Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts

Monday, September 14, 2009

Grade 3/4, Math Block week 1

Robin is working on a 3 week math block. We started out working on his times tables and did lots of fun activities to continue memorizing them.
These multiplication clocks were very fun to do. I had Robin draw the circles freehand (also covering form drawing for the week!), then he figured out the numbers and I wrote them. We colored them together and hung them on the wall.
We also did tons of skip-counting in circle time, and marching while skip-counting. He made a multiplication table and filled in the blocks for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, and 12.

Monday, February 23, 2009

More Math

Coincidentally last week Elsa and Robin had the same topic for math according to K-12. (note: I am really laid back about the K-12 Kindergarten with Elsa and am way more Waldorfy with her. K-12 is very advanced and academic so we are very careful not to push beyond her developmental level. I really strive to keep things magical and gentle for her still.) Also coincidentally, we had just read "Oxcart Man" to Elsa, so the two math lessons were easily taught together. I drew the pretend garden and they took turns counting and tallying the vegetables, then Robin graphed them in his lesson book and Elsa helped me color the sample graph. It's always fun when they can do things together, and many of our math lessons can be adapted for both.

Homeschool Math







I am making an effort to have a more integrated curriculum for Robin. It seems to make sense when the math, history and literature are coordinated. So, for the month of February, we have been reading "Little House on the Prairie" and then using the setting of a pioneer family to come up with story problems that help review his math so far. This was greatly inspired by Melisa Nielson's "A New Land" story in her Waldorf Math book. I love her math book, it really helps me see how to make the math lessons creative and interesting. I have been able to take the lessons from Robin's K-12 curriculum and then teach the concepts in a way that Robin eagerly accepts. It is such a great change from the boring worksheet type lessons and really much more relevant to reality, as in real life this type of math is always more like a story problem.
It's funny, because when you are actually connected to the story it doesn't seem like a dreaded chore. The story problems that we come up with revolve around characters and situations that Robin is already interested in (Ma & Pa, Mary & Laura) and so he really cares about the answer. Before, when presenting the story problems from the textbook, he wasn't interested at all and found it really hard. After all, why should he care about "Jimmy" and how many colored fish he can put in 5 different bowls? (And who has 5 fish bowls anyway?! Lol!!)