Magic Math Machine

A while ago my sister introduced me to the book Mr. Base Ten Invents Mathematics.  My boys loved it because it was a very concrete method of introducing the concepts of multiplication, division and subtraction that even younger kids could understand. The boys and I have been slowly learning the multiplication table. I made a Magic Math Machine to make doing flashcards a lot more fun. 

 

Start with a box and cut some slits. Mine are about 3 inches by 1/2 inch. 

Then I cut a piece of card stock....

...so that it fit in the box like this.

Then I creased the ends and taped them to the outside. 

On the inside it should look like this, a "rainbow". 

For a little extra support I added a card stock "wall" around my "rainbow". 

Then decorate!!! 

I made some flashcards that were long, about the same length, but skinnier, as the card stock I used for the "rainbow". If the flashcard is the same width as the hole (like the one above) you'll have problems getting it to come out the bottom. 

3x1

...and the card goes in the top...

...and the answer comes out the bottom! 

Voila, the Magic Math Machine!! 

Marker Monday - Number Easter Baskets

Tomorrow Yahoo and I go to our playgroup and tomorrow's theme is Spring and Easter. We have kids ranging from one to four years old so we try to come up with games and activities that everyone can do even if they have to get a bit of help from Mom or Dad.

Yahoo is beginning to understand the concept of counting so I came up with this activity to work on counting and number recognition.

We are big fruit cup eaters in our house so I washed up ten of them and used a hole punch to put holes on opposite sides of the cup. Twisted pipe cleaners make sturdy handles and with a number on the bottom of each we now have Number Easter Baskets.

With a handful of eggs (marbles) the kids get to be the Easter Bunny and put the right number of eggs in each basket.

Yahoo's only two and a long way from knowing her numbers but I'm sure some of the older kids will enjoy this game tomorrow.

This Easter Bunny just realized I better get on the ball, Easter is this weekend and don't have anything for the baskets. Wait...where are the Easter baskets? Yikes!!  

What are your Easter plans this year?

Homeschooling: Math with Yip and Yap - Marker Monday

Last week I explained how and why I am "homeschooling" my boys this year. As for today's post, math, we have done shapes, mazes, dot to dots but most of this past year has been spent identifying numbers between 1-20 and addition. The boys have had the most trouble differentiating the numbers 12 and 20 and have had difficulty with 13,15 wanting to call them three-teen and five-teen. We don't do flash cards; I just think it's boring. I try to do more hands on learning and for the names of our numbers we used a sticker page as seen below.

Once the boys said the correct name they put a sticker on the number. Here, the numbers 15 and 9 are covered. I think the boys liked this because it was hands on and hey, who doesn't like playing with stickers? We also used this technique to learn our letters.

I did buy a math workbook at Wal-Mart for us to work in. We do a page a day or sometimes take two days to do a page. We've already went through a kindergarten workbook and this is a 1st grade book so we are taking it a bit slow and doing other math activities along with it.


Right now we are working on adding numbers. I'll give the boys a worksheet with addition problems and then let them choose what kind of tools they want to use to solve the problems. They may want to count on their fingers or use Lego's as manipulatives. They also have a number line and this addition chart they can use too.

I don't like the idea of teaching kids there is only one way to solve a math problem. I have discovered through my GED class that every one's brain works differently so that's why I try to give the boys a lot of different tools to work with.

We have also used these bead bags quite a bit the last couple years. I have a separate bag for the numbers 1 to 10.

As you can see I've filled the bag with beads then duct taped it shut. I sure don't want those all over the floor. Then I've written the number 10 at the top. When the boys were learning to count we'd turn the bag over to hide the number, they'd count and then flip it over to check their answer.

Now that we are working on addition we are using them again. I've drawn a line down the middle of the bags and they manipulate the beads to create an addition number sentence. For example, for the bag above they would write 5+5=10. Then they would move the beads to make a new problem. No matter how the beads are moved the answer is always ten. It's been really fun to see the boys number sense grow with these.

Without meaning to, we are also learning multiplication. The boys wanted to play Yahtzee and now they play on their own a lot counting the dots to get their score. It's fun to hear them say "3 5's is 15!!"

These are just a couple of things we've done. We are just beginning subtraction and hopefully will make the bead bags work for this too, along with fingers and number lines of course:)Do you have any good methods you use to teach math? Would you mind sharing? I'm always looking for something more than just worksheets or flashcards. Years ago I substitute taught at an elementary school where the kids used their fingers and knuckles to add and subtract. Is anyone familiar with that? I've forgotten how to do it of course.

The next homeschooling post, reading, will be coming up on Whatever Wednesday. Have a great day!

I homeschool my kids...sorta

I homeschool my kids....sort of. Let me explain.

As a former public school teacher I have seen first hand the downside of public schooling. Teachers can't give individual attention to the students who need it. There are too few resources in schools. The social aspect, especially as kids get older, is distracting to learning. I had thought about homeschooling Yip and Yap and had discussed it with my husband. But he was against it. Of course, I may not have argued very convincingly.

In my heart I am a teacher and I would love to return to the classroom someday. As well as seeing the downsides of public schools I also recognize that there are many positive aspects of public schools. Teachers have experience and resources most parents don't have access to. Sometimes students will listen to their teachers before their parents. (Yes, really!) There are lots of great teachers out there and there is so much students can learn from different teaching styles and personalities.

The boys' birthday is at the end of August and the cutoff date for kindergarten here in Illinois is September 1st. Technically, we could have sent them to kindergarten. (Our school system only offers full day kindergarten by the way.) Wisely, our preschool teacher advised against sending them. They would be the very youngest in the class and they just weren't ready. They were still immature and would rather play than sit and work. Go figure? Sending them to all day kindergarten wasn't going to work...yet. We decided to hold off a year and send them back to preschool.

Over the summer I worked with them a bit here and there on their numbers and letters, things like that. But I kept having the nagging feeling that I should be doing more. They may not be ready for full day kindergarten but why should that stop them from learning the basics? So in the fall I decided I would start teaching them at home; reading, writing, math. I didn't invest in any big curriculum or drop a lot of money on educational books and supplies. The resources I've used have been mostly free from the library and the internet. So far, it has been working fairly well.

Every morning after breakfast, we have a short math lesson and then a writing lesson that lasts about 30 minutes, sometimes longer. Later in the day, usually when the baby is sleeping, the boys have one on one time with me when we work on reading. Usually we only do this for about 15 minutes each. I don't push it more than that unless we are reading something the boys are really into. Sometimes I'll tie in these lessons with books the boys have been reading or a holiday. We've made quite a lot of progress, but I'll get into that later.

The rest of the day we'll work on craft projects, do science experiments,read, play games or just play. We bombard our local library once a week and pick up anything the boys may be interested in. Pirates, trains, space, snakes, spiders, human body, where babies come from, presidents, holidays, cowboys and Indians...we've checked out lots of different books!

During the next couple weeks I'm going to have a separate post for math, reading and writing and talk a bit about what the boys and I do here at home. The first post, math, will be coming up on Monday. These posts, of course, won't cover everything that we've done over the course of the year but it will hit the highlights and some of the more successful methods we've used.

So there you go. I homeschool my kids...sort of. We plan on sending them to public school next year and I am confident that they'll do great! I don't know what the future may bring. I might return to teaching; I might not. We might move and end up in a terrible school corporation and we might think again about homeschooling. Who knows? But for now, this is what we are doing and this is what works for us.