Activity Board

Posted on May 16, 2011 by heidi

This is the one we got:

But there’s a less expensive one here.

It’s such a simple concept but for some reason it’s fantastic! I don’t care about the sheets that it has with it (though the kids love the games) but this is perfect for putting your own worksheet pages inside. We use Saxon math and we’ve put the worksheet pages in page protectors for the kids to use dry erase markers on (letting us use them over and over.) But the page protectors get wrinkle and crumble and can be hard to erase and the kids still need to carrying around a book or some hard writing service. This Crayola board has the marker containers, a mini eraser, and a hard plastic surface to write on. You slide the pages into the side and it’s a self contained desk! I really, really love it. B’s vision case worker ordered one for him but I’m thinking we may need another because we use it constantly. All of the kids are arguing over turns and I love that I can slide in their pages and hand it to them or have it prepped for their lesson the next day. I really think we need another one. 🙂

It’s also handy for me when I’m teaching them a concept and need something quick and portable to write or sketch on… it’s convenient all around. Good also for travel fun, and the markers are low fume.

Making Easter more Christ Centered – and Chocolate

Posted on April 16, 2011 by heidi

(Old post bumped!)

Ideas from the Ensign on how to focus on the sacred and less on the goodies. 🙂 Some great suggestions…

And here are pictures from our egg hunt with one of our homeschool groups. We had the hunt, tons of treats & lunch, and fun at the park. Kit found some cardboard boxes left by a hill and the kids tried out box sledding for the first time and loved it – they said it was the best part of the party.

We know Ben has light sensitivity issues but apparently so does Christopher:

Emy’s first egg hunt, she realized there was candy involved and took off:

Bennett also realized there was candy and was not amused by the 12 egg per child limit when there were clearly still eggs left on the ground for him to capture! 🙂

And here are the second try on the homemade version of Cadbury Cream eggs and some homemade Reeses Peanut Butter type eggs. Both are DELICIOUS and I think homemade candy for baskets will be a new tradition:

Bunny-Tangram.

Have the kids sew these adorable beanbag frogs.

Paper baskets. Make those with the kids’ art and fill with goodies to give away?

And hot cross buns and other goodies I miss that involve egg. 🙁

Facts Master

Posted on March 3, 2011 by kit

When I was a kid in elementary school, my mom (she taught at the school) helped come up with this school-wide math program they called Facts Master. You’d get a 10×10 grid of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and you’d fill in the answers at the intersections as quickly as you could. Entire grades would compete against each other. The class that performed the best received an ice cream party at the end of the semester, so the stakes were pretty high.

Recently, C was finding math boring. Especially his multiplication tables memorization. So I plumbed into the depths of my mind to remember this Facts Master idea. Turns out this is exactly the sort of thing that C needed to re-energize him. He loves getting timed when he races through his math grid while we track his time and accuracy. He’s getting better in a race against himself.

Here’s a pdf of three different multiplication grids if you’d like to try it out.

Skills Boot Camp

Posted on January 21, 2011 by heidi

Every once in awhile I realize the kids need some more practice with certain skills, a review, or some of the younger ones need a more in depth introduction. For the next week we’re putting the regular math & language lessons on hold (we’ll still do specials – art, music, history, science) and focus on some skills practice:

MATH
– calendar & time
– addition & subtraction facts (Mo & B)
– multiplication facts (C)

LIFE SKILLS
– memorizing full name of parents, address, phone number
– kid power review (we finished the book)
– chore practice/teaching (washing dishes, mopping, bed making)

LANGUAGE
– parts of speech definitions (Mo)
– memorize preposition list (C)
– spelling rules (C)
– handwriting (intro for B & E, cursive review for C & Mo.)

We’ll also do some spring cleaning of the sunroom to prepare for the warmer weather when it goes back to being our school room. (For now we’re using the living room since it’s 32 degrees and the sunroom is cold.) But we need a sunroom spring clean and purge.

Then the first week of February we’ll be starting fresh with our new six weeks chart which we’re starting Mo on… we’ll start B on it in the fall. I’m excited!

Saxon Problem – Lesson Learned

Posted on January 20, 2011 by heidi

C’s working on Saxon 54 Lesson 125 and I had him read through the lesson on reducing fractions but then he got the practice wrong and got frustrated. I read through it (shame on me for not reading it first!) and now I understand, the lesson doesn’t make sense. It attempts to teach a rule that doesn’t always work and only confuses the kids. I explained in a different way (can the denominator be divided by 2 or 3? Can the numerator be divided by the same number?) and it made much more sense to him and he finished up quickly.

Overall we do like how thorough Saxon is, even though we don’t expect the kids to do all the problems for every lesson (tons and tons of review, not needed if the kids understand the concept already) but I’ve learned I have to read through the lesson to make sure it’s clear and I like how they teach the concept. Otherwise it can cause confusion and some mistakes!

Links to Explore, Online Games

Posted on December 25, 2010 by heidi

(Not actually linked, have to cut and paste – sorry!)

Www.fun brain.com

Highschoolhub.org/hub/quizzes.cfm

Enchantedlearning.com

Aplusmath.com/games

Www.ipl.org/youth/stateknow/flag game.HTML

Www.internetgeographer.co.uk

www.bbc.co.uk/schools

www.sesameworkshop.org

www.readwritethink.org/materials/wordbuild/index.html

www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/a/askquestionl.cfm

www.ictgames.com/bridgedoubles.html

www.ictgames.com/rhoodbeyond10.html

elementary.nettrekker.com/results/indext.epl?start+9&no_cookie=1

www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/additiontest.html

www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/pyramid.html

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/starship/maths/games/number_jumbler/big_sound/full.shtml

Changes for 2011

Posted on December 1, 2010 by heidi

– Math: Christopher’s struggling with how many math problems each lesson has and we’re refining that. He’s in Saxon 54 and close to done (116 of 140 lessons.) I know he is grasping the concepts because we’re working through the lessons and practice problems together but in addition to that there’s another 30 problems per lesson. I decided once a week we’ll do about 10 of the problems together orally (though writing out work he needs to compute, of course) and the other two days he can do a few problems written out on his own and I let him pick how many. I know that sounds funny (what if he doesn’t want to do any?) but knowing Christopher’s personality I know he’ll do some. Usually he picks 5 to 10, sometimes he’ll do 15 if I’m there talking it through with him. Then once a month we’ll do a test and he’ll do the entire set of 30 problem written out without my help and probably timed. I’m confident that he understands the concepts so I’m not going to push him to do so much written work. He knows as he gets older that he will have to do more of this in writing so we can see how he’s working through them but he’s barely nine years old – we’ve got time.

– Language: We’re doing two grammar lessons a week with the older two kids and again, I’m not making them write out much if they can do it orally for me. I do have them write in cursive when we do our new spelling words or their dictation but the point of the grammar is to ensure they understand the concepts of the language and they can do that without a ton of handwriting. There are plenty of other ways in which they can practice their cursive with writing letters, making the menu, etc.

– History: Once a month we’ll be doing a designated library re-stocking trip during which I’ll get the history books we need for the next month and so they can explore that section and pick some out on their own. I did that already for December and left a few books strategically laying out and as I anticipated, the kids were looking through them on their own and asking questions and making lists of projects they want to do! Success. Kit’s also copying the reproducible pages in the activity guide so the big kids will do their map work and various projects and the little ones will do the coloring pages to keep them busy while I read the chapter aloud for the week.

– Science: We’ll start following the science layout I did and we’re helping C earn a lot of his science related scouting belt loops/pins. We’re also signing up for the science activities at the library and C’s going to visit the science buildings on one of the university campuses to talk with a scientist (a scout requirement.) We hope to attend the science museum at least once a month (ideally!) but it may be every other month. Mostly I’m hoping to get more outside time for the kids because I don’t think any formal science stuff right now is going to stick for the little ones and I want them to love science because it’s hands on interaction with the world, not because of something they read in a book. Oh, and when it’s too cold for outside exploration we do love the Bill Nye science DVDs and the Magic School Bus books & shows. 🙂

– Music: I’m holding off on piano lessons for the kids until they express interest and willingness to commit to practice. C says he does want to continue our once a week “lessons” and he seems to be enjoying it but I’m not going to push the formal lessons until they are a bit older (maybe 10 or so?) and are ready to do so on their own initiative. I want them to do lessons and I think most of them will want to do so and once they commit I will expect follow through and practice but I’m wondering if this is like potty training? I can push and push and make us all crazy but until they are ready and willing then it’s pointless. I don’t want to risk having them hate music/piano/lessons because they weren’t ready for it. We’ll see how this works out. I plan to teach them piano until they need a teacher that really can play (I have minimal piano skills) and they’ve also expressed an interest in getting some basic trumpet lessons from Kit and some guitar lessons. We may need to find a kid size guitar, I think some of them would love that.

More to come, cleaning up mess…

Talk About Numbers

Posted on November 12, 2010 by heidi

Interesting article Kit sent to me about the importance of talking about numbers in our interactions with kids. Not making everything a math lesson but just referencing numbers in our daily interactions.

I remember our early speech therapists telling us to talk about everything with our non-verbal toddler, to label and describe and converse even if they don’t respond very well yet. And do the same thing with sign language, use the words as you sign to them. It helps them to identify things and interact with the world and begin to recognize words and labels. It made a big difference in our kids’ speech development (I think, no studies to back me up! 🙂 ) and it became habit for us. We tell the newborn baby what we’re doing with her as we change her clothes, diapers, I caught myself starting to use sign language with her and ask, “Are you all done or do you want more?” when she was nursing! After three kids needing speech therapy I love anything and everything that can help us better communicate with our little ones and we appreciate all the more how very, very verbal our current two year old is.

I can see how doing the same thing with math would help children become comfortable with numbers, to learn the language of mathematics. I’m going to work harder to identify math concepts and numbers in our day to day life.

I do think the younger ones pick up a lot from listening into our interactions with the big kids, too. Joseph can sing most of the planets song because he’s exposed to it during our circle time. Emy and Bennett learned the days of the week and months of the year from hearing me sing it with the oldest two kids. And Moira learned how to count by fives from hearing her big brother practice it so much. It’s handy to have them pick up these concepts just from sibling interactions. 🙂

Shakespeare & Saxon

Posted on November 9, 2010 by heidi

– We’re reading The Tempest (Lamb version, the kids’ version that does include quotes from actual play) and I had to step out to grab the baby and came back in to hear Christopher explaining what was happening to Moira and them both asking me to keep reading. Now they are discussing other stories of brothers betraying each other. C said “The Lion King” and I said that’s like another Shakespeare play and he said, “Hamlington! No, Hamlet!” I was actually thinking of Joseph in the Bible but Hamlet’s another good connection. 🙂

Cam

– We’ve discovered that C enjoys his math much, much more if we do it with him and let him answer some problems aloud. A lesson, several practice problems and 30 math problems is a lot for an 8 year old, especially when it’s a pretty intensive Saxon 54 text. But if I do it with him then we both enjoy it, it’s faster, I can see right away where he’s not getting the concept and needs help. The only trick is finding some time without a million distractions from other kids but we’re working on that. We’ll figure this out!

– We were able to get language, math and spelling (and some piano) work all done before Kit was back from speech therapy with Bennett at 10am. What a difference! The kids have the rest of the day to play and we’re all in a better mood. It’s when things get dragged out forever that everyone is frustrated and cranky. Knock it out fast and then enjoy the autumn weather. I keep pointing out to them how much nicer it is this way, I think they get my point. 🙂

– Napping through The Tempest:

Cam

ThadenPierce School

Category Archives: Mathematics