Buddy-Style Math: Doing Homework Without Tears

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

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

Homeschool Kids Write

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

homeschool-kids-writeNo, it’s not math, but it looks like a great way to kick-start Princess Kitten’s long-neglected blog. She sat down at the computer and browsed the links to other kids’ posts for over an hour last night, occasionally laughing out loud. Then she opened her Dashboard and started to type a response to the green assignment.

I’ll have to let her know there’s a new post up today. Check it out:

  • Homeschool Kids Write

Maybe I can even get her to send something in to the next Homeschool Kids Blog Carnival. It’s worth a try…

Update

Unfortunately, Homeschool Kids Write has disappeared from the web. The Wayback Machine link gives a taste of what the site was like, but It’s just not the same without the Mr. Linky connections to all the children’s writings.

Kitten did three of the writing assignments. And not only did she enter the Homeschool Kids Blog Carnival, she even hosted one edition!

My baby is growing up…

Blogging Without a Computer

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

funny pictures of cats with captions

In case you’ve been wondering, my old computer finally bit the dust a couple of months ago. I’ve been living out of a flash drive, begging time on my kids’ computers between “homework” sessions — do you know how hard it is to drag a teenage girl away from Facebook? — and barely keeping up with email.

But I do have some blackboard quotes saved up from this semester and a few drafts on the back burner. I will get back to blogging someday, I promise!

Quotations Archive — Browse and Enjoy!

Posted on by Denise Gaskins


[Photo by PhillipC.]

I love quotations, don’t you? Everything I might possibly want to say, someone else has already said it better than I ever could. Now I’ve put together all of my blackboard quotes from the homeschool co-op classes, as well as a few longer quotations I used in past blog posts, and archived them in one convenient place.

Quotations

I hope you have as much fun reading the quotes as I have had collecting them.

Hurricane Ike Drops In

Posted on by Denise Gaskins


[Photo by Niner.]

Thanks to the remnants of Hurricane-turned-Tropical-Depression Ike, our creek has risen well past last spring’s high-water mark. Of course, this is nothing compared to the devastation down south, but it’s enough to keep us trapped at home for the day.

If you’re curious about what’s around that corner of our driveway…

Continue reading Hurricane Ike Drops In

What a Difference a Year Makes

Posted on by Denise Gaskins


[Image from Let’s Play Math! blog, a little more than a year ago.]

Looks different, doesn’t it? My blog has changed so much in the past year that I hardly recognized it myself. I had some nostalgic fun clicking around the old articles — two of which still show up on the “Most Popular Posts” sidebar list.

I am so grateful to all of you have stuck with me and have passed my article links on to your fellow teachers or homeschooling friends. Thank you all!

If you’d like to explore the history of your blog or favorite website, you can enter the link at:

Internet Archive: The Wayback Machine

More Backwards Math

Posted on by Denise Gaskins

[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.”

Continue reading More Backwards Math

Christmas in July?

Posted on by Denise Gaskins


[Photo by krisdecurtis.]

Being moderately tech-illiterate, I don’t pay much attention to SEO (Search Engine Optimization, the magic art of convincing Google to fetch me more readers). Even so, I enjoy browsing through the list of search terms that have brought visitors to my blog. Sometimes I find ideas to write about, or motivation to move an old draft off the back burner, or simply a chuckle at the funny things people look for on the Web.

This month, however, the most popular search term seems strangely out of season — more than 300 people have come to this site wanting “Christmas” or “Christmas tree.”

Continue reading Christmas in July?