Mark and I are pretty solid in our beliefs on how and why to teach math. We don't really fall into a prescribed philosophy-we're not "unschoolers" or rigid textbook users...but we try to find the middle ground between making sure they have the basics memorized by rote and letting them explore and follow their natural curiosities with numbers. I guess we could call it Neo-Classical style! I've read a lot of pieces about "unschooling" math and "living math" and most seem to be written by people who had bad experiences with how math was taught in public school. They don't want to create the same negative feelings in their children, so they find a warm, fuzzy alternative. Not me. We start each school day with math because like breakfast, math is the most important part of your day. I have them start at 8:30 and work
until 10:00 or until they are done, whichever comes first. This schedule helps us get a solid start and also gives us a framework to jump back into when we go off course.
This view of my table this morning shows that they were busy playing and creating and no one bothered to clean up after school yesterday! Money, Webelos projects, old snail habitats, and coloring!
I thought this year was going to be way harder than it has been. I think this may be because I've pulled way back on how much we do in each subject. There were days in other years where I couldn't even get myself started because I had so much to accomplish. When IJ and Shane were doing 2nd grade math, we used Saxon and had a long scripted lesson with hands-on activities, a worksheet, and a timed test every day. Plus, I had other math games that I tried (unsuccessfully) to add to our day. This year, Evie and I quickly review past topics, do some mental math, and quickly learn a new topic with a game for practice; it takes us about 20 minutes to get through a lesson. Yesterday we played Money War with the money cards you can see in the picture below:
The game is easy: each player flips over two money cards, adds up how much they have, and whoever has the most money gets all four cards. The winner is the one with the most cards...but I changed it to whoever has the most money is the winner! Evie is so quick that I don't feel like she is missing out on anything by not doing extensive worksheets everyday. Sitting at the table filling in worksheets is good for those who need to develop disciplined work habits (Shane!), but Evie was
born able to sit and finish a worksheet quietly and correctly.
After Shane was done with his textbook, he and Evie played a few rounds of Money War. In the picture above, Shane is teaching Evie how to figure out how much
more money he had with double digit subtraction. He is feeling superior because 1) He won 2) He knows more math and 3) He can teach math to his little sister.
On the other end of the table we find IJ doing his Saxon math. He reads a lesson, does the practice problems, and then does either the even or the odd problems. Every five lessons he takes a test. He is one of those kids that is good at sticking to a routine-he gets up at the same time, he starts math at the same time, he does his school work in the same order. And he is also good at finishing his math on time while fooling around. Shane follows the same daily pattern, but he is easier to distract and sometimes has to finish his math for "homework." Today's distraction was Tic-Tac-Toe:
Only they were using a 4x4 grid. I said, "How many squares are on your grid?" Shane started to count, but IJ stopped him saying that
counting is cheating, naughty, naughty you need to multiply! in a very funny voice. They like mental math games, so when we drive places they ask me to make up math problems for them. My most recent game I call Mile Post Math. Shane figures out how many miles we have gone and how many miles until we get to our destination and how quickly we will get places at different speeds.
