Middle School Math Proof

Homeschool Memories…

Kitten (my daughter) and I sat on the couch sharing a whiteboard, passing it back and forth as we took turns working through our prealgebra book together.

The chapter on number theory began with some puzzles about multiples and divisibility rules.

Continue reading Middle School Math Proof

The Final Books from a Homeschooled Teen Author

Teen author Teresa Gaskins
Do you enjoy binge reading tales of epic fantasy?

Love exploring magical worlds wracked by the struggle of good against evil?

Then don’t miss Teresa Gaskins’s four-book serial adventure, The Riddled Stone.

Those of us who read her earlier books have waited eagerly to hear how the story ends. Two years longer than we hoped, since she had to squeeze in her writing between calculus exams and college essays.

But finally, it’s done!

Now a homeschool graduate, she wrote the last few scenes right at the tail end of her nineteenth year — which means these will be Teresa’s final books as a teen author.

Check them out…

The Riddled Stone: Omnibus Edition, Four Books in One

How can a knight fight magic?

Christopher Fredrico loved the quiet life of a scholar-in-training. Plenty of spare time to spend with his friends. But the night Crown Prince Tyler came to dinner, everything changed.

Falsely accused of stealing a magical artifact and banished under threat of death, Chris leaves the only home he knows.

But as he and his three friends travel towards the coast, they find a riddle that may save a kingdom — or cost them their lives.

Discover the full story of The Riddled Stone, complete in one volume.

Free Online Preview

Buy now at:
Amazon-Kindle-logo the_book_depository_logo Barnes-Noble-logo kobo-logo ibookstore-badg
and other online retailers, or by special request at your favorite local bookshop.

Or for those who already read the earlier books…

Revealed: The Riddled Stone, Book Four

A gift she never wanted. A curse she can’t escape.

Alone in the dark, Nora of Yorc feels the dungeon walls pressing in. Even worse, the duke’s sorcery weaves itself around her, unseen and deadly. But as the spell tightens, shy, fragile Nora breaks — and something new takes her place.

Or something old beyond memory.

Nora joined this quest to help her friends. But can she stop herself before the wildness within destroys them all?

Find out in Revealed, the exciting conclusion of Teresa Gaskins’s four-book serial fantasy adventure, The Riddled Stone.

Free Online Preview

Buy now at:
Amazon-Kindle-logo the_book_depository_logo Barnes-Noble-logo kobo-logo ibookstore-badg
and other online retailers, or by special request at your favorite local bookshop.

Praise for The Riddled Stone

“A captivating fantasy story with a well-thought-out plot…”

— Wayne S. Walker, Home School Book Review

“There are some obvious protagonists and some obvious villains, but Gaskins creates a nice ambiguity around several of the key characters. The plot itself is interesting and engaging with multiple levels of motivation that drive it along.”

— Phanwadee, online reader review

“I enjoyed the book and I am absolutely amazed at how such a young author can write so well. I definitely see her going far in her writing career, and I can’t wait to see what stories she publishes next.”

— Tia, Homeschool Literature.com

CREDITS: Feature image of Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Germany, (top) by William West via Unsplash. Author photo by Christina Vernon, MelliRu.com.

Even a Math Workbook Can Be a Game

Homeschool Memories…

My youngest daughter wanted to do Singapore math. Miquon Red was her main math text at the time, but we added a bit of Singapore Primary Math 1B whenever she was in the mood.

We turned to the lesson on subtracting with numbers in the 30-somethings.

Continue reading Even a Math Workbook Can Be a Game

Rabbit Trails and Fibonacci Poetry

Homeschool Memories…

Well, I hadn’t planned on spending my day that way. But one of the great things about homeschooling is the freedom to follow 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.

A “Fib” is a Fibonacci poem. It’s based on syllable count, like a haiku, but the lines follow the Fibonacci counting series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8… Each number is the sum of the previous two numbers.

I knew what I was going to share at our Tuesday Teatime and Poetry Reading that afternoon.

Continue reading Rabbit Trails and Fibonacci Poetry

Infinite Cake: Don Cohen’s Infinite Series for Kids

Math Concepts: division as equal sharing, naming fractions, adding fractions, infinitesimals, iteration, limits
Prerequisite: able to identify fractions as part of a whole

This is how I tell the story:

  • We have a cake to share, just the two of us. It’s not TOO big a cake, ‘cuz we don’t want to get sick. An 8 × 8 or 16 × 16 square on the graph paper should be just right. Can you cut the cake so we each get a fair share? Color in your part.

Bobby Flay German Chocolate Cake

  • How big is your piece compared to the whole, original cake?
  • But you know, I’m on a diet, and I just don’t think I can eat my whole piece. Half the cake is too much for me. Is it okay if I share my piece with you? How can we divide it evenly, so we each get a fair share? How big is your new piece? Color it in.
  • How much of the whole, original cake do you have now? How can you tell?
  • I keep thinking of my diet, and I really don’t want all my piece of cake. It looks good, but it’s still just a bit too big for me. Will you take half of it? How big is that piece?
  • Now how much of the whole, original cake do you have? How could we figure it out?
    [Teaching tip: Don’t make kids do the calculation on paper. In the early stages, they can visualize and count up the fourths or maybe the eighths. As the pieces get smaller, the easiest way to find the sum is what Cohen does in the video below‌—‌identify how much of the cake is left out.]
  • Even for being on a diet, I still don’t feel very hungry…

Continue reading Infinite Cake: Don Cohen’s Infinite Series for Kids

A Review for my Daughter’s Novel

“… a captivating fantasy story with a well-thought-out plot … people who like medieval-style fantasies with wraiths, spirits, and even an attacking swamp tree will enjoy the story. I certainly did, and the excitement, adventure, and suspense will easily keep the reader’s attention …”

— Wayne S. Walker
Home School Book Review

Thank you, Mr. Walker!

As a fantasy fan myself, I agree that Teresa did a great job on this book. She improved in every way from Book — more world building, more complex plotting, and a deeper emotional identification with the characters. I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

Check it out for yourself:

Hunted600

Find out how the adventure began:

BanishedKindleCover

New Fantasy Novel by Homeschooled Teen Author

Hunted600After months of editing, formatting, proofreading, sweat, and tears:

Teresa Gaskins’s new ebook Hunted: The Riddled Stone ~ Book Two is available now at Amazon worldwide.

You can download the first five chapters here:

To celebrate the release of Hunted, the ebook version of Banished‌—‌the first book in the Riddled Stone series‌—‌will be on sale for 99 cents for the next few weeks.

Join My Mailing List for Math Tips and Book Updates

Tabletop Academy Press
Tabletop Academy Press:
Learning is a lifelong adventure.

Are you looking for playful ways to help your children learn math? Now you can get math tips and activity ideas by email, as well as find out when I put out a new book or revise an old one.

I hope to send out a “Math Snack” (no-preparation math activity idea) at least once a month. In the meantime, your sign-up bonuses include a 4-page article on solving word problems and a pre-publication peek at my new Math You Can Play book series of games for preschool to prealgebra.

Free This Weekend

BanishedKindleCover

Our Christmas gift to you: my daughter’s fantasy adventure Banished will be FREE for Kindle on Amazon.com this weekend only, December 11-15.

I don’t know whether the other Amazons (UK, CA, AU, IN, etc.) will also run the sale, but I hope so.

As I type, the paperback edition is also on sale at a 10% discount, though we have no control over how long Amazon will be offering that price. Banished is part of the Kindle Matchbook program, so if you buy a copy of the paperback, you can get the ebook for free — even after our weekend sale runs out.

Read an excerpt: the first four chapters of Banished

Don’t have a Kindle? You can get a Kindle app that will let you read Teresa’s book on almost any device.

Watch for Upcoming Books

The second book in The Riddled Stone series is scheduled for publication in Spring 2015, and so are the first two volumes of my Math You Can Play series. If you want a head’s-up when these books arrive, be sure to join my Tabletop Academy Press Updates email list:

Back to School Sale

Princess Kitten, way back in the beginning.
Princess Kitten, way back in the beginning.

Our homeschool runs a bit off-schedule from the rest of the U.S. school system, as we are still finishing up last year’s work. Even so, we’re calling this month the “beginning” of Kitten’s high school years, which seems to me like something to celebrate.

Therefore, I’m launching a one-week sale on my math book:

Please feel free to share the coupon code with your friends.

Update: I’ve just opened up a Ganxy showcase with the sale price, for anyone who would prefer to buy the ebook (in pdf, mobi, and epub) directly from me:

Continue reading Back to School Sale

A Pretty Math Problem?

As we were doing Buddy Math (taking turns through the homework exercises) today, my daughter said, “Oooo! I want to do this one. It’s pretty!”

CodeCogsEqn

She has always loved seeing patterns in math. I remember once, years ago, when she insisted that we change the problems on a worksheet to make the answers come out symmetrical. 🙂