Princess Kitten

The Final Books from a Homeschooled Teen Author

Posted on March 12, 2019August 6, 2019 by Denise 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:

… 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:

… 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

Posted on May 4, 2017August 6, 2019 by Denise Gaskins

Homeschooling 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.

The first problem was pretty easy for her:

30 − 7 = _____

I reminded her that she already knew 10 − 7.

She agreed, “Ten take away seven is three.”

Then her eyes lit up. “So it’s 23! Because there are two tens left.”

Wow, I thought. She’s catching on quickly.

Mom Always Talks Too Much

We went to the next problem:

34 − 8 = _____

“Now, this one is harder,” I said. “But you know what ten minus eight is, right? So we could take one of these tens and—”

She waved at me to be quiet.

I was just getting started on my standard speech about how to turn a tough subtraction like 34 − 8 into the easy addition of “2 + 4 + two tens left.” But her mind was still on the last problem, specifically on the two tens and the seven.

“If you have 27,” she said, “and you add three more, you get 30. And four more is 34.”

“Um, yes, but…” I interrupted.

She shushed me again.

“And then you can take away the four. And then you can take away the three. And then you can take away one more…It’s 26!”

Mom Learns a Lesson

She continued through the next page that way. For every problem, she started with whatever number struck her fancy, usually containing at least one digit from the problem before. She added enough to get up to the 30-something number in the book.

Only then would she deign to subtract the number in question.

I don’t think she ever saw the point of the mental math technique the book and I were trying to teach, but she did have a lot of fun playing around with the numbers.

In the long run, that’s much more important.

Feature photo: “Laughing Girl” by ND Strupler via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Rabbit Trails and Fibonacci Poetry

Posted on April 26, 2017August 6, 2019 by Denise Gaskins

Homeschooling 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.

Here’s the best one I’ve come up with so far:

Math:
Word
Problem,
Mental play.
Archimedes shouts,
“Eureka! I figured it out.”

The Kids Join the Fun

While we always enjoyed our tea and poetry times, that day was the only one that inspired the kids to actually write poetry themselves.

My 7yo dd was so proud to be able to count syllables and write:

Cat.
Soft.
Pretty,
But sleeping.

While my 12yo ds really took off, creating more than a dozen Fibs. His first two are still his favorites:

Ducks
Have
No luck,
But they do
Have many feathers.
Hunters like to shoot ducks a lot.

and

Paul
Is
Revered
A lot by
Paul Revere’s Fan Club.
What is Paul’s last name, anyway?

Wouldn’t you like to try it, too? Please share your Fib in the comments below!

Feature photo: “Rabbit” by Save the Bay via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Infinite Cake: Don Cohen’s Infinite Series for Kids

Posted on July 2, 2015May 13, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

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.

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

Posted on July 1, 2015May 21, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

“… 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 #1 — 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:

Read an excerpt: the first five chapters of Hunted.
Buy the ebook:
Hunted ebook at Amazon worldwide
[Members of Kindle Unlimited can read for free.]
Or pick up the paperback at:
Amazon worldwide
Book Depository
Barnes & Noble
CreateSpace

Find out how the adventure began:

Read an excerpt: the first four chapters of Banished.
Buy the ebook:
Banished ebook at Amazon worldwide
[Members of Kindle Unlimited can read for free.]
Or pick up the paperback at:
Amazon worldwide
Book Depository
Barnes & Noble
CreateSpace

New Fantasy Novel by Homeschooled Teen Author

Posted on May 16, 2015May 21, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

After 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:

Hunted: The Riddled Stone ~ Book Two (preview)

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.

Back to School Sale

Posted on August 26, 2013May 13, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

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:

Let’s Play Math at Amazon.com Regularly $5.99, marked down to $3.99. No coupon code required.
Let’s Play Math at Smashwords Use coupon code XK93V (not case-sensitive) to get 35% off.
Sale expires September 2, 2013.

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:

Let’s Play Math at Ganxy Buy directly from me, no coupon required.

Continue reading Back to School Sale

A Pretty Math Problem?

Posted on August 8, 2013May 13, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

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!”

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. 🙂

How To Master Quadratic Equations

Posted on June 3, 2013May 13, 2022 by Denise Gaskins

feature photo above by Junya Ogura via flickr (CC BY 2.0)

A couple of weeks ago, James Tanton launched a wonderful resource: a free online course devoted to quadratic equations. (And he promises more topics to come.)

G’Day Math Courses

Kitten and I have been working through the lessons, and she loves it!

We’re skimming through pre-algebra in our regular lessons, but she has enjoyed playing around with simple algebra since she was in kindergarten. She has a strong track record of thinking her way through math problems, and earlier this year she invented her own method for solving systems of equations with two unknowns. I would guess her background is approximately equal to an above-average algebra 1 student near the end of the first semester.

After few lessons of Tanton’s course, she proved — within the limits of experimental error — that a catenary (the curve formed by a hanging chain) cannot be described by a quadratic equation. Last Friday, she easily solved the following equations:

$\left ( x+4 \right )^2 -1=80$

and:

$w^2 + 90 = 22 w - 31$

and (though it took a bit more thought):

$4x^2 + 4x + 4 = 172$

We’ve spent less than half an hour a day on the course, as a supplement to our AoPS Pre-Algebra textbook. We watch each video together, pausing occasionally so she can try her hand at an equation before listening to Tanton’s explanation. Then (usually the next day) she reads the lesson and does the exercises on her own. So far, she hasn’t needed the answers in the Companion Guide to Quadratics, but she did use the “Dots on a Circle” activity — and knowing that she has the answers available helps her feel more independent.

Continue reading How To Master Quadratic Equations