Hands-on Math: It's for Everyone!

Hands-on math.  Just the term itself instantly makes one think of kindergarten students playing with blocks as they add one block with another block.  And this is good--kindergarten level students SHOULD be using blocks (and rocks, matchbox cars, plastic toys, etc.) to help them learn how to add.  But far too often parents and teachers fall into the trap of putting away the "messy" math manipulatives way too quickly, exchanging them instead for neatly bound math workbooks with hundreds of spaces for our students to fill in.  Upon finishing all the problems, we feel like they have "done the grade."

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Keep reading!  This entire article is featured as a guest post over at http://sdahomeschools.com/hands-on-math-its-for-everyone/ today!  Learn why we should keep hands-on math in our home schools, and gather some ideas of how to do it.  Share YOUR great ideas for hands-on math projects in the comments! :)

~Susan

Homeschool Review: Crypto Mind Benders!

Hi Everyone!

Recently I had the pleasure of reviewing the book "Crypto Mind Benders" by The Critical Thinking Company.  As I had never seen even their "Mind Benders" series, I really had no idea what to expect before I received the book.

In the "Crypto Mind Benders" books, the students are asked to break a secret code to identify either a hidden joke or a famous quote.  To break the code, logic and mathematical reasoning must be used in solving three sets of clues.  Then these clues will be used to solve the secret code.

I received the classic jokes version--and was very pleasantly surprised.  I personally do not enjoy a lot of jokes, and did not want my daughter exposed to jokes that might be not in good taste.  But I should not have worried!  The jokes in "Crypto Mind Benders" are written by children ages 9-15, and are just clean, funny jokes.  One of the jokes in the book asks:  Why did the cat go to the computer lab every day?  To play with the mouse!

The book is marked as appropriate for grades 3-12, a broad range indeed!  But after looking through the book, I have to say that I agree 100%!  It definitely is challenging enough for the upper grade students, yet by carefully reading the sample instructions given in the beginning of the book my daughter and I were able to figure out how to use the clues and figure out the problems.  My daughter is 8 years old, so I wondered if it would be too difficult for her.  At first glance through the book I thought it would be for sure, but now that she has some understanding of how you use the clues to rule out or in possibilities, she is doing quite well.  It IS challenging, and I don't think she will be outgrowing this book for a long time, but I love how it is really making her think--and all in a very fun way!

The original purchaser of this book has permission to make copies for personal use within one home, or even within one classroom up to 35 students.   I made a copy for her to first try it, as I wasn't sure if it would be too difficult for her and we might be putting it back on the shelf for a while.  But since I am only home schooling one child at this point, it is easier just to let her do her work right in the book.  A detailed answer key can be found in the back of the book--perfect for those days that I look at the page and get this big question mark in my mind!  Let's just say that while "Mind Benders" is a great name for this product, my daughter and I think "Mind Stretchers" would also be a good name--and some days my mind definitely has growing pains!

So if you are looking for something to REALLY REALLY REALLY make your students think, I highly recommend this book!  And for us, personally, this may be our first "Mind Benders" book, but there is no way it will be our last!

This product can be found at www.CriticalThinking.com, Phone 1-800-458-4849.

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Disclaimer:  I was provided a copy of this book free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion and review.  All thoughts expressed are my own, and I truly am impressed with this product! :)

Bedtime Math Problem

Hi Everyone!

Life is currently in a super-busy mode, so no time for anything fancy--but I did want to pop in here and let you know about a really neat web site I ran across today! :)  Maybe you have already visited this site, but I just learned about it today--Bedtime Math!  This is simply something that one family started doing for their own children--giving each of them their own math problem at bedtime.  I don't know for sure if I will use it exactly the same way--I'm thinking I might instead just use it as a fun math problem sometime during our homeschool day.  But anyway, I did want to share the site with you.  They give variations of problems, some geared for preschoolers, some for K-1st or 2nd grade, and the highest level for 2nd grade and up.

So----go check out this site!  http://bedtimemathproblem.org/  I think you will have fun reading some of the back problems they have listed on there.  You can also check out their facebook page, where sometimes they have posted videos of things they have mentioned in their math problems.

Have Fun!

Susan

Living Math--Estimation!

Earlier this week I was blessed to be able to attend a homeschool seminar that was filled with inspiring speakers and creative ideas. And the neat thing about this seminar in paticular was that it was completely on-line! So where ever you may be around the globe, if you had access to internet, a computer, and speakers, you could attend this seminar.

This was a last minute plan for me--I had actually never even heard of this seminar and then ended up having my name drawn for a free ticket for it--literally two days before it started!

Anyway, one of the neat topics that a speaker talked about was what she called "Living Math". Basically taking math off of a workbook page, and into real world applications. She had all kinds of examples of things she had done in her homeschool, and it really inspired me to try and be a little bit more creative in this area with Alison.

SO. Not having planned ahead for anything in paticular, after listening to this wonderful talk I looked around my house. "What do I have in my hand?" I thought to myself. Ah, I have canning jars! So I gathered up four canning jars, and then went looking for "something" to put in them.

I ended up filling jars with crayons, cotton balls, ballons, and "gems". Then I put a piece of paper next to each jar, asking Alison to make her estimation of how many of each item was in the various jars.


We let the jars sit on the counter for a day, giving her a chance to examine them and make her estimations.

Then it was time to find out how close she really came to the actual count. This was a good time to throw in some skip counting, so cotton balls were counted out in groups of 5.






Balloons were also counted into groups of 5--along with time for blowing up a balloon too, of course!

















Gems were counted into groups of 10. I didn't have enough gems in the house to completely fill up the jar, but decided to just use what I had since I didn't want to go to the store and spend any money for this activity. I do not think it detracted from the learning any, even though the jar was not filled.











Crayons were also counted out into groups of 10. And of course, decisions had to be made about crayons broken in half--do they count as 1 or 2?

Overall, Alison absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED this activity, so I was pleased. :) Her estimations came surprisingly close to the real counts, except then I discovered that for two of the jars she had written down more than one estimation answer! Ah well. I don't really care, it didn't make a difference at all in the learning that took place. And she came away from the activity with the feeling that math is FUN and practical. Exactly what I wanted.

If anyone out there is interested in attending the next seminar, I found out they will be holding another one August 8-12, 2011. Information will be posted on www.heartofthematteronline.com The conference I attended was a shorter one, three days with three speakers a day. Tickets for it were $14.95, so I am assuming the ticket price for the August seminar may be more since it is a longer conference, and they are going to have fifteen speakers instead of nine. But whatever it is, I can honestly say I think it will be inspiring and you will be blessed by attending. If you cannot catch all of the seminars at the time they are going on live, they are all recorded and included in the price of your seminar ticket you will get mp3 files of each so you can listen to them later when it is a good time for you. If you can listen in live, though, it was really neat because up on the screen next to the speaker's power point slides there was a chat box, and you could see different comments that other seminar attendees were saying, as well as type in your own comments. I learned about some really great educational web sites from the other homeschool moms who were also listening in! And at the end of each talk, there was also a question/answer time, so if you had any specific questions that you wanted to ask the speaker you had a chance to. Those little parts you would miss if you were only getting the mp3 files later.

Oh, and I almost forgot! You can also purchase mp3 files for seminars later, even if you didn't buy a ticket and attend the seminar at the time it happened. So if anyone wanted to purchase files and listen to the Winter seminar I just attended, for instance, you could--though I have no idea what price they would charge for the files in that case. I'm sure it's on their web site, and honest--I'm not connected with this business in ANY way, other than that I just attended their Winter seminar! So all my enthusiasm is purely from my own positive experience as a seminar attendee.

Now. Go out there and find some Living Math for your homeschool students! :) And have fun!