.  Even on Mondays!

Today I wrote out his assignment and had one of those Alka-Seltzer moments just before handing him the page.

So I didn’t.

Not right away.

First I made some little note cards for the boy.  Four of ‘em.  One to be read after completing each row of problems.  I explained that the first note was boring and the notes got progressively more fun and note #4 was grand! But he was not to look at any note until the right time.  That’s when he started grinning!

After completing row #1 he read note #1.  Note #1 said, “Go use the bathroom, don’t forget to wash your hands!  Then get a drink in the kitchen.  Hurry!  You have 3 minutes!

See? kinda boring.  But his curiosity was piqued.  What would the other notes say?  Hmm?  Well, only one way to find out!  DO THE MATH!

{he he he}

Note #2 said, “Go stand in the middle of your bedroom and shout these words – I’M HALF WAY DONE WITH MY MATH!”

Yes, the grinning was rampant!

Note #3 said, “Go out front and hop up and down on the sidewalk 9 times.  Do not laugh.  Do smile!”

Ooops!  Cowboy got carried away, jumped 11 times!

Note #4 said, “Go to the refrigerator.  Open the door.  Find the chocolate chips.  Get 9 chocolate chips out of the bag (yes, he’s 9 years old).  Seal the bag carefully.  Close the door.  Eat the chocolate.  Wash your hands!  Kiss your Mom!  You’re done with MATH for the day and it didn’t hurt a bit!”

If grinning were a Rodeo event, Slim would be wearing a belt buckle bigger than his head!

Fastest, most pain-free Monday Math he and I have had in, um,  forever!

Linked to:

• Works for me Wednesday

Yeah, maybe all three, the second 2 at least.  Anyway, my week is shot.

Patience is not my strongest super-power in the face of a migraine, so minimal school for now.

Today I only have 3 kids at home and one of them is Tex, so I can “take the day off” if I wanna, and I really do.

So what have I been doing to fill my afternoon?  Finding online educational games, of course!

Here are two games to help you brush up on your typing skills.

Dance Mat Typing is a hoot, but that’s just my opinion, even though it’s spot on. (Certain Cowboys think it’s weird, to which I respond, “So?”)  TypeRacer is a blast if you like racing against real live people.

Next, you should enter a spelling race at Tutpup. This one is a blast, but not if you keep making typos!

The math races are very fun at Arcademics Skill Builder.  Slim enjoyed the jet skis!

The one we spent the most time and brain cells on is Fantastic Contraption.  This one makes you think.  I love finding out that my kids are way smarter than me homeschool geniuses.  Yes, really.  I know the big guys are geniuses, but when I found out Slim could improve on my ideas I realized I should play this after he’s in bed he’s one smart hombre.

And for dessert. . . (what? we weren’t talking about food?  Dang headache!)

Tex is gonna make this super simple sounding Peanut Butter Bread by Paula Deen.  (He should double it and serve it with pineapple preserves, again, just my opinion!)

Paula Deen is to food as Phil Donahue was to daytime tv.  (What do I know?  I don’t even watch tv.  And I’ve never even seen Paula Deen, so really, what do I know?)

But Faith showed me this recipe and on this ranch if it has beans or peanut butter Cowboys will smile, because it’s rude to talk with your mouth full, even to say thank you.

Before I forget, here’s how Hubs has restored the dumbpot to it’s former status of Smarty-pants-pot.  See?  Handles!  And beans!  Hooray!

Have you followed where I’ve rambled?  I hope you left a trail of bread crumbs so you can find your way back because I think it’s time for me to take a shower, take my temperature, and take a nap.

Don’t get excited!  I do not have piglet flu!  More like Eeyore headache.

We’re still waiting for the cooler weather before we take some time off from school.  I figured I’d give you a few updates on our homeschooling progress.

Sally Mae is making huge strides in her reading.  It’s been quite a few months since she learned the sounds the letters make.  At that time she also learned the concept of blending those sounds together, but she did not gain the ability to blend (with any speed and fluency) at that time, and then she lost interest in learning to read.  Having been down that road with most of her brothers, I just let her have some time off.

Sally Mae is probably the last person I will have the opportunity to help learn to read, so I’m not interested in rushing things.

But lately she has renewed interest and she is suddenly able to blend.

Sally Mae’s current routine is each of the following each week day.

• Bible – she listens to the daily Proverb and 2 -4 other chapters with the rest of the family.
• Phonics – Read (to me) one page in Noah Webster’s Reading Handbook, and the accompanying chart which is found in the back of the book.
• Phonics review on Starfall.com.
• Copywork – Write the words for the day and one sentence from the lesson in the reading handbook.
• Reading – Read (to me) one story from her Sing, Spell, Read, and Write Reader.
• More Reading – Read (on her own) several Bob Books.
• Math – One lesson and/or one “homework” set in Mathematics for Little Ones.
• More Math – 3 turns with the Math Shark.
• Even More Math – Math copywork.
• Spanish – About one lesson per week in The Learnables. ( We do this twice or three times in the week, but we only advance to the next lesson about once a week.)
• Read Aloud – Sarah, Plain and Tall (makin’ me cry), and On the Banks of Plum Creek.

Wow, that looks like a lot!  It isn’t really.  We probably spend the most time on Bible and Math.  The rest are rather brief lessons.

I didn’t link any of the titles, but if you wanna look for them on Amazon, please go through one of my Amazon ads in the sidebars.  As a matter of fact, anytime you order anything from Amazon I’d appreciate it if you’d take a second to come back to the ranch and use one of my linked ads to get there.  It won’t make me rich, but it might add up by Christmas time, and that would make my ‘pokes happy.

Have you ever read Mary Pride’s column about math and how rewarding it is and how there’s a natural reward blah, blah, blah. . . (trying not to poke fork in own eye!)  But she’s dead serious.  And if you can pull the fork out of your eye long enough to read the whole article you’ll see that she gets real at one point and says to give actual rewards; tangible, sweet, chocolaty rewards to kids (for a time) to help kids along in the horrid drill part of Math.

This is where I’m at today.  I needed one Cowboy to stop saying how hard it is and how he hates it, and I needed another Cowboy to keep his nose to the grind-stone and just do the work.

Then lightning flashed in my brain and I put these gripes together with the inventory of my fridge, and guess what I came up with?

Math Manipulatives!

And by “manipulative” I mean these chocolate chips will manipulate my kids into getting serious about math.

It started out kinda mild.  I had to morph a game intended for a whole class of students and make it work for 2 kids.  The motivation suggested in the book was that if you got your answer wrong on your turn then you had to sit down.  Oh the shame!  Well, my kids think of that as being off the hook, so I knew I had to come up with something else.

Ta-da!  Break out those chocolate chips, and off we go.

If you can’t tell, it’s a little grid with 9 numbers on it.  You point to 2 numbers at a time and your brother or sister adds them in their head and hollers out the answer and then both kids eat a chocolate chip in celebration!

This was surprisingly exciting and MOTIVATING!

After that was all over I realized that Rowdy was really not making any progress with his page of problems.  It wasn’t that it was too hard or that he was having a bad attitude about it.  He just lacked perseverance.  He was allowing himself to get distracted by.any.little.thing.  Made me wanna reach for the forks!

Then I had another lightening flash!

I got out a condiment cup and filled it with chocolate chips.  I said to the boy, “You may have this cup and it’s contents when you are done with your math.  BUT, every time I see or hear you not doing math I am gonna eat one of  those chocolate chips.  Any pencil tapping, paper fiddling, humming, singing . . . anything.  I will eat one of those chocolate chips.  But when you’re finally done you can have whatever is left, if any.”

That got his attention!

I figured it’s win-win for me.  I either get a finished math assignment or a bunch of chocolate chips.   I’ve never come up with a more productive “manipulation” than this.  I only got one chocolate chip.  Rowdy finished in record time!

Finally, some recent success in the math facts department.

I know, I know, it’s all about consistency and drill, drill, drill.  But my word, I would rather stick a fork in my eye than have to deal with a kid who throws up their hands and says, “I dunno.”

But, finally, today, after I said, “Yes, you will take your turn on the Math Shark and you’ll do it with a smile on your face and you’ll do it five times with a smile on your face each time!” After all those  harsh words words of encouragement and three times of working at that Math Shark that Cowboy looked at me with a HUGE smile on his face and exclaimed, “That’s my fastest time yet!  This is fun!”

You know I had to make him add,  ”Thanks for making me do this!”  And so, doing his remaining two turns was a breeze.

Making habits is a real drag.  But, once they’re made they’re powerful.

Here’s our current rut we’re trying to form in math for the non-teen set.

• At least a page of work in their text books daily.
• Math copywork daily (the same set of facts every day for the whole week)
• Minimum of 5 sets of facts on the Math Shark daily.
• Putting corks on all the forks . . . just in case.

I don’t remember, but it might be called “100″ or something equally simple.  And I NEED simple math games!  After breakfast this morning I pulled out a deck of cards and started removing the face cards.

Only Sally Mae (age 6) and Slim (age 9) were home with me.  So I started talking about how ya play this game and they got interested.  I handed Sally Mae a hundred chart and we had lots of fun playin’ this.

You just hold the deck of cards in your hand and turn over one card at a time adding the value of each card, making a running total as you go.  The goal is to get to 100 (or over).

You do the math in your head, unless you are not good at that yet, then you can use the 100 chart.

Once we got to 100 we counted the cards we had used (22 this morning).

Then we shuffled ‘em and played again only this time we went from 100 down to zero (or below).  That was a bit tougher on the old noggin so we used our 100 chart more.

Again, we counted our cards when we were done, hmm only 18 this time.  Then of course we calculated the difference.

More math than we’ve done on a Saturday in a long time.

Here’s your link to the Weekly Wrap-Up.

And here’s your link to Works for me Wednesday.

Well, I did it.  I made some triangular math flash cards.  I thought about buying them, but, couldn’t make myself spend money on something I knew I could easily make with stuff I already had on hand.

But before I got out the poster board and scissors I looked at some pictures of ‘em to make sure I had the right idea.

I looked at Donna Young’s site and wished real hard that I had a working printer.  Then made a list of the facts that her cards showed.  Now if you have a working printer you might just wanna go on over there to Donna Young’s wonderful, free print-ables site and print off some of these do-dads.  But I don’t so I had to draw triangles on the backs of old posters and cut ‘em out and write my own numbers and +’s and -’s all on my own.  Not terribly challenging I admit, but I already taught math to several children today so I’m counting this as above and beyond!

Actually it was quite easy once Tex reminded me that what I wanted to make was called an equilateral triangle, and Hubs reminded me that each of those angles should have 60°s, then I was off and running.  They’re starting to get the hang of dealing with my “menopause brain” even if I’m not.  (Trust me, girls, “menopause brain” is even worse than “lactating brain”.  Sorry to be the one to break it to ya.  You may wanna warn your hubby.)

Anyway, I had to send Tex across the street to borrow a protractor, which, by the way, are like policemen, never around when you need one, but just roll through a stop sign one time…

This was so easy I should have done it years ago.  I’m tickled pink to have my cool, new set of homemade, triangular, addition/subtraction flashcards.  Nifty-thrifty, huh?

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.

I have frittered my whole day away doing math with my kiddoes.  Well, not frittered.  We all know more math now than we did yesterday.  Yes, I include myself.  Billy Bones and Calico Zak are pushing me onward and upward in my quest to try to stay a half step ahead of them.  Yikes!

Did you know you can get the Saxon placement tests free online.  Love that!  Here are the links for the tests for 54 up through Algebra ½, Algebra 1 andAlgebra 2.

Calico took it and found he can go ahead and start Algebra ½, which thrilled him and sent shivers up my very spine.  So, I decided to take the test myself.

I am happy to report that if I were a student, I would be allowed to begin Algebra 1.  And no, I am not gonna be taking the higher grades tests.  I am just gonna apply myself and learn the stuff as I teach it to Calico.

I guess I have a couple of other Pirates who maybe, should take the same test.  Hmmm…