Observing Number Explorations

SpiderGirl has always been a social learner.  With her, we talk, do things, play games.  Without the social engagement, she does not seem much interested in exploring numbers.  BatBoy, on the other hand, is very much more introverted in his learning style.  Unless he has specific questions, he just wants me to get out of his way and let him do his thing.  With BatBoy, I get to be an observer of his learning.

Math Fever

For the most part, the kids practice their math here and there, for short periods of time.  Their skills, while not lightning quick, are pretty competent for their level, and their depth of understanding is much better than what they would attain through drill-and-kill methods.  And every once in awhile, for some reason, one or both of them will spend large concentrated periods of time playing with math.

Introduction to Percents

SpiderGirl has been interested in money ever since she was a toddler.  As she entered her preschool years, we gave her the opportunity to work with her own money through a weekly allowance.  Of course, at first, we took care of the tax.

Fun with Parchment Paper

Eating gluten-free can be expensive, especially when it comes to bread products.  Hamburger-bun molds exist for baking your own, but not at your local retail store.  That's why I use parchment paper to make my own:  Take a rectangular strip of paper and tape it around into a ring.  Voila, a hamburger bun mold!  (If you're extra nerdy, like me, measure the diameter of the burger and multiply by pi to get the length of the paper strip to use.)

But the fun doesn't end there!  

Addition in Daily Life

In the past half-year to a year, SpiderGirl has not made any particular advances in her adding and subtracting.  I have shown her a bit of grouping and borrowing.  Mostly, she has relied on the abacus for multi-digit addition and subtraction.  Since SpiderGirl has not seemed to find such computation easy, I figured that maybe she wasn't ready for this aspect of math and I didn't push it.

Why Multiplication Tables?

Although BatBoy has taken it upon himself to know exponents of 2 and SpiderGirl has been accumlating multiplication facts for some time, I can't imagine why anyone without foreknowledge of the power of memorized multiplication tables would bother sitting down to memorize 145 multiplication facts.  That's right:  the power of memorized multiplication tables.  Having multiplication facts in your head, retrievable at a moment's notice, is incredibly powerful, mathematically speaking.

BatBoy and Sum Dog

In general, I'm not a fan of video games for young kids.  It's not that I don't like games -- I do -- but when my husband and I were growing up in the 80's, the number and accessibility to games were far more limited compared to today.  Neither of us started playing until we were in our tweens.  Now, with my husband working at home as a video producer, in addition to being a game and gadget geek, we are simply surrounded by computers and other sources of electronic entertainment.


BatBoy, being very like his dad, loves games.  However, lately, I've realized that his love of video games partially stems from his love of games in general.  He loves board games, logic puzzles, Rubik's Cubes, jigsaw puzzles, sports games, pretend games -- all kinds of games.  In the virtual world, he doesn't have to worry about making a mess or encountering physical difficulties due to his age.  The rules are clear and there is always a virtual personage there to cheer him on.  He doesn't realize that the more time he spends on video games, the more he thinks about them.

Levels of Infinity

One of the things I like about Life of Fred is that the exercises leave a lot of room for control by the user.  Not only can we skip questions; we can take a question and travel down that line of thought as far as we would like to go.


In Butterflies, Dr. Schmidt tells us that the set of whole numbers is infinite.  That was easily reworded to ask (since we're in the "Your Turn to Play" section anyway), "How many whole numbers are there?"  SpiderGirl picked a big number.  Then I added 1.  BatBoy jumped up and responded with an even bigger number.  So I added 1.  BatBoy threw out a VERY big number.  Before I could respond (and I could see she had been thinking while BatBoy was jumping) SpiderGirl blurted out, "They go on forever!"  

Life of Fred

At the end of May, SpiderGirl had a little educational funding to be spent.  Since I was looking into them, I thought it would be worth it to pick up the elementary set of Life of Fred.  I figured she could quickly finish Butterflies and most of Cats, and then we would settle in to go through Dogs a little more slowly.  Apples wouldn't be a complete waste either -- BatBoy could start there.

Avocado's Numbers

The sample booklet of my workbook, Avocado's Numbers, arrived in the mail yesterday.  I was so excited, and I think my excitement must have rubbed off on SpiderGirl and BatBoy.  They spent an hour or so go through the first few pages.

The Little Things

Most of what we do when it comes to learning math is not blog material. Not every task contains an 'ah-ha!' moment; not every activity is new or surprising. This post lays out some of the little things we do to support mathematical thinking and learning, and some things that we don't do yet, but are in the works.

Number Twister

What do we do when the weather is wet?  When we need some exercise for our brains and bodies both?

Number Twister!

At first, we played with just me calling out addition problems.  Then we made dice.  Regular dice, integer dice, six-sided, eight-sided, twelve-sided dice...  The possibilities are endless!

Pi Day Post

I'm a little late posting this, but on Pi Day...

Pie Are Squared!

It is also my nephew's birthday.  Happy first birthday W.!

Pyramids

This week, as part of a unit on Egypt, we read Mummy Math.  It is a cute story about two kids who use their knowledge of hieroglyphics and geometry to find their way through a pyramid and into the tomb of an ancient king.

Afterwards, BatBoy got into making pyramids out of paper.

Using Math Fiction

We are fans of math fiction in this house.  This week we read Spaghetti and Meatballs for All, which is a story about a couple hosting a family reunion.

One thing I noticed about math fiction is that it is filled with many layers, which we can't expect a student to absorb all at once.  As a result, we read the book several times over many days.  

Where Are We Now?

I haven't posted anything here in quite awhile because we haven't actually "done math" in a long time.  Have we forgotten about math?  Not really.  I've brought it up a few times, but nobody is biting.  But we haven't entirely neglected math.