Math can be hard. Monday through Friday we sit at the table next to our children and do math problems. It takes forever to do just one page. Sometimes it feels like it is the only subject we get to. It becomes a monster… a math monster. We wonder if we should change math books or go back to the beginning of the one we’re already in. Maybe speed drills will help or paying more attention to word problems. Math wasn’t hard for us when we were in school. How come our kids can’t get it?

Math is important too. It determines whether our son will be able to understand high school and college science subjects. Fifty percent of the SAT score is Math. And every child needs to know how to balance his or her checkbook and figure the interest costs of money he or she will borrow as adults. Yes, math is a very important part of modern life. It can be hard to determine what we really want our children to know math wise. Here are a few suggestions:

Teach your child to add, subtract, multiply (by fifth grade, he should know his multiplication tables very well) and divide. This is a lot to learn and it usually takes until sixth grade to be proficient at basic math computations. After all, that’s why they call it long division, because it takes so long to learn how to do it! Don’t worry now about Algebra; worry about whether your son can do long division by himself. After this, concentrate on fractions and decimals. Go over and over them until he really knows them. This will take longer than you expected.

Next, concentrate on word problems. If your child has trouble with word problems follow these steps: First, work the problems out physically. This means use real cups, quarts and gallons and actually measure and pour the water. Even if it is a word problem about two cars driving toward each other, you can use small matchbox cars for a physical demonstration. Keep working with the real physical objects until the problem is mastered. Second, move on to drawing pictures. Draw pictures of the cups, quarts and gallons. Third, use numbers to represent the real objects and work the problems. Don’t rush the steps, make sure he has mastered the word problems in this order: physical, then pictures, then numbers representations.

During your homeschool years, read at least one good Math History book with your child. Two very good examples are:

• How Math Works, published by Readers Digest
• Fractals, Googols and other Mathematical Tales by Theoni Pappas

After your child is proficient in decimal and fraction problems, I highly recommend he begin to use a calculator to do all his math problems. He should learn to use a scientific graphing calculator. Using a scientific graphing calculator is a subject in itself and takes a lot of practice. His college classes and exams will require it. And there are so many complicated math problems that can not be efficiently worked without a scientific calculator. Believe me, even with the use of this calculator his problems will be tough to work. Today, math is so much more than doing calculations by hand and he will need time to master this advanced work.

If you are becoming overwhelmed reading this and are thinking that you will never be able to teach upper level mathematics, don’t worry. There are many fine homeschool math classes to be found. When your child gets to advanced math, you can either learn along with him or send him to an outside math class. Or you can use a math tutor or math instruction videos.

This new century’s math world will be a lot different than the last century. It will be filled with the huge numbers in outer space or the tiniest numbers of the microscopic and cellular world. Your child’s ability to understand and work in this world will be tightly intertwined with his math ability. So set your child’s math sights high and prepare him well for the future.

Originally posted 2010-05-04 10:06:28.

Math is one of those subjects that many homeschooling moms find it hard to teach.  While one child may find the concepts easy to grasp, others wonder how math will relate to them in the real world.

For those children, it often helps to present math concepts in a “real world” situation.  Calculating costs, estimating, and measurements take on new meaning when your child can actually see how these things work in life.

Here are some activities will help your child make this connection – bringing math and their world together.

At the grocery store, ask your child to help out with the shopping.  Take a calculator along and show her how to check and compare prices or calculate the cost per ounce.  Or have him keep track of the cost of what you bought.  Check and compare prices, weights, and quantities together.

When you are driving in the car, take the time to point out speed limits.  When the speed limit sign changes, ask your child to calculate the difference between the old speed limit and the newer one.  If you are on a long trip, ask him to calculate the distance between cities and/or towns. Talk about the time it takes to get from one to another when you drive at different speeds.

Working in the garden is also an excellent time to work on math with your child.  Have your child count the number of plants.  She can also measure the distance between the plants and their heights.  An advanced activity would be to calculate the perimeter and/or area of the garden.

Cooking is an excellent way to teach your child real world math skills.  Measuring ingredients, doubling recipes, and checking cooking times and temperatures teach excellent skills, and also some good things to eat!

Above all, encourage your child to play games and activities that involve counting, finding patterns, and solving problems.  Tic-tac-toe, checkers, and chess are all good games for learning math – real world math.

Kelly Ling is a work-at-home, homeschooling mother of five. She has mentored many homeschooling and work-at-home moms over the past eighteen years. Kelly also owes a home-based web design business. When not doing web design, she is constantly updating some of her homeschooling/work-at-home websites – Homeschool Top Sites, ChristianWAHM.com, WAHM Contests, and others.

Originally posted 2009-04-04 20:23:52.

Math was never an easy subject for me in school. It didn’t seem to matter how much I tried I never seemed to understand what the teacher wanted and I dreaded when we worked out problems on the board, I always made a mistake and the other children always snickered or had hurtful comments to make. The teachers always seemed at a lost of what to do to help me or any other student who could not keep up with the schedule they had written down at the beginning of the school year. I didn’t want my own children to experience the dread of learning math; determining that things would be different for them I came up with some tips and now I hope that these suggestions might offer help and guidance if you know a child who struggles with their math skills.

My first tip: Make sure that your child has a breakfast before they start their day. Research has shown that your child will be more ready to learn if their nutritional needs are meet. It is hard to concentrate on learning anything if their belly is rumbling with hunger.

2^nd tip: Introduce the history of math to your child, when certain math inventions were made and by whom, what were the circumstances or need for the invention. How is math used through out the world.

3^rd tip: Make a game of learning facts. There are a lot of math games that will help your child enjoy learning, helping with the fundamental facts that they will need to know. Using games reduces the stress of the learning process and makes learning fun and not so boring nor intimidating.

4^th tip: Use math in real life situations. Take the facts that your child is learning and bring it into situations that your child is in every day. When cutting a pizza talk about the fractions you are making. If they are making a purchase show them how to figure tax into the price. How many cookies will they need for each of their friends to have two? These can be ways to use math in their every day lives.

5^th tip: Use visual aids or manipulatives when teaching math. For some children using visual aids can be the catalysis between understanding and not understanding the concepts that are being taught. As your child learns the skills they will become less dependent on the manipulatives.

6^th tip: Using food to teach math concepts. Weather it be candy, cereal, popcorn or pizza simple math facts are easy to manipulate so concepts can be seen. This also puts the child at ease which helps make the learning easier.

7^th tip: When learning math there are many patterns but sometimes those are hard for a child to see. Pointing out these patterns can making math easier, this can be done using manipulatives such as money. Also helping the child to memorize the patterns such as 2s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 8s, 10s and working up from there.

8^th tip: Use music and songs to help your child with memorizing math facts. This tip was used by each of my children. They sang their way through their multiplications tables, square roots and there is even are even little ditties that help in Algebra and Geometry.

9^th tip: Mix it up. Use different medias when learning and doing math; computer software, worksheet pages, time races, are all great ways to keep learning varied which will help the student from being bored and help with the learn process.

10^th tip: The buddy system is a great way to learn math facts. Kids can sometimes explain things to each other so they understand it better then any adult can. Plus as they help each other learn solidifies the facts for each child.

As you read over these tips I hope that you see at least one or two that you could implement to help make math fun for your own child.

Originally posted 2010-04-22 13:51:20.

Most homeschool families have at least one student who either doesn’t like math or finds it more challenging. It’s just “one of those things.” Unfortunately, math skills are such a source of contention, both for parents and students that we often just toss our hands up and think that there isn’t going to be an answer to our woes in this area. The reality of it is this, though. Math will come easier to some students than to others, but math can be mastered. It will take time and an open-minded approach to curricula, but one tool can be easy to incorporate into any homeschool curricula, but is sadly often left out of the process.

The primary reason that students seem to spiral out of control in math is that they continue to make the same mistakes over and over again without getting any “intervention.” By doing this, they don’t allow themselves to come to an awareness of the execution problem they are having, and therefore, they reinforce the same bad habits over and over again, making them not only bad habits, but subconscious “systems” that are hard to break.

Instead, if we allow our homeschool students to figure out what they might be doing wrong along the way – gaining immediate feedback – they can break the pattern of bad habits and begin to reshape the way they think about their process. This isn’t only true for math, but math is the predominate area where application of this system can be quickly applied.

No matter what homeschool curricula you are using, what if you changed up the way you did math just a bit? Instead of having students do 30 problems in math or more, and then allowing them to get validation of correct versus incorrect answers at the end of their assignment, what if you allowed your student to get an immediate answer for each problem as soon as it was complete. If a problem is correct, your student can move on. If not, your student would be required to stop, identify the source of their problem, do a “Critique,” and then they can move on. Doing this will allow your student to get an awareness of what they have done wrong immediately for the purpose of correcting that habit right then and there.

The trick to the Critique is that it is not terribly time consuming, but that it forces the student to see what they have done wrong so that they don’t repeat that step or build on a bad habit. However, it should be “tedious” enough that the idea of doing a critique is not a lot of fun so students will pay enough attention while doing their work that they will be sure to apply good habits, not bad ones, and execute properly each time.

Over time, this process will do a couple of things. It will help students to identify their unique weaknesses with regards to things or processes that trip them up, and it will allow them to proactively take steps to avoid those traps. It will also focus their attentions more acutely on the work before them. (So many students, homeschooled and otherwise, have said that they made a math mistake because they, “just weren’t thinking.”) And finally, it will develop a series of good habits over time that will lead to improved confidence and skill in math.

For a free copy of one possible Critique System, click here. But by all means, if you are not teaching math with a tool to correct for the bad habits, begin doing so now and see if your child’s math skills don’t begin to improve as they work to reinforce the good habits and eliminate the bad ones as they work!

Originally posted 2010-04-16 14:37:45.

March 14 is National Pi Day! Make your plans now to celebrate math with Pi Day using some of these neat resources, books, and ideas. We have links to tons of websites with activity suggestions for all grades. We also have a list of books that you can read and follow up with notebooking pages or lapbooks.

In my family, we have started out our day with headbands. On the front of the headband we attached a triangle resembling a slice of pizza pie or a circle resembling a whole pie. The kids colored in their favorite pizza or pie. Then wrote the word “Pi”, underneath that “3.14″, then “(the pi symbol).” We wore our headbands for the rest of the day, so that whenever we looked at one another, the “visual” learners had a reminder of Pi throughout the day.

We read a variety of stories involving the use of measuring a circle and all its measurements. At the same time, we happened to be studying ancient Egypt, so that we were reading a book about Archimedes at the time. Here is a list of books that relate to the study of Pi:

• Sir Cumference and Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander
• Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter (diameter of a circle) by Cindy Neuschwander
• Sir Cumference and the First Round Table (circles) by Cindy Neuschwander
• Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone (cone’s dimensions) by Cindy Neuschwander
• Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick (the chapters near the end of the book look at Archimedes’ mathematical studies)
• Piece of Pi: Wit-sharpening, Brain-bruising, Number-Crunching Activities with Pi by Naila Bokhari (activity book)
• The Joy of Pi by David Blatner (middle to high school range)
• A History of Pi by Petr Beckmann (high school) (reference to million years old earth on first page)

Part of our day we read books, writing a notebook page summarizing what we learned about Pi on the bottom half of a notebook page and on the top half, drawing diagrams and examples of using Pi in a formula. My younger son had a worksheet with a table to fill in as he measured the circumference, diameter, and radius of objects around the house. My older son had a similar table to complete, but had an extra column where he had to use Pi to calculate the different dimensions of various circular objects around the house. Some Pi activity worksheets can be found at EnchantedLearning.com and EdHelper.com.

Go to NoteBookingPages.com and obtain different notebooking pages to write your findings of Pi.

Other Pi activities can be found at the following websites:

• www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson335.shtml
• schoolwires.henry.k12.ga.us/1516101031153910823/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=68630
• www.mobot.org/education/megsl/pi.html
• www.exploratorium.edu/pi/
• www.teachpi.org/activities.htm

If you want to have your kids do a Pi lapbook, join Live and Learn Press’s Yahoo group and receive a free wonderful lapbook at LiveandLearnpress.com.

Other families have members compete with one another of who can memorize the most digits of Pi and keep a record in the days leading up to March 14th.

You can end your Pi Day celebration like we did, by making a pizza (or ordering one) and taking its measurements using the formula. Enjoy your day making memories no one will forget!

If you enjoyed these ideas, find more fun ideas to use in your homeschool and learn more about using “living books”, the Charlotte Mason method, and unit studies by visiting Katie’s Homeschool Cottage.

Originally posted 2009-03-06 13:45:30.

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It is interesting that, despite math being such a fundamental part of life and society, many people did not, and do not, enjoy math class. Even more interesting is that, when math is applied to something that is of interest to the person, much of their resistance to math fades.  I therefore believe that much of the negativity expressed by students of math is due to the way it is taught.

I admit that I hated math with a passion when I was at school.  Now, however, I am happy enough to sit down and use math to work out whether a property will be a good investment for me, or how many ebooks I will need to sell to make a profit after advertising and hosting costs, etc.  Math is more interesting to me now because it is also more relevant, and therefore perceived as useful, to me now.

Believe it or not, math can be fun.  Of course you don’t have to believe this but it sure helps if your want to sell the concept to your child.  Anyone who believes that math isn’t important in the real world, and that you will never use it, are fooling themselves.  Math is used in every day life as well as numerous occupations. Medical professional calculate drug doses, trades persons rely on measurements such as length and volume, Air Traffic Controllers have to be familiar with physics… the list goes on and on.  In daily life, we get paid per hour, work out penalty rates, check interest calculations, make investments, buy things, build things, bake cakes with measured ingredients, take medications, share, travel with different currencies, etc, etc.  An understanding of basic math, at the very least, is required to maintain any independence in today’s society.

When you are assisting your children with math, the most important thing to remember is that they need to have a solid grasp of the basics before proceeding on to the more difficult concepts.  Math concepts are built upon like building blocks.  You need to understand one layer before moving on to the next or you will become completely unstuck.

If you follow a set curriculum in your homeschool math study, don’t assume that the curriculum that worked well for your first child will be just as effective with your second.  They may have totally different learning styles.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that one child is more or less intelligent than the other.  It simply means that one child may learn skills one way, and the other child may learn these same skills a totally different way.  One way to distinguish between learning styles is to determine if your child uses auditory, kinesthetic/tactile or visual learning tools most effectively.  Further discussion on learning styles, however, is outside the scope of this article.

Whatever your child’s learning style, the best way to bring math to life for your child is to make it relevant.   And, the best way to make it relevant is to use real world examples of mathematics at work, preferably in topics that are of great interest to your child.

Using concepts such as food, chores and sports that your child plays, will make math more fun, and therefore more understandable.  For example, at snack time, if you give your child a cookie and they ask for another, ask them how many cookies that makes in total.  This is using simple addition.

Be creative and have fun.  After all, we are trying to teach our kids that learning new things is an adventure.  The more fun your math lesson is, and the more their interest is piqued, the higher chance your child has of actually learning the lesson and retaining it!

Originally posted 2009-07-06 10:00:18.

Math can be hard.  Monday through Friday we sit at the table next to our children and do math problems. It takes forever to do just one page.  Sometimes it feels like it is the only subject we get to.  It becomes a monster … a math monster.  We wonder if we should change math books or go back to the beginning of the one we’re already in.  Maybe speed drills will help or paying more attention to word problems. Math wasn’t hard for us when we were in school. How come our kids can’t get it?

Math is important too. It determines whether our son will be able to understand high school and college science subjects. Fifty percent of the SAT score is Math. And every child needs to know how to balance their checkbook and figure the interest costs of money they will borrow as adults. Yes, math is a very important part of modern life. It can be hard to determine what we really want our children to know math wise.  Here are a few suggestions:

Teach your child to add, subtract, multiply (by fifth grade, he should know his multiplication tables very well) and divide. This is a lot to learn and it usually takes until sixth grade to be proficient at basic math computations. After all, that’s why they call it long division, because it takes so long to learn how to do it!  Don’t worry now about Algebra; worry about whether your son can do long division by himself. After this, concentrate on fractions and decimals.  Go over and over them until he really knows them. This will take longer than you expected.

Next, concentrate on word problems.  If your child has trouble with word problems follow these steps: First, work the problems out physically. This means use real cups, quarts and gallons and actually measure and pour the water. Even if it is a word problem about two cars driving toward each other, you can use small matchbox cars for a physical demonstration. Keep working with the real physical objects until the problem is mastered.  Second, move on to drawing pictures. Draw pictures of the cups, quarts and gallons. Third, use numbers to represent the real objects and work the problems.  Don’t rush the steps, make sure he has mastered the word problems in this order: physical, then pictures, then numbers representations.

During your homeschool years, read at least one good Math History book with your child.  Two very good examples are:

• How Math Works, published by Readers Digest
• Fractals, Googols and other Mathematical Tales by Theoni Pappas

After your child is proficient in decimal and fraction problems, I highly recommend he begin to use a calculator to do all his math problems.  He should learn to use a scientific graphing calculator.  Using a scientific graphing calculator is subject in itself and takes a lot of practice.  His college classes and exams will require it. And there are so many complicated math problems that can not be efficiently worked without a scientific calculator. Believe me, even with the use of this calculator his problems will be tough to work. Today, math is so much more than doing calculations by hand and he will need time to master this advanced work.

If you are becoming overwhelmed reading this and are thinking that you will never be able to teach upper level mathematics, don’t worry. Atlanta has many fine homeschool math classes. When your child gets to advanced math you can either learn along with him or send him to an outside math class. Or you can use a math tutor or math instruction videos.

This new century’s math world will be a lot different than the last century. It will be filled with the huge numbers in outer space or the tiniest numbers of the microscopic and cellular world. Your child’s ability to understand and work in this world will be tightly intertwined with his math ability.  So set your child’s math sights high and prepare him well for the future.

Randi St. Denis is an educator, popular homeschool speaker, and a seasoned homeschooling mom. Randi works as a consultant to public, private, and homeschool families; providing teaching expertise and assistance for all types of children. You can visit her website at ChicagoHomeschoolExpo.com.

Originally posted 2009-02-22 16:54:51.

When you think of Charlotte Mason, you think of using living books as the foundation of your studies. So, how are you supposed to use living books that you read to help your child understand and learn mathematical concepts? This is a very common question amongst homeschoolers using Charlotte Mason methods. Usually, parents find a math program that suits their child’s individual learning style, which is a major goal in homeschooling. But, what can you use to add variety and spice things up a bit, or to connect what you are learning in history, science, and literature with your mathematics? That’s right, living books!

You can read fictional stories involving the use of math concepts, non-fictional books putting math concepts in real settings and examples, and biographies of mathematicians and scientists who developed or used certain math concepts. Depending upon what you are studying in math, history, or science will determine what concepts you will read and what people you will study. Tying these real books in with the study of math or history makes math come alive, making it personally significant and significant to what you are studying in other subjects.

Some examples of fictional books using a story to explain and utilize math concepts are:

Books by Mitsumasa Anno and David Adler

Series:

• Math Start
• Step into Reading + Math
• Rookie Readers – Math

Some examples of non-fiction books setting math concepts in real life situations and examining real examples are found in the following series:

• Math Works!
• Math for the Real World
• Math All Around Me

When studying mathematicians or scientists in history or science, it’s fun to include a biography of the person. The children enjoy knowing what the person was like and what made them so interested in the concepts they discovered or helped to develop. My kids definitely enjoyed the stories of Archimedes and his adventures in the bathtub! These are the stories that stick and in turn help make the concepts associated with these entertaining personalities stick in our memories too!

Here are some suggested biographical resources for some famous mathematicians:

• Math and Mathematicians: The History of Math Discoveries Around the World by Leonard C. Bruno
• Archimedes: Mathematical Genius of the Ancient World by Mary Gow
• The Life and Times of Pythagoras by Susan and William Harkins
• The Thirteen Books of Euclid’s Elements
• The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky

Some examples of activities you might want to include when reading any of these books might include narration at the conclusion of a chapter of a short book or at the end of a longer one, then writing a narration on a notebooking page. Your notebook page might include an explanation of the concept, formula if there is one, an example of the concept (including a math problem if that is how you use the concept), and a story example using the concept in a real life situation that your child can pull from their own experience.

You can also write a narration from one of the biographies using a biography notebooking page or a specific mathematician notebooking page, such as the one at this website.

If you wish, you can incorporate the use of copywork from some of these biographies or quotes from mathematicians and then have your children do dictation from this copywork.

We have done a number of these types of books and notebooking pages. You can go further, if you come across a fun idea like our family did when we were studying Archimedes during our ancient history studies. We found out that he developed the concept of Pi that we use today. We also found out that National Pi Day was on March 14th, so we held Pi Day at our house! We read, wrote, played some problem-solving games and activities using Pi (while wearing Pi headbands). At the end of the day, we had to calculate the dimensions of our pizza pie using the formula for Pi before we could all eat our dinner.

To start your planning for Pi day, March 14th, try out this website. To add some more fun to Pi day with a book, try reading Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander.

Here are some other websites that focus on math concepts and mathematicians for the older students:

• Index for Biographies of Mathematicians and Math Topics
• Math Forum: Famous Problems in the History of Mathematics
• Page on Famous Mathematicians

Have fun using real books in your math study!

Originally posted 2009-02-24 22:18:13.

Did you know food and learning math go together? We are going to use items in your kitchen to make learning math FUN.

• Have your child use gumdrops or marshmallows and toothpicks to create geometric shapes.

• Use pretzel sticks, popsicle sticks, toothpicks, and straws for addition, subtraction, and tally marks.

• Use pies, Hershey’s chocolate bars, and pizza to teach the concept of fractions.

• Have your child use Teddy Grahams or Goldfish for counting activities. Tell stories while your child uses these objects to act it out, such as “There were a school of ten fish and three fish swam away. How many are left?”

• Use small objects, such as beans, raisins, and Cheerios, for counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In addition to these skills, you can use Skittles and M&M’s to create patterns.

There are even books that combine food and math! Here are two of my favorites:

The M&M’s Counting Book by Barbara McGrath is the tastiest counting book yet! This yummy little counting book teaches the numbers 1 – 12, colors of the M&M’s chocolate candies, and three primary shapes: the circle, square, and triangle. Hungry learners are rewarded in the last section of the book, where they learn simple subtraction by eating the manipulatives, twelve M&M’s. The review page at the end ties it all together and reinforces newly learned concepts and skills.

To balance the sweets with something healthier, Apple Fractions by Jerry Pallotta uses a variety of different apples to teach children all about fractions. Playful elves demonstrate how to divide apples into halves, thirds, fourths, and more. This innovative and enjoyable book allows children to understand fractions at a concrete level.

Tamara Chilver is an elementary teacher, home educator, speaker, author of Homeschooling with TLC in the Elementary Grades and Tutoring Your Elementary Child with TLC, and creator of the television program Flip Your Family. Tamara’s approach gives parents teaching tools to enhance their children’s education and empowers them with confidence. For more teaching tips, visit TeachingWithTLC.com.

Originally posted 2009-04-01 12:15:10.