June 26, 2010
A few days ago I shared a little from our home school journey with mathematics. Today I want to share a few more specifics.
The Workshop
Three years ago a local home school association, knowing I was once qualified to teach math, asked me to do a math workshop at a conference. I sheepishly replied that we didn’t do formal math. The organizer said “Great! Do a workshop about informal math.”
Knowing that I would be facing a room of suspicious adults, I trekked off to the library to order books in support of my case. I was a little trepidatious, but was relieved to discover my research actually supported my practice. Historically, educationally, and biologically, delaying formal math instruction has shown itself to be beneficial.
I have a copy of the workshop and will try to get it posted here as a podcast for those who might be interested.
Getting More Formal
Finally my oldest turned ten and it seemed time to begin a more formal math program. I dragged out a Saxon 54 text and we began. There were no learning problems but she detested the assignments, and I loathed the corrections. Then my youngest stopped sleeping through the night, the next year was stressful, and honestly hard to remember. The math that my oldest and I both loathed just fell by the wayside, and Banana and I silently agreed that neither one of us would say anything.
The next year we sat down with samples of all the math curricula out there and she decided that Singapore looked the best to her. Next, we tried to decide what year to start her in. There seemed to be two options – start at age level and work hard to make up those areas of knowledge that she was missing, or start at knowledge level (below age level) and work hard to catch up to age level. Banana choose to start at Level 2 (her knowledge level) and work through to catch up to her age. In six months she finished Level 2 and just kept plugging ahead. This year, she finished Level 5 (an equivalent to most grade 6 levels) and we began thinking about what to do next.
My oldest doesn’t really appreciate the finer qualities of higher mathematics and so is not interested in taking anything beyond the absolute basics. With that in mind we purchased Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra. The literary poet in my daughter loves the program and she is enjoying most of the numerical part. Since she doesn’t desire to enter into any math or science fields, we will probably continue on with Fred.
The Plan for the Others, So Far
Doviegirl will finish up Singapore Level 6 and then move into Life of Fred as well. She sees her sister giggling away and can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about.
My youngest son, age 9, loved the look of the Singapore workbooks so much that he asked if he could start math with his sisters. Never one to dissuade a child eager to learn, I let him have the Level 1 workbooks. He works almost independently on the Singapore program and loves it.
My oldest son (11 years old) detests math. He works through the books grudgingly and doesn’t make any extra effort, but he understands what he is doing. He currently desires to be an engineer. If that desire continues, he and I will need to do some more searching to determine a highschool course of math for him that won’t drive him or me completely batty.
The youngest, who just turned five, is working on the old Making Math Meaningful program that I bought nine years ago. She likes it sometimes, but she really likes just playing math related games with the rest of her family. She’s not in a rush, and neither am I.
Hindsight is 20/20
I can identify only one real problem that seems to arisen from our informal approach to math.
My children are very much struggling to learn their basic math facts. Much of math, especially a program like Singapore that relies so heavily on mental math manipulation, would be so much quicker if my children knew their math facts better. That said, I’ve been trying to teach the facts since the beginning – just in an informal way. We chanted facts, played games, watched School House Rocks videos, learned songs, and even tried flashcards. Either I wasn’t consistent enough or my children really didn’t want to learn their facts. I suspect it’s a bit of both.
We tried Quarter Mile Math. The children hated it. We used Math-It. I borrowed a copy and made my own version. The program seems to teach the facts in an interesting and engaging way but it is expensive and doesn’t seem capable of helping my children build speed. We are now using Rocket Math, which is working very well. Although it is designed for a classroom, it has been very beneficial for a homeschooling mnother with children at five different levels. It does use a lot of paper and no matter how hard I try, we still succeed in spending more time on it than the creators say is necessary.
Just this week we signed up for XtraMath, which looks fantastic. I know there are other online ways of practising math facts, but I really didn’t want to introduce my children, especially when they were younger, to too many computer games. XtraMath is much more my style – simple, bare bones, and without the addictive computer game persona. I think combining this with Rocket Math will be my best option yet.
If I could go back, I might try to introduce the facts more slowly over a longer period of time making sure we went slow and were consistent or at least as consistent as I could possible try to be.
We will however continue to play lots of games that teach math skills surreptitiously – Sudoku, Blokus, Traffic, River Crossing, Dutch Blitz, Mancala, Chess, and Checkers. We will sew and build with wood and cook recipes which need doubling. (Fractions were an easy introduction in my home because my children were already familiar with them in a practical sense.)
The Conclusion
My overall advice is: Know your children! Do what you think is best for them. If math is causing more frustration and less learning, especially in the early years, than lay it aside and focus on other things. Let their brains have time to grow and discover. When the brain is ready, the learning will be easier. Since that “readiness” is different for each child, study your child.
Have fun. Numbers are wonderful. Spend time enjoying them with your children so that they won’t come to hate math.
Choose, but don’t be afraid to change course. I have two sets of classically-minded friends whose ten year olds are starting math for the first time using Saxon 54, and are loving it. My daughters adore Singapore and eagerly look forward to Life of Fred. Try to borrow before you buy and let your children have a voice in what you choose.
And most importantly, don’t stress so much. Like I said, I have a math degree and still need to add 8 and 5 on my fingers. It doesn’t necessarily matter how you do the job, just that it gets done well.
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