Start Your Engines!
Start Your Engines!
Numbers give me butterflies.
This likely has to do with the fact that I could not, for the life of me, recite my times tables as required in fourth grade, despite the chart my parents had pasted to my wall and the 'extra' attention I received along with the group of other kids who were lagging. From then on, I gave numbers a bad name. Arts and language became my best buddies. They may have anyways, but I often wonder how badly bad impressions can turn kids off of interesting subjects for life.
My husband loves numbers. He is a logic guy. Between the two of us we can cover a lot of basis with O.
O can count to ten. Cutest thing ever. She counts everything she see's while pointing with her little fingers. It is convincing me that numbers can't be that bad after all. The more I am reading from 'unschooling' sources, the more I realize that the 'm' word (referring to math) is everywhere and does not have to be part of some forced memorization effort. It begins with counting, telling time, finding patterns and seeing shapes in every day life. It cascades into baking and budgeting, even fun projects like origami can be considered a lesson in math. So many homeschooling families have some amazing 'math' projects that take the butterflies right out of the equation.
A while ago, I made O a car caddy. Today we added a parking garage with the numbers 1-10. As she counts, we can help her recognize the 'symbol' that matches the number and park cars. Later, as we are learning more about numbers working together, we can extend the lesson to find the sum of simple equations. The Car Park can extend to other lessons using words or picture symbols. As I saw on a fabulous site www.jugglingwithkids.com, her kids practice word recognition in Sight Word Parking Lot.
Feeling less intimidated by subjects someone has told us we are not good at, takes time to reverse. Hopefully with that in mind, I can bring math lessons to our daily life without the butterfly effect.
EXPAND ON HIDDEN MATH LESSONS:
Read The Phantom Tollbooth for hidden lessons in language and math!
In the Top Ten of my fave books EVER.
Domino's & Dice: In John Holt's first published issue of Growing Without Schooling http://www.holtgws.com/gws1.html he talks about how numbers should come in all kinds of patterns, as opposed to a line of objects counted from left to right. He suggests using domino's (dice would work too) to show how numbers can take on different forms.
Domino's & Dice: In John Holt's first published issue of Growing Without Schooling http://www.holtgws.com/gws1.html he talks about how numbers should come in all kinds of patterns, as opposed to a line of objects counted from left to right. He suggests using domino's (dice would work too) to show how numbers can take on different forms.
Look into kids lit for math-inspired reading:
Sir Cumference Math Adventure Series by Cindy Neuschwander
Alice in Pastaland by Alexandra Wright
Equal Smequel by Virginia Kroll
Once Upon A Dime by Nancy Kelley Allen
NOTE: See http://www.charlesbridge.com/ for great kids lit related to every subject!
Alice in Pastaland by Alexandra Wright
Equal Smequel by Virginia Kroll
Once Upon A Dime by Nancy Kelley Allen
NOTE: See http://www.charlesbridge.com/ for great kids lit related to every subject!