Posted in Math
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Abby is in Ambleside Year 4, basically grade 4. She is scores ahead in literature & vocabulary, this comes easy and naturally to her. On the other hand, math has been a constant struggle. I mostly blame myself for not finding and sticking to a math program. We have tried most of the big name programs and nothing seemed to fit with her. She has always dreaded math. So I have been searching and researching the Living Math concept. I love the idea but have struggled with how to implement it into a true schedule that I can allow her to enjoy math but at the same time still be able to gauge her progress. I took a break from looking through the programs and the books, spent some time in prayer, thought about our goals and objectives with math and looked at what worked in our other subjects and this is what I have come up with:
First of all, we use Charlotte Mason methods so keeping in the spirit of journaling and narration I put together a Math Journal for each school age child. It is separated into 4 sections: Books read, Game scores, Narrations, and worksheets. Then I looked at the resources I wanted to implement: Family Math, Free reading, Math History, Games, and worksheets/book work.
So I have all of these resources used on a rotation during the week, currently set up like this:
Monday: Family Math & Free Reading Tuesday: Math History & Games Wednesday: Worksheets/book work & Family Math Thursday: Free Reading & Math History Friday: Games & worksheets/book work
We have used this so far this week with wonderful results. Abby has started reading Murderous Maths for free reading and has done wonderful narrations. Erin has been reading shorter books in one sitting The Doorbell Rang , etc. In Family Math we have been working on Palindromes, filling in a chart based on color for each different step Palindrome. This includes a lot of multi-step addition. We have also discussed the origin of our number system, the value of skip counting when counting money, adding money (decimal point), fractions (baking cookies & doubling recipes), addition/subtraction(Erin) & multiplication (Abby) worksheets. The girls have both given me wonderful narrations for their books, which I have written down & placed in their journals. Last night, Abby actually said that she used to think she was really bad at numbers but now she realizes she is good at them and she really likes them. That is the very thing I wanted to hear!
For resources I have been using the book & games list from the Living Math site. This is also where I got the Living Math History course. Worksheets were purchased at Walmart, no huge expense, it's just to put my mind at ease that they can recognize a problem in it's written form & solve it, there will come a time that this is necessary (testing, etc.)
I should throw in what I am using for Jack (Kindergarten). I did make a Math Journal for him but it is empty right now. He is all hands on for the time being but will eventually have wonderful goodies to fill his journal. We worked on money this week, the difference and value of pennies & nickels. I also am using Simply Numbers with him, it's a lot of games & rhyming songs (see title of this post!). He was an Indian yesterday so he built a campfire (minus the fire) in the corner of the Living Room and we did "school" on the floor around his campfire which included singing "Ten Little Indian Boys", of course! When we were finishing up with the money work I asked him if someone offered him a piece of candy for .05 and he had a nickel would he have enough money, he answered "yes". Same question but with 5 pennies, again, he answered "yes". Then he was quite for a minute before asking, "Will someone really ask me that? Can I have a nickel!" Always prepared, my little guy, he is so funny! |
