[Photo by Kuzeytac.]
Several people enjoyed the April calendar and asked if there would be a May version. Unfortunately, my homeschool co-op classes are out until next fall, so I don’t have enough kids to make up problems for me. But if your children would like to send in some puzzles, I will be glad to put another calendar together. If we get enough participation, we could have calendars every month for the rest of the year!
My daughter Kitten strongly dislikes math when forced to do it on her own, so I am trying to get back into the habit of doing “Buddy-Style Math” with her. We take turns working the problems in her workbook: mine, hers, mine, hers, and so on down the page. We work each problem out loud, explaining how we got the answer and checking each other as we go.
In a way, it is like Charlotte Mason-style narration applied to math, since my daughter has to process her thoughts in order to explain how she worked the problem, which fixes the math concepts more deeply in her mind.
Continue reading Buddy-Style Math: Doing Homework Without Tears
[Feature photo above by Tom@HK.]
One of my favorite warm-up exercises for Math Club is “Today is ______.” Each student invents one or more mathematical expressions for today’s date and writes his or her favorite on the board for all to admire. Answers range from lazy (24×1 — at least it’s an excuse to talk about identity elements) to unnecessarily repetitive (1+1+1+…), but we usually get a few gems as well.
[Photo by angela7dreams.]
A forum friend posted about her daughter’s adventure in learning the math facts:
“She loves stories and drawing, so I came up with the Math Friends book. She made a little book, and we talked about different numbers that are buddies.”
[Photo by Photo Mojo via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]
Yahtzee and other board games provide a modicum of math fact practice. But for intensive, thought-provoking math drill, I can’t think of any game that would beat Contig.
Math concepts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, order of operations, mental math
Number of players: 2 – 4
Equipment: Contig game board, three 6-sided dice, pencil and scratch paper for keeping score, and bingo chips or wide-tip markers to mark game squares
Place the game board and dice between players, and give each player a marker or pile of chips. (Markers do not need to be different colors.) Write the players’ names at the top of the scratch paper to make a score sheet.
[Photo by One Laptop Per Child.]
Once again, I am adding to my Free (Mostly) Math Resources page. Here are a handful of helpful websites for teaching math…
[Photo by Andy Hay.]
In addition to all the funny Google searches, I get plenty of normal inquiries about math topics. People come here looking for help with fractions, word problems, and math club activities — no surprise, those — but I would never have predicted the popularity of the search topic “writing in math class.”
Last year, I compiled a variety of math journal resources, but I’ve found many more since then, especially for older (high school and college) students. So if you’re looking for new ways to get your math students writing…
[Photo by geishaboy500 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]
Are you looking for creative ways to help your children study math? Even without a workbook or teacher’s manual, your kids can learn a lot about numbers. Just spend an afternoon playing around with a hundred chart (also called a hundred board or hundred grid).
My free 50-page PDF Hundred Charts Galore! printables file features 1–100 charts, 0–99 charts, bottom’s-up versions, multiple-chart pages, blank charts, game boards, and more. Everything you need to play the activities below and those in my new 70+ Things to Do with a Hundred Chart book.
Download Free “Hundred Charts Galore!” Printables
Shop for “70+ Things To Do with a Hundred Chart” Book
And now, let’s play…
[Photo by Sharon Mollerus.]
Have you ever noticed how very different little girls are from little boys, in the way they play and in the way they think about things? Princess Kitten has been playing around with Backwards Math again, and my first thought was, “None of my boys would ever have done this with numbers.”
