I have a new podcast interview, and I think you’ll enjoy it!
Check out Cindy Rollins’s The New Mason Jar (Season 7, Episode 93) on your favorite podcast app, or listen on the website:
Here’s a couple of excerpts…
Continue reading Podcast: The Beauty of Math in the Charlotte Mason Paradigm
Della Parker hosted the Playful Math Carnival with a delicious spread of math delicacies. Check out all the mathy inspiration, games, and hands-on activity ideas:
The blog carnival is like a free online extravaganza of mathematical play, a virtual map to articles by teachers and bloggers all around the world.
I love how there’s always something new to learn. 💖
[By the way, we still need carnival hosts for 2025. If you have a blog or website and would like to volunteer for a month, read the details at the carnival’s home page.]
Go Visit Playful Math Carnival 175
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Image at the top of the post copyright © Della Parker / The Beauty of Play blog.
In our search for a Charlotte Mason math education, we must take into consideration Mason’s approach to all learning, not just the things she said about math. We must be guided by the core principles of her philosophy, even in math
“We hold that the child’s mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal; and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.”
— Charlotte Mason, Principle 9
For instance, we must offer our students living ideas (not mere facts) in math, just as we do in literature and history.
Masons “20 Principles” outline the essentials of her educational philosophy. If we truly apply these principles to math, it can radically transform how we teach the subject.
Let’s examine a few of her principles in more detail…
Continue reading Charlotte Mason Math: Practice Your Principles
The two ideas that Mason considered important in math — rightness and reason — are connected. It is our reasoning that convinces us an answer is right or wrong. How do we know we got a sum correct? We can take the numbers apart and add them another way, to see if we get the same answer. Or we can subtract one of the numbers from the sum and see if we get the other number. Or … well, how would you prove it?
More than anything else, Mason wanted her students to discover in math a sense of immutable truth, a truth that stands on its own, apart from anything we say or do, a truth we can explore and reason about but can never change.
This sense of rightness, of solid, unalterable truth, inspires a feeling of wonder and awe — she calls it “Sursum corda,” a call to worship — that delights our minds. It’s that “Aha!” feeling we get when something we’ve been struggling with suddenly fits together and makes sense.
From the very beginning, children should be doing this sort of informal proof, explaining how they figured things out. Don’t wait until high school geometry to let your children wrestle with ideas.
“The Principality of Mathematics is a mountainous land, but the air is very fine and health-giving. People who seek their work or play in this principality find themselves braced by effort and satisfied with truth.”
— Charlotte Mason, Ourselves
Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) was a British school reformer at the turn of the twentieth century, a contemporary of William James and John Dewey. She advocated strongly for poor children, arguing they were equally capable of learning a wide and liberal curriculum as were the children of privilege.
Mason believed that all children from the time they are born share a natural curiosity and hunger for learning, and the adult’s role is to spread a “wide and generous feast” of inspiring ideas.
She was also a homeschooling pioneer, and the homeschooling revival of the late twentieth century rediscovered and popularized her books. Many found her principles a refreshing balance to the dominant educational paradigm of pragmatism.
The art of homeschooling math begins with the rhythm of puzzle play. It continues with games, which are social puzzles.
Games are fun, building a positive attitude toward math. They give students a refreshing break from textbook work and make kids willing to practice their math.
But more important than the fun, math games push children to think about what numbers mean and how they work. A good math game reinforces the idea that math is about reasoning, using the things you know to figure out what you need.
For more about homeschooling with math games, check out my post Gameschooling Math.
There’s just one short week left to go on Gordon Hamilton’s new Kickstarter project, Wiki Histories: Snapshots of world history in mini-games.
Sign up now so you don’t miss out!
Wiki Histories are two-player snapshots of world history and prehistory. They are pencil-and-paper games. Each has a pair of maps, a simple set of standard rules, some unique rules, and a historical paragraph.
Time: 15 minutes. Age: 9+.
Homeschooling families naturally build patterns and routines that help us keep our sanity as we go through our homeschooling day.
No matter what resources we choose or which curriculum packages we buy, we never end up following the book exactly as it is written. So don’t worry if you find yourself wandering away from the lesson plan. You’re not getting behind; you’re just discovering your family’s natural learning style.
If you and your children have fallen into the rut of traditional math lessons, have patience. Give yourself time to adjust to a more relaxed mindset about math.
And when you find the rhythm that fits your family, you’ll discover that math lessons flow so much more smoothly.
Learning mathematics begins with puzzles. As stories are to history or science, puzzles are to math.
In ancient times, math began with puzzles like:
• How can we keep track of our herds, or predict the cycles of the moon, or figure out how much to pay for taxes?
• How can we draw perfect right angles, or make beautifully symmetric designs?
• What are the ratios of harp strings that create the most beautiful sounds?
Math puzzles touch every area of life. Puzzles inspire curiosity and solving them brings joy.
And we can enrich any homeschool math program with puzzles that invite children to think about mathematical concepts.
Even those monster topics that often bring homeschooling families to tears, such as fractions.
After wrestling with some technical issues to connect my book printer to the store, I’m pleased to announce that the new Tabletop Math Games Collection, Volume Two books are now available in digital and print formats on my Playful Math Store.
Visit the New Products page to find everything in the image above:
Or check out the Tabletop Math Games Collection page to see the Volume One books also:
I’m working on getting the paperback and hardcover editions of these books into all the regular online bookstores, but that’s been a slower process than normal. You can purchase ALL versions through my store now, and I’ll let you know whenever I find out the other bookstores have them available…
Would you like to add a playful challenge to your homeschool or classroom planning?
For many years, I led math enrichment classes through our local homeschool co-ops. In recent years, family health issues have kept me from teaching and from doing library meet-ups.
But even if you’ve never done one of my classes — or even if you live far from my hometown — you can still give your children a taste of creative math through my books and activity guides at Denise Gaskins’ Playful Math Store.
Back to School Sale: Save 20% off problem-solving ebooks and printable activities through September 30th.
Because thinking hard can be downright fun!
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 