Math Fun- First Grade Style

We do math first thing at our house and J6 has been enjoying the Funtastic Frogs. I'd like you there, but word on the street is that they no longer make The Frogs. This is tragic. But if you have them use them! If not, then any counter will do- beans, legos, cubes, bugs, or whatever cute object you own!

(Cell phone picture)- this is a page from his Frog math book. He has a lot of basic math skills so it's been tough to see where we really need to start to give him a challenge.

This is one I created from some story math problems at Homeschool Share. I just put the problems in a word document, put spaces between them, and add the boxes for him to write his answers. These are problems from Down, Down the Mountain. As we read the problems, we highlighted the number words.

Many times he does not use a counter, but it's great fun all the same. We do a lot of math orally as well. He has a few activities he really enjoys and a lot of the time I leave down math activities for him to explore on his own. Stay tuned for more math news...

An Open Letter to Homeschoolers...

My new post is up over at Heart of the Matter! An Open Letter to Homeschoolers is meant to encourage all of us new and old who need a reminder of what homeschooling's all about.

I want to share some tips I’ve learned along the way so that hopefully you can learn from them too.

1) Remember, slow and steady wins this race- your kids don’t have to know everything today or even this year so refrain from turning on the fire hose of information. A corollary to this is don’t worry about keeping up with what public and private schools are doing- it’s a recipe for discontentment at best and disaster at the worst.

2) Start simple and establish a routine- a framework is great and allows you to get back on track if you derail (sick fussy babies are super derailers), but don’t be a slave to your routine.  Your homeschool will begin to lack joy.

3) Let go of traditional school conventions- some of them may be fine and work well for you, but so often I see parents trying to replicate the experience they know and understand well. We all come to the homeschooling table with a similar background in education. It’s okay to let those fall away and find the niche that you and your children will fill. For more on this topic you might want to read Leaving Behind Conventions.

4) Be consistent- whatever routine and program of study you choose, do it consistently. While we can leave behind the traditional school model, we still have the responsibility to educate our children.

Read more...

Sunflower Garden Math

Yesterday we headed out to the sunflower garden to record the height of our sunflowers in addition to the diameter of the flower heads. I had the kids make a data chart based on the information we wanted to collect and we headed outdoors.

The final result- they have all bloomed at this point.

The Soraya variety

The Mammoth Grey Stripes win the tall prize. These are the ones with the sunflower seeds we eat.

The Moulan Rouge did not fare well in all the rain we've had from hurricanes and tropical storms. I guess the roots were not deep enough to support the plant in the poor weather and with the saturated ground.

Measuring the diameter of the flower- seed head and petals

Our tallest plant is 8 feet tall.

We lost one Moulan Rouge plant within the very first week to...something. We replanted the following week with what we thought was the Autumn Variety. Surprise! It was really the Pro-Cut Lemon.

This was a great math activity for J6- just writing numbers and recording data. The older kids will be doing some conversions from inches to feet. We use the portable drawing boards from Discount School Supply.

Honeybee visitors! How exciting! Go bees go!

More height measurments

Rll's data and some petals from the ground- she is taking a Flower Pressing class at Co-op this semester. More on this later.

Our sunflower garden was a 4-H project. In fact, we are members of the Heritage Garden Club and last spring we went to a "training" on growing our seeds. The seeds were given to us as part of the group and we even won a copy of the Sunflower Book. Any day now, the 4-H educators will be coming out to measure our sunflowers. We didn't plant any giants this year (because we planted so late and did imagine with its growing season that it would be tall enough before the first frost), but the growing season wasn't super kind this year and word on the street is that a lot of other families had trouble with critters and their gardens did not do too well. So, I guess we have a shot at the tallest plant.

This was a very successful and enjoyable garden to grow! We are already planning next year's sunflower garden. I'd like to see which varieties the birds really enjoy. We are part of a pilot program with our local science center and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Part of our job is to add and element to our habitat that will help the birds.

Math Planning- How Do I Do It?

I know some of you are interested in how we plan out our math lessons using Math on the Level. Or perhaps you aren't using any curriculum and want to use various resources to do math. Or perhaps you are just looking for something extra for your math curriculum or you want to tweak it a little. What does that look like? How do I do it? Let me see if I can explain.

First of all, Math on the Level gives you a list of concepts that students should know in roughly four basic areas of math before they can do Algebra. The author gives some information on what is chronological or what concepts are built on others, but she leaves other things for teaching any time. You don't have to have a program like Math on the Level to do this sort of teaching. What you need is a concept list and some benchmarks- if you have a math program, the publisher has already laid out a scope and sequence for that grade. Or you can try the What My ___ Grader Needs to Know series and check out what that program says is appropriate for each grade level- another bench mark source.

Since I've been using MOTL for a few years now, I was able to come up with a list for what my 6th grader should be working on based on what she has left before Algebra. I simply listed many of those things out but not all of them because she still has 1-3 years left depending on when she begins Algebra I (8th or 9th grade). I did the same thing with my 1st and 4th graders. Sometimes it's easy. You know your child needs to master long division or multiplication tables and that will be a major focus for the year.

A portion of R11's target concepts for the year

I9's list- they are color coded so I can see easily the various breakdowns of "units". So, decimals and money or operations or fractions, etc. That is how MOTL separates them out.

I keep a list of our math resources- books, websites, and games or activities close by in my planner.

In general, I like to teach new concepts about twice a week- sometimes three. Right now I have it so that I do the same unit with the three younger kids. That way I can work with them all at the same time covering the new concepts easily with each student at his/her level. I like activities that illustrate a concept and have some problem solving component to them to challenge my older kids. Most of my activities I can modify for the different skill sets.

I choose from the list of concepts from the same topic- For example, this year I've started with Money and Decimals. I won't exhaust every concept right now, but we'll spend about three weeks on this adding new concepts to the review list. Then it will be time to switch gears and go with a focus on Operations or Geometry and Measurement or even Fractions. I plan to cycle through these areas of focus throughout the year, each time getting closer to the end of the list of concepts I need to teach for the year.

Where do I get the activities? I start with my MOTL manual which has a lot of ideas for activities to go with each concept. There are also math adventure and math resource manuals which provide a lot of ideas on lessons, games, etc that can be used with any concept. I also use the math resources I have collected over the years. Some of them are books written to the kids and some are more teacher friendly, but they all have really clever ideas on how to incorporate math skills into activities of all sorts.

We do a combination of hands on activities and exploration along with things like Life of Fred, games, and computer practice. Sometimes I pull extra problems if a student needs more work on a topic. I use the white board to break things up. So, if someone needs to practice multiple digit multiplication, he can do problems on the white board. I also practice timed math skills- something that I am not all that worried about but my children to experience when taking standardized test and this year is a testing year for three of my kids. In NY we test every other year starting at 4th and until 8th. After that, they must be tested every year. Otherwise, we I turn in a narrative assessment at the year's end.

I hope this explains some of how we do math here in our homeschool. I'll be sharing activities, ideas, and resources along the way.

Sunflowers

Our garden continues to grow and blossom! This was taken probably almost two weeks ago and I'll have to update you again because those two tall plants in the back have gotten much taller and now have blooms.

At this point, all of our varieties are out. The moulan rouge (left flowers) experienced some damage from the flood inducing rains last week. The plant has fallen over quite a bit just from the ground being so wet. But those are still gorgeous flowers!

I can hardly believe how quickly the weather has turned here in central NY. It's been cool during the day and downright cold at night! I'll update you on the full garden this week, but first a math planning post is up next.

GIANTmicrobes: A Review

I was asked a while ago now if I would like to review some products for GIANTmicrobes. When I looked at their products, I had to say yes! They have all kinds of plush, personified renditions of microscopic critters. And they're pretty cute!

A Petri Dish of Yeast Cells

Pizza Dough- a lesson in yeast

The FLL kids are discussing food safety for their project- we try to avoid this guy known as E. Coli.

Any guesses? The hollow middle gives him away- red blood cell!

Founded in 2002, our mission here at Giantmicrobes Inc. is to produce unique and interesting gifts for children and adults alike.Whether your interest is educational, medical, or just plain old entertainment, we're your number one source for all things microbial.  

Seriously, how much fun is microbiology with these guys? GIANTmicrobes has sets of plush dolls too which are theme oriented- a love box is full of all the love kind of diseases. Very amusing teaching tool. And how many households can boast E. Coli dolls? My personal favorite is the petri dish option.

Math Lessons

If you've been reading here a while, then you know that about two years ago I gave up using Horizons Math and began using Math on the Level. While Horizons was a very good fit for my computational whiz and problem lover, E13. It was a horrible fit for R11- the hands on artsy girl. There's only so many times you want to pay for a workbook (even if it's only $10) and whittle down how many problems are required only to watch the ones you did assign get finished only after hours and after a lot of tears. It really wasn't about the workbook anyway. It's not how I wanted our homeschool to look. We needed to make a change. Additionally, it was WAY too easy to send the kids away with their assigned set of problems and spend very little time in creative instruction. If I had to follow the manual for 3-4 different grades, that would have been a lot of time spent on math instruction alone. So, I decided on a more living math approach through Math on the Level.

One of our math resources- this is a great book for working with several kids of different skills and ages.

In this lesson, I was giving them differing amounts and asking them to find as many ways as they could to come up with that amount.

R11, in 6th grade, could find the most and this was a great activity for her.

She ran out of money before she ran out of ideas for combinations. Note that I used REAL money!

J6 was working on this too- never been taught with lots of lessons the value of coins or addition, but play pays off ladies! He rocked this activity. He found lots of coin combinations that added up to the total I gave him. Then I created a writing portion of the lesson for him.

This year my focus with him is on handwriting. However, he wants copywork more and I found success with a word list. I think his drawings of the coins look pretty good too!

This is a typical math day right now. We are focusing on money and decimals to start the year. Once the lesson is over, the older kids do their "5-A-Days" which is a set of five practice problems I give them based on what they need to review. I use the MOTL auto spreadsheet for this. Basically, it's an Excel spread sheet which I used to list out the concepts my kids have already been taught. Then when I tell it how often I want it reviewed, it generates a daily list of what types of problems my kids get each day for that week. It's a slick piece of programming let me tell you!

In another post (soon) I will explain the math concept target lists (the ones in my planner) and how I use them to design instruction and guide our way through the math year. I'll explain how often we do lessons on new concepts vs math adventures and how we record it all.

Sewing Camp Day 3

Two weeks ago almost now, we had our last day of summer sewing camp. The girls had a great time and so did a lot of brothers. You may not realize that each day we had a house full of girls sewing, we also had lots of brothers and one little sister hanging around having a grand play date. We ate in shifts and there was no trouble at all. Because of course the brothers understood completely how much of a privilege it is to have a play date simultaneously with sewing camp! I'll let the pictures tell the story of sewing bliss.

One camper had been at a slumber party the night before...a late night before sewing camp leads to a lot of stitch picking! Be warned!

R11 is measuring to see how long her next tier should be- in non-standard units.

One camper opted for a lovely Asian dress instead- gorgeous fabric!

She also went home and made a few things for her doll like this mini-version of her bag.

Look at that...it's lined too!

E13 (R's friend not brother!) also threw together a skirt like the one we are working on for her doll.

Aren't these fun fabrics? Can't wait to see the finished skirt!

Finally, the girls worked on the yoke of their skirt!

Remember that fabulous batik fabric from last time? It looks really nice with the denim, no?

J6 and J4 had a grand time together- I even pulled out the playdough.

The older boys, four of them, played games, video games and had light saber battles. Of course.

We all tried out a "new to us" tool...behold The Serger. Ok seriously, if you've never used one of these things it is Uh-mazing! I grew quite addicted to running all those seams.

The spoils of The Serger.

Our sewing station...we didn't have all the room in the world, but it was adequate for us.

Another successful day of sewing camp! We did not get a chance to finish the skirts this day and we've decided to continue on with sewing camp throughout the year. I think we're aiming for once a month. Our next time together will be next Monday after our Co-op. We are hoping to finish the skirts. We are in discussions on the next project, but we are thinking of doing a hand bag.

Happy Birthday E13!

How can it be? E has turned 13! Thirteen years ago today we welcomed our first child into the world with lots of anticipating relatives close by. We thought sure he'd be a September 9th baby, but it was not to be. Twenty-one hours of effort ended in my first of four c-sections. On the 10th.

And boy has he grown!

Huge fan...huge gift...much happiness all around today.

 He is all kinds of the adolescent boy one would expect- complete with the noises, jokes, and wildness. Yet, I see flashes. Glimpses of the young man he is becoming. He's in the "space between"- the one where he is young and still clings to some of those boyish favorites and also a fledgling independent- exercising his own tastes and personality (like edgy grunge Christian music for example!). Still needs plenty of guidance but needs us to begin to let him fly- to figure out who he's going to be. So many lessons left to teach...and not as much time left as has gone by. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to homeschool him especially in these older grades.

E13 is a great kid! He's smart, funny, and loves to talk! He is fiercely competitive, loves to play games, read, and listen to music. He's pretty handy with technology and adores his NXT projects and team. He loves his family and amidst the sometimes contentious sibling relationships, he looks out for his younger brothers and sister.

His favorite subject is math. He loves Redwall books and the Inheritance series. Really, really enjoys his writing program One Year Adventure Novel- who knows maybe he'll write something that is amazing! He is a LEGO fanatic and we enjoy his models in as many places as they fit. He's looking forward to his falconry adventure this year and next year we hope I'll be reporting that he's gotten his license!

E13 we are proud of you and we love you!

Pond Study: Chalk Pastel Marsh

Barb at the Handbook of Nature Study Blog suggested an art project in her August Newsletter. Tricia at Hodgepodge has a tutorial on how to chalk a marsh. Fun fun fun! So, Tricia please tell Nana thanks for us! It was a splendid time.

Isn't it cool, we found a place just like our drawing? Originally, I had the project planned to do on a quiet afternoon while camping. Somehow, it never happened.

J6 had a good time with this one- he waffled between enjoying the mess and then not so much enjoying it!

R11, ever the artist, really liked to scumble! You simply have to look that word up!

A lovely finished product.

A first grade masterpiece.

I love this one from I9...just look at that sky!

E12 did a fine job as well- he's not always a fan of the art projects, but he is a good sport and gives them a whirl.

Happiness is a full gallery of new art work. Don't you just want to go there?

Our pastels- see the little box? A gift from an artist pastor. He hoped we could find a use for them. Um...yes!

Of course, I gave it a shot. Not a masterpiece but it sure was fun to do!

This was a great little project! We will definitely be checking out some more of Nana's tutorials. And chalk pastels, although they are a bit messy, are really fun to work with- have you looked up "scumble" yet? Because that's really fun!