One of the best ways we can help our children learn mathematics (or anything else) is to be lifelong learners ourselves.
Here are a few stories to read as you sip your morning brew. . .
Morning Coffee: That Moment of Epiphany
Playing to Learn
“Play and rigor support each other.
“When students are invited to play with math, they learn more deeply, more robustly, and remember more consistently.
“Play is promoted as something that can engage kids and give them a more positive attitude about school, but it’s easy to assume that it’s not useful for learning, when in reality the opposite is true:
“The student who is playing tends to be the student who is learning most deeply.”
—Dan Finkel, Math for Love newsletter
Mental Math: Three Basic Principles
“We know that algorithms are amazing human achievements, but they are not good teaching tools because mimicking step-by-step procedures can actually trap students into using less sophisticated reasoning than the problems are intended to develop.”
— Pam Harris, Math Is Figure-Out-Able Podcast
Whether you work with a math curriculum or take a less-traditional route to learning, do not be satisfied with mere pencil-and-paper competence. Instead, work on building your children’s mental math skills, because mental calculation forces a child to understand arithmetic at a much deeper level than is required by traditional pencil-and-paper methods.
Musings: Mental Math Is the Key to Algebra
“If you stay with meaningful mental arithmetic longer, you will find that your child, if she is average, can do problems much more advanced than the level listed for her grade. You will find that she likes arithmetic more.
“And when she does get to abstractions, she will understand them better.
“She will not need two or three years of work in primary grades to learn how to write out something like a subtraction problem with two-digit numbers. She can learn that in a few moments of time, if you just wait.”
—Ruth Beechick, An Easy Start in Arithmetic
Algebra Puzzle from Lewis Carroll
On a friend’s blog, I found this delightful letter written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson to a young man named Wilton Cox.
The pseudonym Lewis Carroll comes from an alteration of the Latinized name Carolus (for Charles) and the replacement of Lutwidge with Lewis.
Morning Coffee: What Is Mathematics?
One of the best ways we can help our children learn mathematics (or anything else) is to be lifelong learners ourselves.
Here are a few stories to read as you sip your morning brew. . .
Monday is Square Root Day
On May 5, we celebrate one of the rarest math holidays: Square Root Day, 5/5/25.
Here are a few ideas for playing math with squares and roots.
Charlotte Mason Math: Living Books
[An addendum to my earlier Charlotte Mason Math series.]
“Our business is to give [children] mind-stuff, and both quality and quantity are essential. Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited measure, but we know where to procure it; for the best thought the world possesses is stored in books; we must open books to children, the best books; our own concern is abundant provision and orderly serving.”
— Charlotte Mason, Toward A Philosophy of Education
Most homeschool teachers, whatever our curriculum or schooling approach, understand the importance of teaching with living books. We read aloud biographies, historical fiction, or the classics of literature. We scour library shelves for the most creative presentations of scientific topics that interest our children, and encourage our high school students to go back to the original documents whenever possible.
And we teach math with a textbook.
Not that textbooks are inherently bad, because math is an abstract science. We need to meet the ideas — the “mind-stuff” — of math on their own terms, and textbooks can help with that.
But it’s not enough.
Musings: Math Is a Social Game
Childhood Memories
When I was in school, math was something each person did on their own for homework, quizzes or tests.
Even when the teacher sent us to work on the chalkboard, each person did their own problem. We would never think to collaborate on math.
To look at someone else’s answer was considered cheating.
Morning Coffee: Anyone Can Learn Math
One of the best ways we can help our children learn mathematics (or anything else) is to be lifelong learners ourselves.
Here are a few stories to read as you sip your morning brew:
- Download your printable Morning Coffee journal.
