Elementary Teacher Education

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

Unfortunately, this is all too believable:

Received an email from a parent.

Not one of our students, but rather the parent of a high school student who plans to attend this university. The parent is looking for advice on how to get the kid out of math. Seems that the kid has already taken the bare minimum number of units of high school math needed for graduation and has stopped taking math. The parent is wondering if the kid can take some sort of test (before forgetting any more math) to fulfill the university’s math requirement.

Guess what career the kid is planning on? School teacher.

From Rudbeckia Hirta at Learning Curves.

It’s Elementary (School), My Dear Watson

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

From Time magazine, June 18, 1956:

“[M]athematics has the dubious honor of being the least popular subject in the curriculum… Future teachers pass through the elementary schools learning to detest mathematics… They return to the elementary school to teach a new generation to detest it.”

Quoted by George Polya in How to Solve It. I finally got my very own copy of this excellent book, so I can quit pestering the librarian to let me order it from library loan again…

Blogger Rudbeckia Hirta teaches math to pre-service teachers, and it seems that not much has changed since 1956. Hirta says the test answers shown were representative of her class — for instance, 25% of her students missed the juice problem. Too bad these students never read Polya’s book, in which he discusses a four-step method for solving problems. Step four is to look back and ask yourself whether the answer makes sense. Good advice!

Continue reading It’s Elementary (School), My Dear Watson

What is a Blog Carnival?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

The Carnival of Homeschooling is almost ready for its first birthday, and Henry at Why Homeschool is looking for submissions. So if you’re a homeschool blogger, go back over your recent blog posts and pick out a good one to share!

A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts loosely related to a given topic. Some, like the Carnival of Homeschooling, are posted weekly, while others come once a month or whenever the organizer gets around to doing it. Blog carnivals give bloggers a chance to reach a wider audience than just their regular readers, and they give readers interested in the topic a chance to access a wide variety of articles at once.

Continue reading What is a Blog Carnival?

The “Aha!” Factor

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

For young children, mathematical concepts are part of life’s daily adventure. A toddler’s mind grapples with understanding the threeness of three blocks or three fingers or one raisin plus two more raisins make three.

Most children enter school with a natural feel for mathematical ideas. They can count out forks and knives for the table, matching sets of silverware with the resident set of people. They know how to split up the last bit of birthday cake and make sure they get their fair share, even if they have to cut halves or thirds. They enjoy drawing circles and triangles, and they delight in scooping up volumes in the sandbox or bathtub.

Continue reading The “Aha!” Factor

So You Think You Know Calculus?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

Rudbeckia Hirta over at Learning Curves submits a great idea for a new TV blockbuster:

So You Think You Know Calculus?

I’ve read that Charlotte Mason used oral exams like this with her students, though of course without the pressure and sarcastic comments. I’d love to hear how this works in “real life.”

Continue reading So You Think You Know Calculus?

Fibonacci Poetry = Fun!

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

Well, I hadn’t planned on spending my day this way. One of the great things about homeschooling is that we can spend time following rabbit trails…

While browsing the Carnival of Homeschooling, I found a link to Farm School blog’s article Fib Foolery, which sent me to Gotta Book for his articles The Fib and More Fibbery (read the comments on both threads, but be warned that some are crude) and several other posts, all of which set me off on a morning of poetic fun. I know what I’m going to share at our Tuesday Teatime and Poetry Reading this afternoon.

Continue reading Fibonacci Poetry = Fun!

Kids Do the Craziest Things

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[Rescued from my old blog.]

My youngest daughter wanted to do Singapore math today. Miquon Red is her main math text this quarter, but we add a bit of Singapore Primary Math 1B whenever she’s in the mood. We turned to the lesson on subtracting with numbers in the 30-somethings. The first problem was pretty easy for her:

30 – 7 = []

I reminded her that she already knows 10 – 7. She agreed, “10 take away 7 is 3.” Then her eyes lit up. “So it’s 23! Because there are two tens left.”

Continue reading Kids Do the Craziest Things