After several days of flu and recovery, the D family is back in business. Today's business is math: double-digit multiplication, measuring, and earning the Cub Scout belt loop for Mathematics. S has gotten confused with double-digit multiplication and has earned failing scores on his two last math assignments. I'm so happy I homeschool, can turn off the computer program we use, and not let his scores count against his grade. We spent some time working through the algorithm this morning when I came up with a great idea.
I asked, "S, do you know the order of the rainbow colors?" "Yes, don't you remember teaching it to me?" No, sorry. Oh wait a minute, I think we covered it last week in our light and color unit in science. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, (indigo-but who counts that?) Purple. I drew him a picture with colored arrows, showing the order and directions to multiply. I was so excited that S could see the order of operations! When M came out for his coffee break, I proudly showed him my creation:
"It's backwards," M says. "This is the way the arrows go," and he goes up. Now how do you convince either one of us that we are multiplying the wrong direction? There is no way! Not that it matters (thank you commutative property). "In fact, if I were teaching this, I wouldn't even start with the one's column. I would start with the tens." What? I've never heard of that! And because I've never heard of it, it can't be right. I took just as much math in college as he did. He may have gotten better grades (I seem to remember telling the calculus professor I only needed a C+ to get into the Environmental Science program and I would never take another math class again, I promise), but I had to prove that I was right about the direction of multiplication. The first place I checked was S's math book:
Uh-oh. No wonder he was confused. The book draws arrows one way, the teacher draws them the other way. Fine. IJ's book then. He uses Saxon and Saxon is the King of All Math Curriculum:
No definitive answer because no directional arrows are shown. So I went to single digit multiplication in Saxon and found that my way it right in Saxon and M and Teaching Textbooks are just left-handed.
S said, "I'm so glad I have a smart mom." I love that kid.
