I don't have the "local" math textbook this year for my son. We've mostly been using The Key to... series. He's been slogging through the inequalities section in one of the Algebra booklets and I just felt like he needed something different today, so I went online to look at a pdf version of the local text to see what else we might do. They do some circle geometry this year, but since he'd never done angles with parallel lines and transversals, I decided to do that with him today. But, unless I tried to find our geometry Key to... booklets and see if they had anything, I had nothing for him. I went online and quickly found something. I figured I might as well share it and two other sites I really like that can be very useful when you want to print off a quick worksheet in the higher grades.
First, there's http://www.mathworksheets4kids.com/index.html , the one I used today. They have everything from preschool up to pre-calculus or calculus (I'm not entirely sure what pre-calculus comprises).
One of my favourite sites which start with pre-algebra and goes up, plus they include geometry and trigonometry, is https://www.kutasoftware.com/ . While they do have software you can purchase, they also have a whole ton of great free worksheets.
Then there's Purple Math.com http://www.purplemath.com/. This site is excellent for the explanation of algebra topics.
Do you have any great online math worksheet resources for middle and high schoolers?
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
September's gone, October's here
September was an interesting month:
- my 14yo dd started high school (at home) but with an online program rather than me being the "primary educator"
- confusing teachers whose lack of clarity have led to my 14yo being quite behind in one subject
- she and I got sick (and to be honest, it's been over 2 weeks and we're still not completely over it);
- the first two weeks couldn't have any sort of routine due to my niece being in the transitional phase to start kindergarten
- various activities--although very worthwhile activities, like a homeschool picnic, homeschooled teen get-together at a recreation centre, a Friday Mass and potluck followed by playing at the park and my daughter already off to camp one weekend with her Rangers (Girl Guides for high school students) group
- family get-togethers, including my son's 12th birthday, my mom's birthday (I probably shouldn't share her age :D) and more
- start of evening activities
- a Stampin' Up! meeting for me
- start of the French classes I am running and all the changes that have ended up happening within them
- start of picking up my nieces and nephew after school each day, something that takes an hour in all to do!
It was a tiring month! Getting used to a different routine is definitely hard. I've been realizing just how much I am a "comfort zone" person. I guess we all are to a certain degree, but I am seeing clearly now how my comfort zone borders are getting in the way at times. But we are still managing to adjust. And I have to say: I am loving it just being me and my kids!! My son has never really known not having others around during the school year: he was a year old when I started looking after full-time kids. My daughter was only 4, so it's pretty much all she's ever known, too. I love not having to be prepared for 8am (or earlier), I love just how relaxed everything feels around here (well, except Thursdays, when I have 2 French classes, and Monday afternoons when the other French class is held). I love that my kids can sleep in. I did, however, have to wake dd up yesterday morning at 9 because she does a few online class meetings each week and she has one at 9am every Tuesday morning. She doesn't usually sleep that late, but she did yesterday! I will add that she is loving being able to do that, too. She had toyed on and off with the idea last year of going to high school--mainly so she could hang out with certain friends--but given she's a natural night owl and likes to sleep later and is hitting that stage in the mid-teens where she needs to sleep more, she is really appreciating the fact she does not have to get up early and scramble off to school.
She's "getting there" with getting on track with her work and getting into a work routine and starting to maximize little pockets of time to catch up. With my son... Well... Let's say he is as resistant to change as I am, if not more. I have noticed a few things, however:
- If I don't call it work and it's fun and has nothing to do with math or handwriting, it's not "school".
- He will read comics all day if I don't invite him to do something else. I suppose the good part, at least, is he has moved on from just Garfield and Calvin & Hobbes to The Far Side and Pearls Before Swine (although I do wonder how many things he doesn't understand! That's okay: there are certain things in them he doesn't need to.)
- "Inviting him" does sometimes mean I simply need to start reading something to him or sit down next to him with something and get him going.
What have he and I accomplished so far this school year?
- We've made it through some of the Montessori Great Lessons. Yes, that's right, some. One of them took far too long. But he loves them, so it's all good. (Those, btw, are not school in his eyes. Not even going outside and measuring how long an apatosaurus was. The weekend after we had done that and some other things to do with that Great Lesson, his Grand-papa asked him what he had done in school this week. The only thing he mentioned was math. lol)
- We've worked inconsistently on math, but he does understand the early algebra stuff very well. So well that when I gave him 4 questions to try to do on his own, when I checked to see how he was doing, he had marked as correct the 3 he had already done. I have not begun geometry with him, but since his sister has started a unit on trig, it could be a good time to start some work on triangles. And keep up the algebra.
- We have worked a couple of times on handwriting. I have decided I am definitely going to push the cursive handwriting--not for when he does his own writing stuff, but for the instructional part of it. I have also decided to step back and have us do letters next to each other so I can see how he is actually doing them.
That's all I can think of!
The weather has finally started changing into more fall-like weather and I always forget how much it drains us. He is sleeping more, which is good because he had months of likely not getting enough sleep, but tired in the morning. I just feel like I can't get a proper night's sleep. But, with it being only us today until I have to leave to pick up my nieces and nephew, we can take things slowly and I might even fit in a nap. :)
On a completely different note, my Montessori heart gets broken every time my kindergarten niece tells me about getting a sticker on her hand for good behaviour. It's even become a part of her after-school games, where she will tell someone they can't get a sticker unless they behave well. :'(
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
He makes me smile!
My dear son... What can I say but that he makes me smile! And when I'm trying to work with him and his innate interests and tendencies, it's easy to get to the point where he makes me smile. :D
I've still been rather slow about getting him going with work. We have not finished the Great Lesson on The Coming of Life (which, incidentally, he did not count as work last week lol) and I decided yesterday I wanted to get him going on math. My plan had been to work with him in the afternoon, but I was exhausted after not sleeping enough, he was tired and grumpy and it got forgotten. I remembered after supper when he asked for his usual after-supper video game turn. I said I still wanted to do a little work with him before that. He was very agreeable.
My plan had been to start with just checking his number concepts a bit, so I gave him a little whiteboard and took a little whiteboard myself and wrote down the number words for various numbers. He got them spot on. I was going to move onto teaching him about 10^___ for all those different place values when he got up and found a Pearls Before Swine comic book he has out from the library, found the strip with the basic algebra question (yes, he knew exactly which book had it) and wanted to know if we could do that. The question:
Sure, why not? Even though he has not really done questions like x + 4 = 13, but we could go for it if that's what interested him. He really has almost no experience with variables, so he originally thought 3x + 4 was 7x and then x would be 6, because 7 + 6 is 13. I explained that the 3x meant he had the same number 3 times and I drew 3 little boxes. He took another stab at it and guessed 2. I showed him how we substitute 2 into x and that it worked out that 3x + 4 was 10 when x was 2, so it couldn't be that. He then decided to guess 4, but he did the substitution and realized it wouldn't work. He then figured out that it would be 3.
I asked him if he wanted me to show him how we would do it without guessing. He said yes. So I drew out 4 little circles next to the 3 boxes, put an equal sign and then 13 little circles. I then drew a sort of balance underneath. I explained that the left side always has to equal the right side when we have the equal sign. I took one circle away from each side and asked him if I could do that, if everything would stay equal if I did that. He said yes. So I removed 3 more from each side, leaving him with 3 boxes equalling 9 little circles. I asked how much each box would have if we split the circles up equally. He has not really done much division, so he guessed incorrectly and I then drew arrows from the circles to the boxes and he saw that each box would have 3. So, x = 3. I normally don't move onto the symbols right away, but I instinctively felt I should with him and showed him how we wrote each step.
He then moved onto another question. I rewrote the sample question in the corner so he had a model to work with and he did the next question on his own. And then another question. I asked him why he was doing certain things and he completely understood it. At some point, it came up that it was something done in grade 8 in the schools; he's in grade 7, so this impressed him. He asked if he was good at math. (lol) I said he was, but that he wasn't able right now to do all the things that kids in grade 7 can because he hadn't worked on math nearly as much, but that he was able to understand it easily, which made him good at math. This whole conversation, just him asking the question with a little smile on his face because he was feeling good about the work he was doing, made me smile. :) And to add to the smile is the fact we did "school work" that he was happy about doing, did easily and is likely to want to do more of.
Of course, this now throws my well laid out math plan out the window a bit. :p
I've still been rather slow about getting him going with work. We have not finished the Great Lesson on The Coming of Life (which, incidentally, he did not count as work last week lol) and I decided yesterday I wanted to get him going on math. My plan had been to work with him in the afternoon, but I was exhausted after not sleeping enough, he was tired and grumpy and it got forgotten. I remembered after supper when he asked for his usual after-supper video game turn. I said I still wanted to do a little work with him before that. He was very agreeable.
My plan had been to start with just checking his number concepts a bit, so I gave him a little whiteboard and took a little whiteboard myself and wrote down the number words for various numbers. He got them spot on. I was going to move onto teaching him about 10^___ for all those different place values when he got up and found a Pearls Before Swine comic book he has out from the library, found the strip with the basic algebra question (yes, he knew exactly which book had it) and wanted to know if we could do that. The question:
3x + 4 = 13
Sure, why not? Even though he has not really done questions like x + 4 = 13, but we could go for it if that's what interested him. He really has almost no experience with variables, so he originally thought 3x + 4 was 7x and then x would be 6, because 7 + 6 is 13. I explained that the 3x meant he had the same number 3 times and I drew 3 little boxes. He took another stab at it and guessed 2. I showed him how we substitute 2 into x and that it worked out that 3x + 4 was 10 when x was 2, so it couldn't be that. He then decided to guess 4, but he did the substitution and realized it wouldn't work. He then figured out that it would be 3.
I asked him if he wanted me to show him how we would do it without guessing. He said yes. So I drew out 4 little circles next to the 3 boxes, put an equal sign and then 13 little circles. I then drew a sort of balance underneath. I explained that the left side always has to equal the right side when we have the equal sign. I took one circle away from each side and asked him if I could do that, if everything would stay equal if I did that. He said yes. So I removed 3 more from each side, leaving him with 3 boxes equalling 9 little circles. I asked how much each box would have if we split the circles up equally. He has not really done much division, so he guessed incorrectly and I then drew arrows from the circles to the boxes and he saw that each box would have 3. So, x = 3. I normally don't move onto the symbols right away, but I instinctively felt I should with him and showed him how we wrote each step.
He then moved onto another question. I rewrote the sample question in the corner so he had a model to work with and he did the next question on his own. And then another question. I asked him why he was doing certain things and he completely understood it. At some point, it came up that it was something done in grade 8 in the schools; he's in grade 7, so this impressed him. He asked if he was good at math. (lol) I said he was, but that he wasn't able right now to do all the things that kids in grade 7 can because he hadn't worked on math nearly as much, but that he was able to understand it easily, which made him good at math. This whole conversation, just him asking the question with a little smile on his face because he was feeling good about the work he was doing, made me smile. :) And to add to the smile is the fact we did "school work" that he was happy about doing, did easily and is likely to want to do more of.
Of course, this now throws my well laid out math plan out the window a bit. :p
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow...
I'm actually feeling rather nervous about tomorrow. Especially once I sat down to work out a sort of schedule for my two and realizing I don't like having a schedule. lol.
For my nearly 14yo dd, especially, who has never worked on a schedule, and I do like the Montessori approach of controlling their own time more (although, admittedly, if she were in a Montessori school, she'd probably have a schedule; something for me to keep in mind), I just ended up going, "What am I doing?!?!" It felt so off from what would work well. I think a sort of schedule for my son would work to start--he's kind of had a short routine schedule this past year. Now I want to add things in.
But I think I'm changing too many things at once. It just all felt so artificial as I was writing out the specifics of what to do tomorrow morning. I need to regroup and restart my plan.
REBOOT ;)
I do really like the idea of starting off with a Bible verse or some other religion time. I have most of the Faith and Life series and we've only made it 3/4 of the way through book 3. That could definitely part of our morning routine.
Ds is used to having handwriting--although I admit to not doing it as much as I would have liked to have had him do last year. I've been noticing improper letter formation and will be starting off focusing on that. Dd at this time could just move onto her own work, whatever she chooses. I'll tackle that in a minute. In any case, I will have him start off by writing out the alphabet, lower case, and I will take note of which letters are problematic. I know his p's are--he always places them on the line rather than the tail below. I'll also have a look at just how nice the letters are. I think, though, I might like to have him then compare his letters to my letters and to have him tell me what's different. We'll tackle the ones he sees clearly are different first.
Ds is also used to doing math in the morning. I will do a place value lesson with him tomorrow on that.
Now, what to do after that??? The CM schedule had in Drill, which I was skipping, then Repetition Poem. I like the idea, but think that's one of the last things I ought to introduce.
What other subjects are there?
Science: I had meant to have picked some books for him and I haven't. What are some ideas as I sit here? I could look at the provincial program of studies. I could have him use his science kit (I like that idea!). He's had this one kit since his last birthday--and his next one is less than a month away--and not once done anything from it. I think he found the set up confusing. That could be a fantastic project tomorrow. If we actually do something from the kit beyond setting things up, I could have him narrate to me what we did and I will write it down in a science notebook. This, of course, has me wondering if I even have notebooks...
Social Studies: I'm rethinking having him do social studies with his big sister. First of all, I don't know how much government would really interest him, even how I plan to go about it. Second, being stuck waiting for him would not work when dd is ready to move along--she is far too used to her individual pace and I see nothing compelling about having to present something twice. Three years apart is quite a difference, especially since dd is much more academically inclined. My thoughts at the moment are perhaps Canadian history and geography or world geography, with picking some areas to learn more about. I can throw the ideas out there tomorrow and observe the reaction.
Art: I haven't picked an artist to study. I have some pages from a Monet calendar; I could always start with Monet. It could be interesting to do another one though. Of course, he could also spend some time drawing tomorrow. We've got a bunch of fantastic instructional books.
Music: He has not touched his guitar in ages. Now, guitar's not something I'd really want to be doing with him in the morning, but he could always disappear to his room during the regular school year. There is a kids' instructional book that I bought sometime ago that he has not touched. If I present it to him and do a lesson with him, he might continue with it.
French: I want him reading more in French--which he's sort of started doing (Calvin and Hobbes--it's a start!). The writing will come later once his handwriting's better and he's had more practice with narration. The other thing to tackle is grammar! I could have him learn avoir in present tense tomorrow. It could also serve as copywork. I had something else originally planned, covering terms such as nom commun and nom propre, but I think I'd like to just get into the verbs and take it from there.
I could also add in geometry as a separate subject.
Now, all this written down, what is he likely to actually do in a 3-hour period and in what order should I suggest things (since he's nowhere near just picking the order on his own)?
*Bible/religion
*handwriting
*math
*social studies
*science
*French grammar
*art
*music
If we actually do all that, it will be amazing. ;) However, it could end up being one of those things where he spends about 15-20 minutes per subject, which means he'll be done in a couple of hours. If so, I'll take it from there and work on presenting more to him. Like Latin, dictation, etc.
---
Now, what about my dd?
She can start off the day with us and the Bible. After that, she'll have her choice of the following:
*math: I'm not sure if she's ever done exponents with 10's, so I'll do that with her. If that's fine, I'll move her into place value with the "developped form": 32 465 = 3 x 10^4 + 2 x 10^3 + etc.
*social studies: I don't have any French resources yet for this. We do have a Kingfisher Encyclopedia of History (I think that's what it is) as a starting point to look at early civilizations, their lifestyles, what sort of government would have have needed, etc. I want her to either tell me about it and the write down what she's told me, or write something down pretending she's telling it to me. My goal is not note-taking.
*science: First order of business will be to have her decide if she is going to cover one unit at a time or more than one at a time. There are advantages and disadvantages to both! If she does one unit at a time, she'll start with the first unit and have about 24 school days to work through it. If she decides to tackle 2 units, then we'll extend that time! Approach: Read a short section, be able to tell back, write down any vocabulary words, answer any questions that are a part of the text.
*French reading: I found Les misérables but have not even read the first page yet. I need to do that and write down words or phrases that she might have difficulty with. (I expect to have difficulty with it--despite my years of French Immersion schooling and then most of my university in French, I have actually done very little in terms of French literature!) Her assignment, after I go over some things, will be to tackle a small section and then do a written or oral narration. I might also find some historical background to it so that there is some sort of context provided before she gets going!
*French grammar: Verb conjugations in the present tense, starting with ER verbs. A little review! She can come up with a bunch of verbs and then work out their conjugation and maybe a few sentences. (She actually likes coming up with silly sentences to practise verb conjugations.) One thing I ought to check is there are new grammar and spelling rules since I studied them. The old are still acceptable, but I really ought to show her the new. I am quite certain that some of the ER verbs have had their conjugation rules change when it comes to doubling letters for certain verbs; not sure if accents have been affected. (Those of you unfamiliar with French, I'm sorry--you probably have no clue what I'm talking about and I'm sharing a bunch of babble!)
*German: This is her one key course this year. She would like just to be able to converse more than follow necessarily the program of studies. I'm thinking I wouldn't mind getting all her abilities up enough that she could skip a course or two through distance learning or be able to get easily into a private one-day program we have here in town (although she has thus far shown an extreme aversion to any sort of lessons on the weekend and would rather have a job!). If we do enough, she could probably do the grade 12 level correspondence next year (grade 10 year) and be done with the formalities while we continue improving our German together. Well, okay, I need to remember a lot first. ;) So, what to do for tomorrow? I think I should take some objectives from the grade 7 (first year for one track of the German second language options) level and focus on vocabulary that we can use in day-to-day situations. I wish they had a vocabulary and expressions list like they do for French! But alas...
I've just looked things up. Things we could work on are just basic house vocabulary and question words like wer, wo, wie, wann, was... Ich möchte is a great expression to know and easily use. (I would like...) I will have to take some time and make up a vocabulary list. Mind you, we have the one workbook that covers both grades 7 and 8, so I could maybe just focus on that, plus household daily things. That would work. For tomorrow... Shoot, I think my brain just shut off. lol. ... Oh woot!!! I just did some searching and found a vocabulary and expressions list! Yay!
Other than that, there is art and music. For art, she has a painting book and I will simply ask her to do one of the lessons from it. We have all the necessary materials for it. For music, I will ask her what she wants to do: keep going with piano? try the flute? both? something else?
That's enough for now. I must go rest my brain a while! Too much stress today with various things. :/
For my nearly 14yo dd, especially, who has never worked on a schedule, and I do like the Montessori approach of controlling their own time more (although, admittedly, if she were in a Montessori school, she'd probably have a schedule; something for me to keep in mind), I just ended up going, "What am I doing?!?!" It felt so off from what would work well. I think a sort of schedule for my son would work to start--he's kind of had a short routine schedule this past year. Now I want to add things in.
But I think I'm changing too many things at once. It just all felt so artificial as I was writing out the specifics of what to do tomorrow morning. I need to regroup and restart my plan.
REBOOT ;)
I do really like the idea of starting off with a Bible verse or some other religion time. I have most of the Faith and Life series and we've only made it 3/4 of the way through book 3. That could definitely part of our morning routine.
Ds is used to having handwriting--although I admit to not doing it as much as I would have liked to have had him do last year. I've been noticing improper letter formation and will be starting off focusing on that. Dd at this time could just move onto her own work, whatever she chooses. I'll tackle that in a minute. In any case, I will have him start off by writing out the alphabet, lower case, and I will take note of which letters are problematic. I know his p's are--he always places them on the line rather than the tail below. I'll also have a look at just how nice the letters are. I think, though, I might like to have him then compare his letters to my letters and to have him tell me what's different. We'll tackle the ones he sees clearly are different first.
Ds is also used to doing math in the morning. I will do a place value lesson with him tomorrow on that.
Now, what to do after that??? The CM schedule had in Drill, which I was skipping, then Repetition Poem. I like the idea, but think that's one of the last things I ought to introduce.
What other subjects are there?
Science: I had meant to have picked some books for him and I haven't. What are some ideas as I sit here? I could look at the provincial program of studies. I could have him use his science kit (I like that idea!). He's had this one kit since his last birthday--and his next one is less than a month away--and not once done anything from it. I think he found the set up confusing. That could be a fantastic project tomorrow. If we actually do something from the kit beyond setting things up, I could have him narrate to me what we did and I will write it down in a science notebook. This, of course, has me wondering if I even have notebooks...
Social Studies: I'm rethinking having him do social studies with his big sister. First of all, I don't know how much government would really interest him, even how I plan to go about it. Second, being stuck waiting for him would not work when dd is ready to move along--she is far too used to her individual pace and I see nothing compelling about having to present something twice. Three years apart is quite a difference, especially since dd is much more academically inclined. My thoughts at the moment are perhaps Canadian history and geography or world geography, with picking some areas to learn more about. I can throw the ideas out there tomorrow and observe the reaction.
Art: I haven't picked an artist to study. I have some pages from a Monet calendar; I could always start with Monet. It could be interesting to do another one though. Of course, he could also spend some time drawing tomorrow. We've got a bunch of fantastic instructional books.
Music: He has not touched his guitar in ages. Now, guitar's not something I'd really want to be doing with him in the morning, but he could always disappear to his room during the regular school year. There is a kids' instructional book that I bought sometime ago that he has not touched. If I present it to him and do a lesson with him, he might continue with it.
French: I want him reading more in French--which he's sort of started doing (Calvin and Hobbes--it's a start!). The writing will come later once his handwriting's better and he's had more practice with narration. The other thing to tackle is grammar! I could have him learn avoir in present tense tomorrow. It could also serve as copywork. I had something else originally planned, covering terms such as nom commun and nom propre, but I think I'd like to just get into the verbs and take it from there.
I could also add in geometry as a separate subject.
Now, all this written down, what is he likely to actually do in a 3-hour period and in what order should I suggest things (since he's nowhere near just picking the order on his own)?
*Bible/religion
*handwriting
*math
*social studies
*science
*French grammar
*art
*music
If we actually do all that, it will be amazing. ;) However, it could end up being one of those things where he spends about 15-20 minutes per subject, which means he'll be done in a couple of hours. If so, I'll take it from there and work on presenting more to him. Like Latin, dictation, etc.
---
Now, what about my dd?
She can start off the day with us and the Bible. After that, she'll have her choice of the following:
*math: I'm not sure if she's ever done exponents with 10's, so I'll do that with her. If that's fine, I'll move her into place value with the "developped form": 32 465 = 3 x 10^4 + 2 x 10^3 + etc.
*social studies: I don't have any French resources yet for this. We do have a Kingfisher Encyclopedia of History (I think that's what it is) as a starting point to look at early civilizations, their lifestyles, what sort of government would have have needed, etc. I want her to either tell me about it and the write down what she's told me, or write something down pretending she's telling it to me. My goal is not note-taking.
*science: First order of business will be to have her decide if she is going to cover one unit at a time or more than one at a time. There are advantages and disadvantages to both! If she does one unit at a time, she'll start with the first unit and have about 24 school days to work through it. If she decides to tackle 2 units, then we'll extend that time! Approach: Read a short section, be able to tell back, write down any vocabulary words, answer any questions that are a part of the text.
*French reading: I found Les misérables but have not even read the first page yet. I need to do that and write down words or phrases that she might have difficulty with. (I expect to have difficulty with it--despite my years of French Immersion schooling and then most of my university in French, I have actually done very little in terms of French literature!) Her assignment, after I go over some things, will be to tackle a small section and then do a written or oral narration. I might also find some historical background to it so that there is some sort of context provided before she gets going!
*French grammar: Verb conjugations in the present tense, starting with ER verbs. A little review! She can come up with a bunch of verbs and then work out their conjugation and maybe a few sentences. (She actually likes coming up with silly sentences to practise verb conjugations.) One thing I ought to check is there are new grammar and spelling rules since I studied them. The old are still acceptable, but I really ought to show her the new. I am quite certain that some of the ER verbs have had their conjugation rules change when it comes to doubling letters for certain verbs; not sure if accents have been affected. (Those of you unfamiliar with French, I'm sorry--you probably have no clue what I'm talking about and I'm sharing a bunch of babble!)
*German: This is her one key course this year. She would like just to be able to converse more than follow necessarily the program of studies. I'm thinking I wouldn't mind getting all her abilities up enough that she could skip a course or two through distance learning or be able to get easily into a private one-day program we have here in town (although she has thus far shown an extreme aversion to any sort of lessons on the weekend and would rather have a job!). If we do enough, she could probably do the grade 12 level correspondence next year (grade 10 year) and be done with the formalities while we continue improving our German together. Well, okay, I need to remember a lot first. ;) So, what to do for tomorrow? I think I should take some objectives from the grade 7 (first year for one track of the German second language options) level and focus on vocabulary that we can use in day-to-day situations. I wish they had a vocabulary and expressions list like they do for French! But alas...
I've just looked things up. Things we could work on are just basic house vocabulary and question words like wer, wo, wie, wann, was... Ich möchte is a great expression to know and easily use. (I would like...) I will have to take some time and make up a vocabulary list. Mind you, we have the one workbook that covers both grades 7 and 8, so I could maybe just focus on that, plus household daily things. That would work. For tomorrow... Shoot, I think my brain just shut off. lol. ... Oh woot!!! I just did some searching and found a vocabulary and expressions list! Yay!
Other than that, there is art and music. For art, she has a painting book and I will simply ask her to do one of the lessons from it. We have all the necessary materials for it. For music, I will ask her what she wants to do: keep going with piano? try the flute? both? something else?
That's enough for now. I must go rest my brain a while! Too much stress today with various things. :/
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
School is almost here!
Next week is back-to-school week. Hubby has to be at school (he's a teacher) on August 30th, although the students aren't back until Sept. 1st. My niece and nephew are with a different school system and they actually head back to school on the 30th. The 17yo, I believe, is expecting to start on the 1st.
I have had in my mind that I would like to have 30th and 31st to homeschool just my two--well, with my youngest niece and the little guy here. Every time I sit down to write out a plan, I get stuck. I have butterflies in my stomach. I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing!
I'm trying to change things this year and really go about things in a way that I can make it all happen. Books that I have been reading have been helping me flesh out goals and my determination to follow through on them, and one of my 4 key goals right now is my children's education. I've got the drive, I've got the will--I just don't know what I'm doing.
What better way to flesh things out than by writing? :D
That's why I'm here right now, writing.
I pulled out a printout of a CM school schedule from way back when. It reminded me that I don't have to plan the whole day--just his 3-4 hours in the morning. I am NOT doing a CM-style schedule, having him change lessons every 20 minutes or so. But I am looking at covering the various subject areas, as I think having a lot to provide him with and for him to choose from will be highly beneficial. I'm not going to cover every subject every day, so I find myself kind of stuck. I have to balance things with having other kids to provide lessons to, to help, to change diapers and potty train... I guess I'm feeling stuck on how I'm going to make this work. (Writing that, I have come into my head, from The Secret, that the "how" is the domain of the universe and my job is to figure out that "what". lol) All right, I need to forget the "how" and just focus on the "what" I want to cover.
What does the CM schedule that I found on the AmblesideOnline site have? (Remembering that they did school over 6 days instead of just our 5.)
The particular sample schedule, which I have to admit I don't know if they changed the schedule each week or what, although I think they must have because there's no mention of Shakespeare in any of the schedules, has as the Monday plan:
*Old Testament
*Arithmetic
*Dictation
*Drill/10 minutes of play
*Repetition of a poem
*Geography
*Writing
*French
I won't be doing drill, but this breakdown isn't bad. Looking at the week as a whole, arithmetic is done 5 out of 6 days; easy enough for me to be prepared to give him math work each day, alternating between concepts (arithmetic one day, geometry the next, back to arithmetic). Of course, because I'm not doing drill and the song stuff they do, I could always add in geometry as a separate subject. (I went through the provincial curriculum not so long ago and I really felt that geometry could be treated as a separate subject, but complementing whatever arithmetic he was covering--multiplication lends itself to looking at area, for example.)
One of the CM books I read talked about giving lessons, not just having subject time, giving the child the work and have them go at it. I need to make sure the lessons are super short, but this has how it's often been with him anyhow and following Montessori, so that's not a problem. With the Old Testament, I think that's a great place to start and I could preview the first chapter of Genesis, see if there's anything to bring up, then have him read it and do some sort of follow-up work: a picture or oral narration. My 13yo could read it, too, and could do a written narration and/or some sort of art (she's very artsy!). While I have not done CM with them and have not done narration formally with her, she is a natural narrator, giving full details of movies, books, dreams, situations that occurred with brother, cousins... Very detailed. lol. Always has been. It's really remarkable. But I digress. Her oral narration is fantastic, so I am not hesitating at all in having her go straight to written narration. (Her age group timetable also start with Old Testament, so combining the two kids' work on this is perhaps rather easy, although I expect I will be able to have her at some point read more than one chapter.)
Arithmetic: Well, I have things written up on my other computer, a plan of the topics to aim to cover each month. Seems to me that the starting topic for arithmetic is place value. For the first day of school, I could do a review lesson with him, see where he's at in identifying place value, and adding in 3 more bits of information, then having him create his own questions and identifying the place value. Actually, a perhaps better start is to see where he is in terms of breaking down numbers (as in, 18 567 = 10 000 + 8 000 + 500 + 60 + 7)--I think seeing what the numbers are made up of lends itself better to learning the name of the positions.
Dictation: Uh... He's still barely writing properly. I think I need to scrap dictation for the first while and instead have this as his repetition time (which is also done in Montessori, so I love that!). That means I'll have to find a book or a collection of poems that he could try to memorize. I have a great book of Poems for the Young that I could use, or maybe print off some of A Child's Garden of Verses. There is a free version (or possibly more than one free version) available online. Can't remember if it's at Project Gutenberg or not. Ideally I will find some good French poetry by Tuesday!
Geography is next on the schedule: Hm. I haven't figured out what I'm doing with him on this. His sister, for social studies, will be spending the year on government--I've modified the provincial curriculum and will be starting the year off looking at how people governed themselves in ancient times. I'd like to have the two sort of working on the same thing, just to make things easier. I suppose Geography time is a good time for him to read a bit about an ancient country and tying it in with a map. I will have to figure out what I'm doing for this!!! I had not gotten that far in his sister's plans to know what she's going to start with exactly and which resources we will use.
After Geography is Writing--this will be his copywork time. We are starting off the year with me giving explicit instruction in forming letters, both cursive and print. He uses capitals where he's not supposed to for letters like P--it looks the same in both upper and lower case and he just doesn't seem to get yet that a lower case lies on the line. So, we are starting from the beginning. I think I will tie in Writing Road to Reading with this since we're doing this somewhat remedially and the approach for learning letters--past the sandpaper letter phase--is really good. I will tie in the idea of narration, having him explain to me how to make a letter so that it looks good and sits on the line properly.
The final subject for the day is supposed to be French. That's excellent. Except that I'm not sure what to do since French is our home language. lol. I suppose I need to decide if I will have him read and narrate during that time or if we'll cover grammar.
Now, I said the final subject is supposed to be French because the above, if he takes the rough amount of time from the Parents' Union School schedule, is missing the 20 minutes of drill and play and the Dictation time, which is supposed to be about 30 minutes. That's nearly an hour missing. What should I tack on as another subject or two? He loves science, so I think that would be a great way to end the formal day for him. What to cover? I hadn't really decided what I would do this year for science with him, I don't think. Part of me is interested in maybe quickly covering the provincial elementary curriculum--all kinds of things he hasn't done that he would really like. I could skip the somewhat superfluous things. I'll have to decide quickly. And figure out another subject to add in. Or maybe not skip dictation, just keep it simple to start with. Hm...
Looking ahead to Tuesday's subjects, I see Latin. I think Latin would be very cool to introduce to him. He's already been grasping certain things from all of his own reading on animals and I just think it could be very interesting for him, a new challenge related to what he loves, to start learning a bit. The thing is: I really, really don't want to use an English-based program and I have not yet found anything for kids in French. I'll keep looking or I'll maybe buy and English program, translate the lesson and then present it to him. (Oooh, just found this http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/beginners/lesson01/default.htm--could be fantastic as a starting point for me to create lessons if I can't find a suitable French resource. Great thing about French being a Latin-based language is that it will be even clearer what the Latin words mean!)
I don't know if he's going to want to continue with German studies this year. If he does, that could replace the "French" classes. (But then, what to do with the German class in the schedule? lol)
Well, this is a good start for a fixed plan for the first day. I'll have to go through a plan for my dd, but tomorrow. I'm getting rather tired and don't want to think anymore. ;) And then I'll have to finalize resources and the actual lessons, won't I? And then figure a plan for my 3yo niece!
I have had in my mind that I would like to have 30th and 31st to homeschool just my two--well, with my youngest niece and the little guy here. Every time I sit down to write out a plan, I get stuck. I have butterflies in my stomach. I feel like I have no clue what I'm doing!
I'm trying to change things this year and really go about things in a way that I can make it all happen. Books that I have been reading have been helping me flesh out goals and my determination to follow through on them, and one of my 4 key goals right now is my children's education. I've got the drive, I've got the will--I just don't know what I'm doing.
What better way to flesh things out than by writing? :D
That's why I'm here right now, writing.
I pulled out a printout of a CM school schedule from way back when. It reminded me that I don't have to plan the whole day--just his 3-4 hours in the morning. I am NOT doing a CM-style schedule, having him change lessons every 20 minutes or so. But I am looking at covering the various subject areas, as I think having a lot to provide him with and for him to choose from will be highly beneficial. I'm not going to cover every subject every day, so I find myself kind of stuck. I have to balance things with having other kids to provide lessons to, to help, to change diapers and potty train... I guess I'm feeling stuck on how I'm going to make this work. (Writing that, I have come into my head, from The Secret, that the "how" is the domain of the universe and my job is to figure out that "what". lol) All right, I need to forget the "how" and just focus on the "what" I want to cover.
What does the CM schedule that I found on the AmblesideOnline site have? (Remembering that they did school over 6 days instead of just our 5.)
The particular sample schedule, which I have to admit I don't know if they changed the schedule each week or what, although I think they must have because there's no mention of Shakespeare in any of the schedules, has as the Monday plan:
*Old Testament
*Arithmetic
*Dictation
*Drill/10 minutes of play
*Repetition of a poem
*Geography
*Writing
*French
I won't be doing drill, but this breakdown isn't bad. Looking at the week as a whole, arithmetic is done 5 out of 6 days; easy enough for me to be prepared to give him math work each day, alternating between concepts (arithmetic one day, geometry the next, back to arithmetic). Of course, because I'm not doing drill and the song stuff they do, I could always add in geometry as a separate subject. (I went through the provincial curriculum not so long ago and I really felt that geometry could be treated as a separate subject, but complementing whatever arithmetic he was covering--multiplication lends itself to looking at area, for example.)
One of the CM books I read talked about giving lessons, not just having subject time, giving the child the work and have them go at it. I need to make sure the lessons are super short, but this has how it's often been with him anyhow and following Montessori, so that's not a problem. With the Old Testament, I think that's a great place to start and I could preview the first chapter of Genesis, see if there's anything to bring up, then have him read it and do some sort of follow-up work: a picture or oral narration. My 13yo could read it, too, and could do a written narration and/or some sort of art (she's very artsy!). While I have not done CM with them and have not done narration formally with her, she is a natural narrator, giving full details of movies, books, dreams, situations that occurred with brother, cousins... Very detailed. lol. Always has been. It's really remarkable. But I digress. Her oral narration is fantastic, so I am not hesitating at all in having her go straight to written narration. (Her age group timetable also start with Old Testament, so combining the two kids' work on this is perhaps rather easy, although I expect I will be able to have her at some point read more than one chapter.)
Arithmetic: Well, I have things written up on my other computer, a plan of the topics to aim to cover each month. Seems to me that the starting topic for arithmetic is place value. For the first day of school, I could do a review lesson with him, see where he's at in identifying place value, and adding in 3 more bits of information, then having him create his own questions and identifying the place value. Actually, a perhaps better start is to see where he is in terms of breaking down numbers (as in, 18 567 = 10 000 + 8 000 + 500 + 60 + 7)--I think seeing what the numbers are made up of lends itself better to learning the name of the positions.
Dictation: Uh... He's still barely writing properly. I think I need to scrap dictation for the first while and instead have this as his repetition time (which is also done in Montessori, so I love that!). That means I'll have to find a book or a collection of poems that he could try to memorize. I have a great book of Poems for the Young that I could use, or maybe print off some of A Child's Garden of Verses. There is a free version (or possibly more than one free version) available online. Can't remember if it's at Project Gutenberg or not. Ideally I will find some good French poetry by Tuesday!
Geography is next on the schedule: Hm. I haven't figured out what I'm doing with him on this. His sister, for social studies, will be spending the year on government--I've modified the provincial curriculum and will be starting the year off looking at how people governed themselves in ancient times. I'd like to have the two sort of working on the same thing, just to make things easier. I suppose Geography time is a good time for him to read a bit about an ancient country and tying it in with a map. I will have to figure out what I'm doing for this!!! I had not gotten that far in his sister's plans to know what she's going to start with exactly and which resources we will use.
After Geography is Writing--this will be his copywork time. We are starting off the year with me giving explicit instruction in forming letters, both cursive and print. He uses capitals where he's not supposed to for letters like P--it looks the same in both upper and lower case and he just doesn't seem to get yet that a lower case lies on the line. So, we are starting from the beginning. I think I will tie in Writing Road to Reading with this since we're doing this somewhat remedially and the approach for learning letters--past the sandpaper letter phase--is really good. I will tie in the idea of narration, having him explain to me how to make a letter so that it looks good and sits on the line properly.
The final subject for the day is supposed to be French. That's excellent. Except that I'm not sure what to do since French is our home language. lol. I suppose I need to decide if I will have him read and narrate during that time or if we'll cover grammar.
Now, I said the final subject is supposed to be French because the above, if he takes the rough amount of time from the Parents' Union School schedule, is missing the 20 minutes of drill and play and the Dictation time, which is supposed to be about 30 minutes. That's nearly an hour missing. What should I tack on as another subject or two? He loves science, so I think that would be a great way to end the formal day for him. What to cover? I hadn't really decided what I would do this year for science with him, I don't think. Part of me is interested in maybe quickly covering the provincial elementary curriculum--all kinds of things he hasn't done that he would really like. I could skip the somewhat superfluous things. I'll have to decide quickly. And figure out another subject to add in. Or maybe not skip dictation, just keep it simple to start with. Hm...
Looking ahead to Tuesday's subjects, I see Latin. I think Latin would be very cool to introduce to him. He's already been grasping certain things from all of his own reading on animals and I just think it could be very interesting for him, a new challenge related to what he loves, to start learning a bit. The thing is: I really, really don't want to use an English-based program and I have not yet found anything for kids in French. I'll keep looking or I'll maybe buy and English program, translate the lesson and then present it to him. (Oooh, just found this http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/latin/beginners/lesson01/default.htm--could be fantastic as a starting point for me to create lessons if I can't find a suitable French resource. Great thing about French being a Latin-based language is that it will be even clearer what the Latin words mean!)
I don't know if he's going to want to continue with German studies this year. If he does, that could replace the "French" classes. (But then, what to do with the German class in the schedule? lol)
Well, this is a good start for a fixed plan for the first day. I'll have to go through a plan for my dd, but tomorrow. I'm getting rather tired and don't want to think anymore. ;) And then I'll have to finalize resources and the actual lessons, won't I? And then figure a plan for my 3yo niece!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Planning and more planning
I've been working a bit each day on summer plans, as well as school year plans. The past couple of days have been focused on looking at my province's math curriculum and pulling out the useful outcomes for the year, so that I can then make some sort of plan.
Let me tell you, some of the things they put in the curriculum... It just leaves me scratching my head! Why oh why oh why?! There are places where my jaw practically dropped going, "Why is this remotely important to have in there?" Like for grade 9. The ONLY outcome for chance and uncertainty is:
"Demonstrate an understanding of the role of probability in society."
What? This is, what, a 5-minute conversation with them? Something that is probably already understood? No calculation outcomes, no, just "demonstrate an understanding...".
In any case, I now have all the outcomes I want listed and can try to create a plan from that for the year. I know Montessori often separates arithmetic from geometry, so the kids work on geometry all year in addition to their arithmetic. US schools typically put algebra into its own course, too. If I think of the math outcomes as being 2 or 3 separate courses, that could help in terms of giving time to work on a concept and integrating different areas a little more.
Boy, have I got some work ahead of me!
I've also fleshed out a better schedule idea for mornings for next week. I'm not so sure anymore about the weekly themes. Not with the little ones, anyhow. On top of that, I've worked on the 17yo's first day and first week plans, laying out a little more my role, my expectations, etc. I know the more I write it out, the more it will simply become a part of my thinking and I'll be more likely to do it automatically, rather than trying to remember or not being sure.
Let me write some of it out again. :D
First, I have done most of the reading and writing for him, what with his LD label. He was supposed to have been learning to use technology, but he got so behind--and I felt guilty for it, because part of me felt I should have done something different--that I didn't end up pressing this issue. Well, I'm going to press the issue and I've already warned him. One thing he will do on his first day back is work on training his MacSpeech software. I know part of his resistance to this is that he has to talk into it and he feels silly and stupid. That's just too bad. lol. He can lock himself in my den if he wants privacy, so that's not a problem. With the training, it's a little tough because he can't fluently read the passages he's supposed to read aloud. That might require me copying out the passages, we work on the reading of them, then he goes and trains the software. It could take a week or two to get the thing properly trained; that's okay. If it's not properly trained, he will just have to correct the mistakes it will make; it doesn't stop him from using it.
Part of the week plan with him is to first of all, each day be aware of when the deadlines are for the 3 subjects that will have deadlines and see where he is in the work. It's a bit of a shame that it's not worked out what to do day-by-day, but the deadlines are usually every week or two, so it's not too bad. The first day of the week, he and I will look at what is due and figure out a minimum for that week (if the deadline is in 2 weeks) or figure out the daily breakdown. When that is decided, I am holding him to it. This means that he works ALL day long until he's done the allotted work and if he doesn't finish, he has to bring it home with him. Same thing for the weekend: if the week's work is not completed, a list will go home (I might email a copy to his dad, too) of what needs to get done.
One thing I've said to my dd is that I'm not going to let his being behind affect our ability to go out and do fun things. He will have to be on track or ahead to come with us, and if he can't come with us, the expectation is he will be at home finishing his work. The school he's registered with was going to implement a new policy where kids have to go into the school until they finish overdue work; if they aren't still doing that, I am going to ask his teacher advisor if we can set that up.
Something that will have to be decided with him is how he wants his schedule. There can be an advantage to just taking a huge block--like 3 hours in the morning--and just working through as much as you can. BUT he has such a tendency to drag things on. I suppose the worst that would come of it is he would have to bring work home. I'll still let him have some say and provide some schedule options. One schedule will have a large block in the morning and two smaller blocks in the afternoon. Another will be the opposite. Another will have 2 subjects in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. Well, sort of. He's got English, science and social studies as his academic subjects, and then phys. ed. and a health-type class. The phys. ed. and health are 2 separate courses, but I'm thinking them as a single course. One of the subject blocks could be split in 2 and he could work on both a bit. The other option is to have him work on those mainly at home and the final block of the day could be "catch-up" and study time. Yet another option is to focus just on the academic subjects, do 2 hours of one, then an hour of another, lunch break, finish the last hour, then do the final subject for the remaining 2 hours.
Regardless, assuming that he will show up around 9 like last year, this will be the schedule:
9-12
lunch from 12-12:30
12:30-3:30 (or until leaving)
6 hours to tackle 3 academic subjects is plenty--if he learns to focus. Setting the above limits will help, I hope! A couple of minutes at the beginning will be taken to tackle some skill building--math, vocabulary, etc. This is one aspect I haven't quite figured out yet. But the above is very solidified in my mind and on paper. I believe it will work well. :)
Let me tell you, some of the things they put in the curriculum... It just leaves me scratching my head! Why oh why oh why?! There are places where my jaw practically dropped going, "Why is this remotely important to have in there?" Like for grade 9. The ONLY outcome for chance and uncertainty is:
"Demonstrate an understanding of the role of probability in society."
What? This is, what, a 5-minute conversation with them? Something that is probably already understood? No calculation outcomes, no, just "demonstrate an understanding...".
In any case, I now have all the outcomes I want listed and can try to create a plan from that for the year. I know Montessori often separates arithmetic from geometry, so the kids work on geometry all year in addition to their arithmetic. US schools typically put algebra into its own course, too. If I think of the math outcomes as being 2 or 3 separate courses, that could help in terms of giving time to work on a concept and integrating different areas a little more.
Boy, have I got some work ahead of me!
I've also fleshed out a better schedule idea for mornings for next week. I'm not so sure anymore about the weekly themes. Not with the little ones, anyhow. On top of that, I've worked on the 17yo's first day and first week plans, laying out a little more my role, my expectations, etc. I know the more I write it out, the more it will simply become a part of my thinking and I'll be more likely to do it automatically, rather than trying to remember or not being sure.
Let me write some of it out again. :D
First, I have done most of the reading and writing for him, what with his LD label. He was supposed to have been learning to use technology, but he got so behind--and I felt guilty for it, because part of me felt I should have done something different--that I didn't end up pressing this issue. Well, I'm going to press the issue and I've already warned him. One thing he will do on his first day back is work on training his MacSpeech software. I know part of his resistance to this is that he has to talk into it and he feels silly and stupid. That's just too bad. lol. He can lock himself in my den if he wants privacy, so that's not a problem. With the training, it's a little tough because he can't fluently read the passages he's supposed to read aloud. That might require me copying out the passages, we work on the reading of them, then he goes and trains the software. It could take a week or two to get the thing properly trained; that's okay. If it's not properly trained, he will just have to correct the mistakes it will make; it doesn't stop him from using it.
Part of the week plan with him is to first of all, each day be aware of when the deadlines are for the 3 subjects that will have deadlines and see where he is in the work. It's a bit of a shame that it's not worked out what to do day-by-day, but the deadlines are usually every week or two, so it's not too bad. The first day of the week, he and I will look at what is due and figure out a minimum for that week (if the deadline is in 2 weeks) or figure out the daily breakdown. When that is decided, I am holding him to it. This means that he works ALL day long until he's done the allotted work and if he doesn't finish, he has to bring it home with him. Same thing for the weekend: if the week's work is not completed, a list will go home (I might email a copy to his dad, too) of what needs to get done.
One thing I've said to my dd is that I'm not going to let his being behind affect our ability to go out and do fun things. He will have to be on track or ahead to come with us, and if he can't come with us, the expectation is he will be at home finishing his work. The school he's registered with was going to implement a new policy where kids have to go into the school until they finish overdue work; if they aren't still doing that, I am going to ask his teacher advisor if we can set that up.
Something that will have to be decided with him is how he wants his schedule. There can be an advantage to just taking a huge block--like 3 hours in the morning--and just working through as much as you can. BUT he has such a tendency to drag things on. I suppose the worst that would come of it is he would have to bring work home. I'll still let him have some say and provide some schedule options. One schedule will have a large block in the morning and two smaller blocks in the afternoon. Another will be the opposite. Another will have 2 subjects in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. Well, sort of. He's got English, science and social studies as his academic subjects, and then phys. ed. and a health-type class. The phys. ed. and health are 2 separate courses, but I'm thinking them as a single course. One of the subject blocks could be split in 2 and he could work on both a bit. The other option is to have him work on those mainly at home and the final block of the day could be "catch-up" and study time. Yet another option is to focus just on the academic subjects, do 2 hours of one, then an hour of another, lunch break, finish the last hour, then do the final subject for the remaining 2 hours.
Regardless, assuming that he will show up around 9 like last year, this will be the schedule:
9-12
lunch from 12-12:30
12:30-3:30 (or until leaving)
6 hours to tackle 3 academic subjects is plenty--if he learns to focus. Setting the above limits will help, I hope! A couple of minutes at the beginning will be taken to tackle some skill building--math, vocabulary, etc. This is one aspect I haven't quite figured out yet. But the above is very solidified in my mind and on paper. I believe it will work well. :)
Monday, April 18, 2011
Great math worksheet site
This site has a great number of already prepared FREE worksheets for higher level math topics--pre-algebra through Algebra 2 and Geometry. Enjoy!
http://www.kutasoftware.com/freemain.html
I'm tempted to try out the software and see what it might provide me. If I do, I'll give a review here!
http://www.kutasoftware.com/freemain.html
I'm tempted to try out the software and see what it might provide me. If I do, I'll give a review here!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Oh, I love Ray's!
Just preparing some word problem questions for dd since she said she would like more. I thought I'd start off with questions that are easy, but at first glance, you do have to think. A small challenge, but easy to figure out numerically.
I pulled out my copy of Ray's New Intellectual Arithmetic--these are books that were used in many US schools in the late 1800s. Now, the website says "grades 3 and 4", which, numerically, is about right. However, if a student is not used to doing word problems, these can be good for just about any age! Nice little math thinking problems. I've not seen a modern text have such questions so young. I think it shows how good this program was for developing mental math skills. Which, I think many might agree, are sorely lacking today. Maybe I'm just too old--I remember the days of cash registers NOT telling the teller how much to give back in change and the teller actually had to count it out and proved they were giving you the correct change. Now, the till tells them, they count it out and just say this is your x amount of change. Of course, if they goof on how much you've handed over, a good too many of the younger ones kind of stare and have no clue how to figure out how to give you the correct change back. But I digress.
Here are some great word problems that could definitely be used in a Montessori environment. Print them out on cards, put them in their own box, and voilà! Since dd is older and not interested in cards, I'm just making a worksheet for right now. I could see ds potentially liking the idea of cards, though, and just flipping through and picking the ones he wants to do. In any case, here are some of the examples:
The difference between two numbers is 7: if the larger be 12, what will 8 times the smaller be?
If $3 gain $1 in a year, what will $12 gain in double the time?
Bought 6 quarts of berries, at 8 cents a quart; sold 4 quarts at 10 cents a quart, and 2 quarts, at 12 cents a quart: how much did I make?
Of course, they have normal questions, like "Seven times 9 are how many?", but they add in other little things like, "How many are 2 times 3 times 4?" It's a nice variety, and nice thinking tied in! And that's just early in this "grade 3-4" book. I just opened it up randomly near the back. Here is one of the questions: 1/3 of a certain number is 2 more than 1/2 of 12: what is the number?
I love it! :D
I pulled out my copy of Ray's New Intellectual Arithmetic--these are books that were used in many US schools in the late 1800s. Now, the website says "grades 3 and 4", which, numerically, is about right. However, if a student is not used to doing word problems, these can be good for just about any age! Nice little math thinking problems. I've not seen a modern text have such questions so young. I think it shows how good this program was for developing mental math skills. Which, I think many might agree, are sorely lacking today. Maybe I'm just too old--I remember the days of cash registers NOT telling the teller how much to give back in change and the teller actually had to count it out and proved they were giving you the correct change. Now, the till tells them, they count it out and just say this is your x amount of change. Of course, if they goof on how much you've handed over, a good too many of the younger ones kind of stare and have no clue how to figure out how to give you the correct change back. But I digress.
Here are some great word problems that could definitely be used in a Montessori environment. Print them out on cards, put them in their own box, and voilà! Since dd is older and not interested in cards, I'm just making a worksheet for right now. I could see ds potentially liking the idea of cards, though, and just flipping through and picking the ones he wants to do. In any case, here are some of the examples:
The difference between two numbers is 7: if the larger be 12, what will 8 times the smaller be?
If $3 gain $1 in a year, what will $12 gain in double the time?
Bought 6 quarts of berries, at 8 cents a quart; sold 4 quarts at 10 cents a quart, and 2 quarts, at 12 cents a quart: how much did I make?
Of course, they have normal questions, like "Seven times 9 are how many?", but they add in other little things like, "How many are 2 times 3 times 4?" It's a nice variety, and nice thinking tied in! And that's just early in this "grade 3-4" book. I just opened it up randomly near the back. Here is one of the questions: 1/3 of a certain number is 2 more than 1/2 of 12: what is the number?
I love it! :D
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Crazy Day
Today was French class day. Started off with me working on substitute cards for Trivial Pursuit, then trying to clean the house a bit while getting ready for the day. I got a call quite early, asking if my nephew could come today since he wasn't feeling great, and I said sure. I made ds do the math he didn't get done yesterday and then let him go and do things with his cousin.
Dd kept going with the binomial multiplications, plus tried to label a blank map of the United States. She got about half of them, which isn't bad because we've never formally looked at them--she's just used a large floor map that we have. She also did a page of French and was very proud of her work. She likes to feel like she's accomplishing something!
She'd already been working for 45 minutes by the time the 16yo arrived--there had been an accident at a nearby intersection and it was holding him up to be able to get to my place. He got about an hour and a half of work done, not shabby for him--although he really needs to do more to get everything done. We are still having issues with the math, but I didn't get a chance to make anything hands-on. Except I did grab the Multiplication Bead Board to demonstrate squared numbers and their roots. When he sees it like that, no hesitation; going more abstract... I almost feel like I just have to have him memorize the individual roots rather than having him do the traditional thinking of "What times itself gives [whatever perfect square number you are looking at]?" It does not click. He is definitely not your typical thinker. I'll have to see about some supplementary math programs known to work well for LD kids.
The house seemed perpetually a mess today, and every time I wanted to work at cleaning it, the littlest one would be clingy and I couldn't get much done. In between those times, the kids would make more mess. Then there was the constant trying to negotiate with me, which is not typical. "Can we...?" "No." "But yadda yadda." "No," slightly firmer. "More yadda yadda," to which I reply again, "I said No." Goodness. And it wasn't just from one of them. Then there was me having to ask the boys *3* times to stop doing what they were doing. They kept restarting. The third time, I was sufficiently annoyed enough that they stopped. I did lay on the 16yo a bit, too--"You are 16 and are supposed to be showing them things. Actually, you are showing them things--you are showing them to keep doing what I've asked them not to do." I hate doing the lecture thing and probably shouldn't have, but things finally calmed down after that.
Time to go sit and properly journal, I think, and figure out some plans for tomorrow.
Dd kept going with the binomial multiplications, plus tried to label a blank map of the United States. She got about half of them, which isn't bad because we've never formally looked at them--she's just used a large floor map that we have. She also did a page of French and was very proud of her work. She likes to feel like she's accomplishing something!
She'd already been working for 45 minutes by the time the 16yo arrived--there had been an accident at a nearby intersection and it was holding him up to be able to get to my place. He got about an hour and a half of work done, not shabby for him--although he really needs to do more to get everything done. We are still having issues with the math, but I didn't get a chance to make anything hands-on. Except I did grab the Multiplication Bead Board to demonstrate squared numbers and their roots. When he sees it like that, no hesitation; going more abstract... I almost feel like I just have to have him memorize the individual roots rather than having him do the traditional thinking of "What times itself gives [whatever perfect square number you are looking at]?" It does not click. He is definitely not your typical thinker. I'll have to see about some supplementary math programs known to work well for LD kids.
The house seemed perpetually a mess today, and every time I wanted to work at cleaning it, the littlest one would be clingy and I couldn't get much done. In between those times, the kids would make more mess. Then there was the constant trying to negotiate with me, which is not typical. "Can we...?" "No." "But yadda yadda." "No," slightly firmer. "More yadda yadda," to which I reply again, "I said No." Goodness. And it wasn't just from one of them. Then there was me having to ask the boys *3* times to stop doing what they were doing. They kept restarting. The third time, I was sufficiently annoyed enough that they stopped. I did lay on the 16yo a bit, too--"You are 16 and are supposed to be showing them things. Actually, you are showing them things--you are showing them to keep doing what I've asked them not to do." I hate doing the lecture thing and probably shouldn't have, but things finally calmed down after that.
Time to go sit and properly journal, I think, and figure out some plans for tomorrow.
Friday, October 15, 2010
All kinds of stuff :D
Various and random things to share about this past while:
1) I have no idea what has happened, but my children have suddenly started turning towards making up their own math questions. I can't think of anything specific I have done, other than pull out the multiplication bead board and the simple division board and beads. Maybe it's the kids connected with math in a different way and so now they want to do more? I have no idea. Ds (10) was trying to figure out how much money he had a couple of days ago, so I wrote down the different amounts he had received recently as part of gift cards and money. We worked out the addition, so he asked for more questions like that. "Do you want to come up with your own questions?" "No." Not only did he not want to come up with his own questions, but he wanted me to make sure there were at least 3 addends in each question and that there should be 10-20 questions. He finally did them today and I think I will show him some addition problems with the bead frame. He's forgotten about carrying over numbers.
I pulled out the division board to demonstrate something to dd, to show her division didn't have to be complicated. Somehow, that led to her tying it into work she did today. We bought a funny die yesterday--it's not a normal shape, but does have 6 sides--and she decided to roll the die a bunch of times and tally which number it landed on each time. Then she decided to manually work out what percentage each of the results was of the total. This meant having to do LONG division, which I only just showed her briefly the other day; she may have seen some examples in the past, but there was also such resistance to long division that I just never really showed her. There were some melt downs today with it, but she persisted--with breaks here and there. Which is something because she's not physically well today, which already means a day of being sensitive and emotional. She discovered at one point that she's pretty sure she did at least one of the divisions wrong (okay, well, she's convinced they are ALL wrong--she did it on a whiteboard and erased her work; it might be a good idea if I suggest she write it on paper if she wants to be able to go back and check her work), and that led to it being pretty much done. I'm still impressed.
2) Social studies, the dreaded subject. Except, it's actually turning out to be the most interesting of the subjects and the only one the 16yo feels like doing. lol. If we could have interactive discussions for math and chem, he would do so much more, but alas, I'm not sure how to go about that. The Socratic method comes to mind for his math; the chem is a ton of learning terms at the moment. I think daily conversations about the work and his goals--even if it's to avoid having to do an extra year of high school--would help have him connect more with a desire to at least get the work done, even if he doesn't really like the work.
3) My almost 3yo niece is going through some sort of phase. She gets here in the morning and just clings to her dad--although you can tell it's half for effect. She used to come in, insist on taking off her shoes and coat herself, then off she went to play or look at a book or something. Her mom has said that at home, she has stopped talking to ask for things and regressed to baby-like behaviour. I've noticed it here. She has also stopped doing the various activities she used to do: practical life things, mosaic pegs, even puzzles. She follows somebody around most of the time or plays with my son, but even then, she's not talkative like she used to be. The morning clinginess started when her dad was away for a week, but the day-long behaviours seem to have regressed more and more. I'm thinking that when I can, I need to just give her more attention, invite her to cuddle with me, things like that. She's also been more tired than usual, which may be part of what's contributing to this behaviour. She's napping right now, but once she's up, I think I'll invite her to help me make some ice cream. :D
1) I have no idea what has happened, but my children have suddenly started turning towards making up their own math questions. I can't think of anything specific I have done, other than pull out the multiplication bead board and the simple division board and beads. Maybe it's the kids connected with math in a different way and so now they want to do more? I have no idea. Ds (10) was trying to figure out how much money he had a couple of days ago, so I wrote down the different amounts he had received recently as part of gift cards and money. We worked out the addition, so he asked for more questions like that. "Do you want to come up with your own questions?" "No." Not only did he not want to come up with his own questions, but he wanted me to make sure there were at least 3 addends in each question and that there should be 10-20 questions. He finally did them today and I think I will show him some addition problems with the bead frame. He's forgotten about carrying over numbers.
I pulled out the division board to demonstrate something to dd, to show her division didn't have to be complicated. Somehow, that led to her tying it into work she did today. We bought a funny die yesterday--it's not a normal shape, but does have 6 sides--and she decided to roll the die a bunch of times and tally which number it landed on each time. Then she decided to manually work out what percentage each of the results was of the total. This meant having to do LONG division, which I only just showed her briefly the other day; she may have seen some examples in the past, but there was also such resistance to long division that I just never really showed her. There were some melt downs today with it, but she persisted--with breaks here and there. Which is something because she's not physically well today, which already means a day of being sensitive and emotional. She discovered at one point that she's pretty sure she did at least one of the divisions wrong (okay, well, she's convinced they are ALL wrong--she did it on a whiteboard and erased her work; it might be a good idea if I suggest she write it on paper if she wants to be able to go back and check her work), and that led to it being pretty much done. I'm still impressed.
2) Social studies, the dreaded subject. Except, it's actually turning out to be the most interesting of the subjects and the only one the 16yo feels like doing. lol. If we could have interactive discussions for math and chem, he would do so much more, but alas, I'm not sure how to go about that. The Socratic method comes to mind for his math; the chem is a ton of learning terms at the moment. I think daily conversations about the work and his goals--even if it's to avoid having to do an extra year of high school--would help have him connect more with a desire to at least get the work done, even if he doesn't really like the work.
3) My almost 3yo niece is going through some sort of phase. She gets here in the morning and just clings to her dad--although you can tell it's half for effect. She used to come in, insist on taking off her shoes and coat herself, then off she went to play or look at a book or something. Her mom has said that at home, she has stopped talking to ask for things and regressed to baby-like behaviour. I've noticed it here. She has also stopped doing the various activities she used to do: practical life things, mosaic pegs, even puzzles. She follows somebody around most of the time or plays with my son, but even then, she's not talkative like she used to be. The morning clinginess started when her dad was away for a week, but the day-long behaviours seem to have regressed more and more. I'm thinking that when I can, I need to just give her more attention, invite her to cuddle with me, things like that. She's also been more tired than usual, which may be part of what's contributing to this behaviour. She's napping right now, but once she's up, I think I'll invite her to help me make some ice cream. :D
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The marvel of Montessori
I've known for sometime that I haven't really been "doing" Montessori with my son. So I decided to make a change.
He was resistant about a multiplication worksheet I gave him the other day. It really hit me that he, of both my kids, really would connect with the hands-on aspect even more. So, although I did have him do a French worksheet with me today and had him practise his cursive, I decided to pull out the multiplication bead board and do some with him that way. I have a homemade board that works reasonably well and although he wasn't ready enough to actually put the marbles on himself (he was too busy collecting a marble for each correct question he got, lol--his idea, not mine!), he actually said, "I like doing math more than practising handwriting." He was happy the entire time we did math. How I love Montessori! If I'm going to insist on work, I really ought to make it something he can connect with if I believe so much in Montessori, oughtn't I?
As an aside, here's my homemade multiplication bead board:
Not beautiful, but it works! I actually had a strong inclination today to look into how much it would cost to buy some nice materials, rather than just the homemade versions. Once I have a look at some prices, that idea may just go away. ;)
He was resistant about a multiplication worksheet I gave him the other day. It really hit me that he, of both my kids, really would connect with the hands-on aspect even more. So, although I did have him do a French worksheet with me today and had him practise his cursive, I decided to pull out the multiplication bead board and do some with him that way. I have a homemade board that works reasonably well and although he wasn't ready enough to actually put the marbles on himself (he was too busy collecting a marble for each correct question he got, lol--his idea, not mine!), he actually said, "I like doing math more than practising handwriting." He was happy the entire time we did math. How I love Montessori! If I'm going to insist on work, I really ought to make it something he can connect with if I believe so much in Montessori, oughtn't I?
As an aside, here's my homemade multiplication bead board:
Not beautiful, but it works! I actually had a strong inclination today to look into how much it would cost to buy some nice materials, rather than just the homemade versions. Once I have a look at some prices, that idea may just go away. ;)
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)