Tag: math

First Addition Lessons

Tracy

Middlest loves math. She loves counting and numbers and, believe it or not, addition! And after all the drilling she overheard with Oldest last year, she’s a lap or two ahead in this race.

So, knowing how much she loves everything math, I pulled a few of the flashcards that are no issue for Oldest and gave them to Middlest. We’ve been playing some fun games, too.

K4 math

We LOVE counting bears. On the first day, I had her count out the number of bears from her flashcard, and we worked through the combination using the side of the flashcard that showed the answer. On day two, we did the same activity, but I had her work through the combination without the answer.

K4 math

Then, we pulled out the chalk board and her Fisher Price duplo blocks (similar to legos).  She linked the right number together, we’d read through her flashcard, then we’d write it on the board.

math with blocks

This picture says it all! She is extremely hands-on, so it really is no wonder that she loves math. And I love that addition is coming so easily for her.

Professor B Math review

Tracy

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Professor B math sets out to “structure the content of arithmetic so it becomes as connected and flowing as a story.” And I must say, I really liked the way concepts were interwoven and presented in this curriculum.
Professor B math

“The program thoroughly structures the content of arithmetic as a developmental, contextual flow (like a story), allowing children’s minds to assimilate its content more quickly (in the same natural way they assimilate stories rapidly) without any gaps in their knowledge.”

Professor B math is a power point curriculum that allows you, the “instant master teacher,” to sit down with your child and work through a presentation together. “Together” is the key, and the slides do not have any sound to ensure that the work is done together. The slides present the new math concept through directions for hands-on illustrations, similar to finger-play, and speech-bubble instruction, “spoken” by the professor bee and read by either the teacher or student.

 

My preschooler especially loved the finger-play, and as a part of the math story, addition was presented at the same time as number recognition. She would play by making different combinations of two or three (or whatever number the lesson was presenting) with her fingers; by the end of the lesson, the bee was introducing “one and one make two” as the different finger combinations were shown in the slides. It made perfect sense to her, and my three (almost four) year old quickly grasped the addition.

Professor B math | homeschool math curriculum

Professor B math

Professor B math | addition | homeschool math curriculum

The same was true for my almost-first grader, who was introduced to adding and subtracting by twos in the same series of lessons where skip counting was introduced. He could immediately see the connection between this skip counting and the addition/subtraction being taught.

Once the slide presentation is complete, the student is then given an assignment. Sometimes, the assignment was to continue drilling the material until mastery was achieved. Other times, certain worksheets were assigned at the end of the slide; just open the pdf and print off the correct pages. An answer key for the worksheets is also provided, though there are no testing materials besides the placement tests for each level.

This curriculum is definitely intended to aid the teacher not replace her, and at first, the lack of sound and lack of achievement reports was rather unsettling. It felt like something was missing. But I did appreciate the approach to mathematics, and in the end, as I read the script to my children, it gave the feeling of all of us experiencing math together. I was still the teacher, narrating the lesson and answering questions, correcting when incorrect answers were given, etc. But there was a “togetherness” about the lessons that I enjoyed. I even had my oldest sit in on his sister’s lessons and read some of the script for her; it gave him reading practice and allowed him to review earlier concepts.

Professor B

Also, the power point was not just text to be read; the lessons are interactive. The professor bee often asks questions for the child to answer or gives directions for the child to do something. My kids loved this interaction, and my oldest even asked me during one lesson how the bee could hear him.

 

Also, there is a ton of information packed into this program! Each of the three levels covers three grades: Level I (k-2nd); Level II (3rd-5th); Level III (6th-8th). Consequently, I felt that both of my children were adequately challenged even while using the same level of material. I will definitely continue using this as my primary math instruction for Middlest and let Oldest sit in on the lessons as much as he wants.

The program can now be purchased for $40 for each level, plus $13.95 for an accompanying workbook (updated as of 2/2017).

Though the program took a little getting used to, I’d definitely say that the little bee won me over in just a few short lessons. The logical presentation and the “togetherness” were both elements that I really appreciated. Visit the Professor B website and click on “Sample Lessons” to check it out for yourself.

Read more reviews at the Schoolhouse Review Crew website.

 

 

Disclaimer:  As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are mine.

IXL Math review

Tracy

When the opportunity came up to review IXL Math, my interest was piqued. I’d explored the website several times before and taken advantage of the daily allowance of 20 math questions that you can answer without a subscription, and I knew it was something my kids enjoyed doing.

 

IXL Math is an online math program with over 2,000 skills for preschool through algebra, available in over 150 countries and meeting all state standards. It is “math for the left and right brain.” The program provides a list of topics per grade; and though I experimented with just picking and choosing topics for my oldest to cover, I really found that it worked best when I let the kids go through the lessons in order, beginning with the topics that I knew they had down well. I was also pleasantly surprised to find how challenging the topics were.

 

 

Each topic provides a number of questions for the students to answer and has optional audio clips for each question so that both the question and the answers can be either read or listened to, which means my preschooler was able to work through the lessons pretty independently. Each correctly answered question earns points; incorrect questions deduct points. By the time the child has earned the 100 point total, they have mastered the topic. The lessons took anywhere from 2 to 3 minutes for the topics my kids knew well to around 20 minutes on new topics. Once a lesson is mastered, the child is awarded a gold medal and different icon toys on their Awards page.

 

 

The program does not provide initial instruction on the topics, instead the child is provided with explanations on the questions answered incorrectly. Consequently, for a number of the topics it would probably be helpful to introduce the concept to your child first and then reinforce the concept with IXL Math. I also enjoyed the weekly reports that were emailed to me and kept me informed of total practice time for each child and their accomplishments.

IXL Math is available for a monthly subscription of $9.95 or $79 for the year. And another terrific feature is that a subscription give you access to all of the topics and grade levels, which works especially well if your child is in between grades. IXL Math also allows you to play around on their site and answer a number of the questions without a subscription, giving you a great feel for the site before you subscribe.

My kids ask to do math! For them, it’s not “school”; it’s an opportunity to play on the computer. How can a mom resist that!

Read more reviews over at the Schoolhouse Review Crew.

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Disclaimer:  As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this product, at no cost to me, in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are mine.

 

Spinning to 100

Tracy1 Comment on Spinning to 100

I’m sitting on the couch, feeding the baby, and listening to the sounds of the kids learning. It’s a fun sound with lots of silliness and laughing. Before sitting down, I’d sent my son to the school room with his sister; his assignment was to get the numbers chart and help her count to 100 (a sneaky way to give him a little practice as well).

Loudly, with their silliest voices, I hear them count off “41, 42, 43, 44…” They pause only long enough to laugh hilariously at themselves. “98, 99, 100!” And then I hear my son holler out, “Mom, can we count the short way? 10, 20, 30?” Of course, I give permission and then listen to their gleeful voices once more. They finish, but they are not done. Now they are counting again from the beginning, only this time they’ve decided to hop as they count. One—and they jump once. Two—and they jump two times. They keep going until they reach 14, and my son announces that he is getting tired; they hop while they count now, sometimes with both feet and sometimes on one foot, and no longer in the school room.

“28, 29, 30, 31…Let’s spin now!” And they whirl around in the living room like little tops, “69, 70, 71…” until they stumble to 100 for the last time, dizzy, exhausted, and beaming ridiculously. I finish with the baby and give them both high-fives, thrilled to have ended our homeschooling morning with such a bang.

Pom-pom Place Value

Tracy

I’ve loved our pom-pom magnets that we made awhile back. But up to this point, Little One has been the only one to use them. So the other day, I pulled them out for our place value lesson.

On our magnetic white board, I drew the three place value houses. Little One, who is always wanting to be in the big middle of Big Brother’s lessons anyway, was allowed to choose how many pom-poms went in each house. Then, my son wrote the number below the houses and read it off to us. He’s always so impressed when the numbers are larger than one hundred.

It was so much fun! I think place value is my favorite math concept to teach—so many fun ways to practice it.

The Miracle of Combination Dot Cards

Tracy5 Comments on The Miracle of Combination Dot Cards

We’ve definitely had our struggles with math this year, among other things. And though I nearly switched math curriculums mid-year, I discovered that what I really needed was not so much a new approach as a few added resources.

The journey

After a few hours on the internet one afternoon (following a particularly frustrating morning of math), lots of research and reading, and a phone call to a classical education curriculum representative, I finally concluded that the answer was not as “simple” as switching curriculums. I believed in the method of memorizing over “learn by doing” when it came to math, and rather than switch to another curriculum that stressed drill and repetition, I decided I’d stick with what was hailed as the ultimate in drill and repetition (i.e. A Beka Book).

But I knew that I did need something to make my A Beka math work better. My epiphany—flashcards. As in, the ones the curriculum recommends but that I was too cheap to buy. But I will say, that even after my epiphany I was too cheap to buy them new. Instead, I scoured Amazon and eBay. And prayed.

The search

I lost out on several eBay bids (I hate bidding on eBay) before resorting to a “buy it now” item and a couple of Amazon deals. Overall, I still saved nearly $50 buying used flashcards. And—oh!—what a worthy investment.

My favorite have been the Combination Dot Cards, the ones I thought would be a definite “over-spend” at the beginning of the year. These cards are ingenious, even bordering on the miraculous. The cards themselves are akin to giant dominoes with dots on each half of the card. The student reads the card as an addition problem based on how you are holding it.

For instance, if you have three dots on top and 2 on bottom, the child says “3+2=5.”  Then, you turn the card so that the 2 dots are now on top and the three dots are on bottom, and the child says “2+3=5.” You can also do the same thing by holding the cards horizontally and reading left to right. The cards can be used for subtraction as well, but we’re not there yet.

 

 

The success

The cards address the exact problems that my son was encountering. First, just learning the addition families was giving him some trouble. But even more difficult for him was reversing the numbers in a combination. Once he learned 1+2 he would still be utterly stumped at 2+1.

My son’s reaction to his new cards— all smiles. (As well as a possessive “that’s mine” when his sister came to take a look; which of course resulted in Sister’s rebuttal of “no, it’s mine,”and Mommy intervening with “Actually, they’re mine.”) And I’m so thankful I get to share.

A Living Math Treasure

Tracy

I happened upon this book on one of our library trips and decided to use it for one of our casual Friday lessons. Let me just tell you, this was such a fun math lesson to teach!

The Fly on the Ceiling: a Math Myth tells a humorous story of Rene Descartes and introduces the concept of Cartesian coordinates. The tale is very engaging and had the kids’ attention immediately. A great philosopher who is extremely messy has a problem: he can’t find anything! He takes a walk to think through his problem and is thinking so hard he steps off a dock into the ocean. Soaking wet and sick with a cold, he goes home to bed. The next day, as he lays in bed recuperating, he notices a fly on the ceiling and decides to find out if the fly ever lands in the same spot twice. With a piece of charcoal, he sketches a grid onto his ceiling and with the coordinates he charts the fly’s landings. Then, in the midst of his fly observations, it suddenly occurs to him that he could chart his belongings and solve his problem of losing things. So he calls a neighboring painter to paint the grid on his floor, positions his possessions over the dried paint, charts where everything is based on his coordinate system, and hangs the chart on the wall.

The book admittedly is not entirely factual. But that, too, was a great lesson. I talked with the kids about what details they thought might be true and what parts of the story were probably pretend. They could pretty easily decide between the fact and the fiction.

Next, we plotted our own Cartesian coordinates.

And pulled out our counting bears.

The book used numbers for both sets of coordinates, so we did too. But on hind sight, it would have been easier for them to have had a set of letters and a set of numbers for the coordinates. Nevertheless, the story and the lesson was highly entertaining and educational. What more could you want out of math!

For more fun with cartesian coordinates, check out this link.