The Base-10 System

You might think he's just a kid, playing with Legos. But you'd be wrong - this activity is helping Owen understand base-10 mathematics, something he wouldn't care to do unless Legos were involved.

So what happened was, our friend Nicole issued a challenge this week connected with our weekly math/science class: to bring something representing the number 100. Of course, Owen's mind went immediately to Legos.

We started by choosing 100 Lego pieces, a harder challenge than it seems. Each time Owen started counting out pieces, he'd lose track somewhere in the early double-digits. I showed him how to keep track, placing the pieces into 10-piece piles:



At which point both kids agreed, that's not a lot of Legos. As Luke pointed out, the minifigs alone are 8 pieces each! Owen wasn't sure we would be able to build the space station he wanted to bring to math this week. Here he is getting started:



And, he used every piece to make a pretty fancy space station.



I loved doing this because of all the math chat we had while working, counting by tens, estimating, seeing the light dawn about how the base-10 system works, and watching Owen realize that each tiny piece counts as 1, however big or small.

Also, once we got going, Owen treated it as a game; how much easier math would be for me, if only I could have treated it as a game.

The Intersection of Math and Art

School, such as it is for us, kind of officially started last week, with an art class at the library and an amazing math/science class offered by a friend.

Historically, my boys have been totally uninterested in art classes, at least those not about making light sabers out of ziti and aluminum foil. But after Luke was on the winning Battle of the Books team and the second place finisher, that same day, in our library's Harry Potter Trivia Tournament last month, he would follow the librarian anywhere, even into art classes.

Last week's was all about lines, and truthfully I did not think either Luke or Owen got much out of it - until math class, in which the kids made geoboards.

I had my doubts about the geoboards, too. Luke was freaked out about hammering, and worked hard to overcome his fear of getting hurt, so I helped him lots more than I would have thought a ten-year-old might need. Owen helped pound about five nails in before running off to play with the other six-year-olds; when we left, with plenty of colorful elastics and two finished geoboards mostly made by yours truly, I concluded that they would not even be looked at before the next math class.

So, imagine my surprise when, before breakfast the next morning, Luke asked, "Hey Mom, what do you think of this:"



I was stunned. When had he made this creation? "Oh, just now." On the other side of the table, Owen was working too:



My awe was complete when the boys started talking about how the lines in their geoboard designs connected with the lines they learned about in art class. They drew comparisons between the two classes that I would never have thought of, just casually, over breakfast.

Reminding me (again) that learning happens when it happens, and even when you think it isn't happening.

Mommy Break

From Spring 09

Luke and Owen are off visiting their Grandma for the week. That picture up there is of their napkin rings; Ben put them up on the windowsill, so that they could keep a lookout for when their owners come home. Think maybe he is missing the kids, just a little? I know I am... while I appreciate the quiet, and the chance to think entire thoughts without interruption, I definitely miss the boys.

That said, I've had more time to peruse the blogosphere, during daylight hours at least, than I ever have before! It is fun, and I thought I would share some of what I've been reading.

First, Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids and the great blog that goes with it, has this great post up about kids, books, and the lead law. Try not to shake your fist too hard at the stupidity of this law while you read...

Then, by way of Principled Discovery, one of my new favorite blogs, comes this: an arrogant, I'm guessing fairly young, teacher opening up a can o' whup-ass on homeschoolers! Even I, with all my copious current spare time, could not read all 625 comments, in which he is lambasted thoroughly by probably more homeschoolers than he even thought knew how to read, or access the internet.

I did, however, read this Dude's next post, Homeschoolers: Do They Care Too Much?, along with most of the 142 comments - I even threw in a few myself, because it was either that or my head might explode from the sheer arrogance and ignorance of this blogger. I must caution you: if you read these, make sure that you've already been to the bathroom or you might just have an accident from laughing too hard! We homeschoolers can be pretty darned funny while we're putting pompous ignoramouses in their place.

And now, on to more positive posts! This week's Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Why Homeschool, with lots of great posts to read. Some of my favorites: if you enjoyed The Princess Bride, you'll love Home Spun Juggling's take on the Fire Swamp (note: scroll down, for some reason the post itself isn't hypertexting). Also, Homeschool Bytes has a review of a fun, free math game that my guys love in Timez Attack!. Finally, some food for thought - my friend Susan writes about rethinking higher education here.

Over at Topsy-Techie, volunteering is happening this summer; read about it in this funny, inspiring post. And finally, Susan of In The Kitchen is waxing philosophical about Thomas Jefferson's desk. I'm still trying to figure out how she's even finding time to post as they continue on their away-from-the-kitchen adventure!

So, get yourself a frosty beverage - or, a cup of tea - and settle in to enjoy these. I'm off to read some more, or maybe I'll go talk to the chickens for a while... when are the kids coming home again?

Negativity

A few weeks ago, the homeschool group to which we belong held a meeting about dealing with negativity from relatives or friends who don't homeschool. Interestingly, the fifteen or so parents at the meeting made a discovery: we are pretty well our own worst critics. We dread even thinking about what other people are thinking, it seems.

In this group, I opened up about my secret fear that Luke and Owen will grow up Math Illiterates, without even basic concepts to help them get through life. My really secret fear about this secret fear is that somewhere down the line, when this gross oversight in their education finally comes to light, everyone will point to me - and then the torches and pickaxes, a la Frankenstein, will inevitably follow. "Look at those two boys! They could have been accepted into Harvard... but their mother refused to teach them any math!" Much head-shaking will ensue, and my boys will move out into life unable to recite their times tables or figure out how much to tip the wait staff in restaurants. They will die, friendless and alone, because their mother didn't do her job.

At the meeting, we all reassured each other about our fears of criticism, and remarked upon how we all expect the negativity to come from the outside - but how in fact we are really our own worst critics.

The parents, especially those of older children, made me feel so much better about the lack of math in the lives of my two interest-led learners! They pointed out that, when math becomes interesting to Luke and Owen, it will take precedence. Also, they reminded me that just because a kid sits in class while math is being taught, doesn't mean the child actually learns any math. And, they helped me remember that math comes in different forms, several of which the boys love - logic is Luke's specialty, while Owen adores geometry and patterns.

It turns out, what I've really been worrying about is arithmetic - and that is why God invented calculators, which nowadays are acceptable at high levels anyway.

I went home feeling better, realizing that much of the negativity comes from my own mind, and not the outside world at all. What does come from the outside world can be addressed and dealt with so much more easily, when I set out with the positive notion that the boys are learning in the best style for them, and also that their timetables (oh, ha ha) for learning are the most important ones.

The funniest thing was that the morning after this meeting, Luke came to me asking to play Mythmatical Battles, a great card game that utilizes the multiplication tables up to nine in Yu-Gi-Oh-esque battles. We've since played Mythmatical Battles several times, and gotten a link to an awesome video game that teaches the multiplication tables, Timez Attack (with a great free download for stingy folks like me!)

Suddenly, arithmetic is in, leaving me laughing at my biggest critic - myself.

One Year In

It was November of last year that Luke left school, because the academic pressures of 2nd grade made him so stressed and sick.

Now that he learns in ways that are fun and interesting to him, Luke happily writes, uses mathematics skills, and reads voraciously. In fact, his writing has improved even though he doesn't spend nearly the same amount of time doing it as when he attended school. The skills he employs now are a means to an end, instead of being the activity's focus - as it was in school.

Here is a case in point. Last week, Luke recieved a watch as a gift, spent half an hour learning to use it (reading the pages of small print to find out how to set the alarm, use the stopwatch feature, change the time, etc.). Now, he uses it to remind him what time dinner is, when he can have screen time, even when to pick up the veggies at our CSA.

But when he was given the watch, the early childhood teacher in me saw, not so much the watch, but the plastic cube it came in; "hey, we could make that into a die," I thought - and today, that's just what we did.

From Fall Blog

I started the project, but Luke took it over, deciding how the die would look and making it so - it ended up with dots just like a regular die, but each side is a different color. He even helped come up with a non-competitive game we could play with the die, that would keep young Owen's interest. We each took turns rolling the die for 6 rounds, at the end of which we figured out who had rolled the most of which color; that way, we could all "win" a color without competing with the other players.

My masterstroke, though, was sitting away from the score card - Luke sat down near the card and happily kept track of all our rolls. Even better than the fine-motor work this entailed, he kept noticing patterns in our rolling, and made some interesting connections for himself that he may not have noticed were he not keeping score - "Hey Mom, that's the first red you've rolled."

So, one year in, we've got a boy who is learning the skills in order to learn something else, and not just for the sake of learning the skill.

For Luke, it's made all the difference.

Bean Bag Math

We are making the most of these wonderful, crisp fall days.

Thanks to The Siblings' Busy Book, we're enjoying the out-of-doors and doing some math work as well, with our variation on bean bags.

From Fall Blog

We agreed to work together cooperatively towards a really high score. Luke chose how many points we'd get for getting in the bin (40), for touching the outside of the bin (30), and for any bean bag landing within 1 foot (20), or 2 feet (10), of the bin.

From Fall Blog

We played 6 rounds, between the three of us scoring 350 points - pretty impressive, we thought!

The beauty of this game was, Luke kept thinking about different scoring combinations long after we finished playing. Because of the numbers he'd chosen, we were counting by tens, and thinking in terms of mathematics, all afternoon.

Finally, I love activities such as this one because there's a way for all of us to be involved; here's Owen "keeping score:"

From Fall Blog