Wow! I received LOTS of feedback and suggestions for “E” words on my Facebook page. Thanks, y’all rock! (If you need ideas that’s the place to look!)

I try to pick a word that’s very relevant to the way we do school, or at least to where we are at that point in time. Today I chose “Extra Math Practice.”

There are a handful of common concerns among homeschooling moms, regardless of their methods and goals. One of those, almost universally, is math.

Math (and grammar/writing) is so fundamentally important, can be difficult to grasp, is often greatly affected by learning style and interest, and one of the biggest things homeschoolers will be judged on. It’s true. Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a friend or relative tell you they were concerned that “Little Johnny” couldn’t do math in his head fast enough or that “Susie” was still trying to count on her fingers? Or, raise your hand if you’ve ever suffered thoughts like these:

“Am I teaching it well enough?”

“Do they understand it well enough?”

“Are they fast enough? Proficient enough? Correct enough? Strong enough?”

“Are they ‘behind?’ Do they need more work?”

Yes. Many of us homeschool moms do allow these fretful thoughts to take over on occasion. I try not to fret too much and just stay suitably aware instead. Being concerned about these things is not a sign of weakness or insufficiency (well, there’s something to be said for OVER worrying or caring what others think…) but instead it’s a sign of a present and concerned mother who wants the best for her kids.

Believe it or not, it can be hard to express concern sometimes,.. afraid that naysayers will take the opportunity to accuse a homeschool mom of slacking off or failing. It is OK to say, “You know, I think my kids may need some extra math practice, to brush up on their skills and gain some proficiency.” All kids don’t grasp all concepts at the same pace. ALL kids CAN benefit from some extra math practice, I’m just sayin.

All that said,.. we’re at that point now.

Right-brained, artistic, visual, Princess has always struggled a little with memorizing math facts. She has NEVER been great at doing math in her head quickly. As we’ve worked with her I’ve seen great improvements with her memory recall and even some improvement with her mental math speed. Though to be honest, I don’t care about her mental math speed. She’ll get it, it just takes longer. If you want the answer faster hand her a pencil and piece of paper. She’s VISUAL. It’s how she’s made. But as she’s getting ready to embark on Pre-Algebra, the time has come to make sure that she’s prepared and that her math facts are strong and her memory recall is good.

Talkative, energetic, short-attention-span, Drama Queen is at that 2nd/3rd grade pivotal point where they’ve just gotten the hang of addition and subtraction and now you’re adding multiplication into the mix and there’s so much going on at one time. Her math curriculum in particular takes a spiraling approach and is a bit challenging. For some reason Drama Queen has been resisting memorizing skip counting, number patterns and times tables. (Say what? She’s auditory and talkative! What’s up?) She’s been relying on adding in her head. And since she can, and she’s faster at that that Princess, she can fool you for a while… until you get to those bigger numbers. And then “Aha!” Houston, we have a problem. We definitely need to make sure that she’s remembering how to skip count and learning how to recognize and remember math facts without adding them in her head!

Boisterous, class clown, hands on, Little Prince is learning how to add. The little stinker has been doing it without my permission. He somehow learned how to count to 100 when I wasn’t looking, too. But with Little Prince I see an opportunity. And an admonition. I have an opportunity to give him good math facts habits from an early age. As he observes his older sisters practicing and participates with us, he can get pick up some good habits. But I also need to be careful that his seeming affinity for math doesn’t throw me off and I don’t let him slide by too unchallenged. If math is something he’s good at and interested in then I need to make sure his brain is getting the challenge and excitement it needs. He’s only 5, soon to be 6, I’m not talking about pulling out Algebra. But if he’s ready to do “big kid” adding and subtracting there’s no reason he can’t!

So I knew going into this school year that math was something that I wanted to provide a little extra practice for regularly. How do I do that?

Here’s a few of our favorite resources, and a few new ones that we’re really loving.

~ Family Math – math games for the whole family. The 5 year old gets in on this, too. We’ve done a few of them.

~ Kumon workbooks (we have Multiplication One and Two for the girls. I have them in sheet protectors for use with dry erase markers.)

~  Timez Attack – we have the full version. I’m planning on buying the Divison version soon. AND.. they’ll be coming out with Addition and Subtraction versions very soon! The 5 year old TRIES to do this, I let him play at it til he gets frustrated. An addition version for him would AWESOME.

~ Math Wrap Ups – We just got these! Love these! The 5 year old is learning/practicing with the addition set. The 8 year old is doing everything but division and the 11 year old is practicing all of them.

~ Khan Academy – has been helpful for Princess a few times, watching them go through and explain things differently than I do. ; )

~ Right Brain Math –  Hubby bought this for Princess,… we only just started using it, but it really does demonstrate the visual patterns of multiplication and Princess seems to like that. I’ll keep you posted.

~ Math Missions CD-Rom, Grades 3-5 – Racing to save Spectacle City, kids practice “real world math,” using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, weights and measurements, time,… it’s got everything, the kids love it, and I’m just heartbroken that ours is too old to work with the computer we have this year. I NEED to replace this!  I was wrong! This is one of the few cd-roms that actually still works! Drama Queen proved me wrong and popped it in yesterday. Check her “celebrating” getting an answer right by spinning the chair around and waiving #1 fingers in the air. Yes, she’s dressed like an Indian. Tiger Lily to be exact. (P.S… while I was looking on Amazon I saw there’s a K-2nd version. Ooh! I want it!)

I’m also hoping to purchase Times Tales and the DVD at some point this year… I hear good things about it and I like to hit all of the learning style bases. =)

What do you use for a little bit of extra math practice? How do you fit it in and make it fun, too?

This is a part of the ABC’s of Homeschooling series hosted by Dawn @ The Momma Knows. You can find all of my previous ABC posts here.

Yes, there’s more!! I’ve already shared a list of books for Geography and History… and now I’m going to share a list of books for MATH! Yes, Math!!

Some of these would be make excellent permanent additions to your homeschool library. Others would be perfect for borrowing from your local library. In fact, we’re off to the library today and hoping to find some of the “Math Adventure” books for Princess.

One Cent, Two Cents, Old Cent, New Cent: All About Money (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library)

The Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Math: Internet Referenced (Illustrated Dictionaries)

Usborne Illustrated Elementary Math Dictionary (Illustrated Dictionaries)

What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? (A Math Adventure)

Multiplying Menace: The Revenge Of Rumpelstiltskin (A Math Adventure)

Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi (A Math Adventure)

Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter (Math Adventures)

Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland (A Math Adventure)

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table (A Math Adventure)

Full House: An Invitation to Fractions

The Everything Kids’ Money Book: Earn it, save it, and watch it grow! (Everything Kids Series)

Me Counting Time: From Seconds to Centuries

Clockwise: A Time-Telling Tale

Millions to Measure

Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry

Pythagoras and the Ratios: A Math Adventure

A Place for Zero: A Math Adventure

Inchworm and A Half

Do you have any books you would add to this list?

To keep the multiplying and dividing processes straight.

Sorry – I couldn’t resist a little extra rhyming there. Apparently, I’m in rhyme mode. But it was necessary to save our sanity during math time. I promise.

Princess has recently learned how to divide fractions. Before that, of course, she learned how to multiply them, and she was doing just fine. In fact, she’s never really had a fraction-related problem AT ALL. That is, until we introduced– DUH, DUH, DUHHH… DIVISION.

Suddenly everything went out the window. Her frustration (and mine) was mounting as she no longer was certain when to flip, when not to flip, WHICH ONE to flip… it was mass confusion.

In case you’ve not quite reached that point with your child and you need a refresher course, for I’m not sure I would  have remembered if I hadn’t read the lesson first, when multiplying fractions you multiply numerators and then multiply denominators and then you simplify/reduce. When dividing fractions, first you “flip” the divisor (the one you are dividing BY:  1/4 divided BY 2/3) and then you multiply like before. (1/4  /  2/3  = 1/4  X  3/2  =  3/8.)

Poor Princess. She couldn’t keep it straight. And it only got worse when you added “multiplying and dividing a fraction and a whole number” and “multiplying and dividing mixed fractions.”

Oh the Fraction Blues.

So tonight, as I mentioned, we made a rhyme. And I’m really hoping that it will help, that she can recite it to herself when she’s doubting what to do. Here it goes:

Multiplying fractions

Is as easy as pie.

Multiply each straight across

And then simplify.

Dividing gets a bit tricky,

There’s an extra step to take.

First flip the one you’re dividing BY

And the rest’s a piece of cake.

The only that I’m not completely satisfied with is that the rhyme doesn’t SAY to multiply across after you flip — but she’s got that part down. This rhyme will help her remember that there is no flipping while multiplying and which one to flip while dividing. Whatcha think? Think it will help? *fingers crossed*

Do you have any fancy rhymes or tricks that you teach your kids?

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by TheCulinaryGeek

Last year Princess used Switched on Schoolhouse for 5th grade. We used it because it was passed on to us, it’s what we had, and we wanted to try it out. We had high hopes for it, really.

Princess began the year using all the S.O.S. subjects except for math, because she wasn’t yet ready for it. Instead, she began the year with a Saxon 5/4 book (also free and given to us.) She had used Saxon for two years, so math that year was pretty much like math every other year. I gave her about 5 minutes of instruction introducing the new concept and having her work out a few examples. Then I set her about her lesson and suddenly e v e r y t h i n g s l o w e d d o w n…

Princess had the most amazing knack for dragging out a lesson as long as possible. I had already identified that (like her Daddy and her uncle when they were younger) she was bored with it. I had already adjusted for that by skipping easy lessons she already knew, combining two simple lessons into one short lecture and having her do the problem set for the 2nd, and having her to only half the problems. Still, she tortuously dragged herself through each lesson.

I feel the need to clarify that even though we combined lessons together and only had her do half the problems, she really did understand the material. That’s never been a problem for her. If you asked her how to do this or that, she would tell you. But once you put the lesson in front of her, she began to get mixed up. She repeatedly added when she was supposed to subtract and all sorts of things. She would overall pass each assignment but not without a handful of silly mistakes. So it’s not like she couldn’t do it, it’s more like she wasn’t fluent with it. And just scraping by isn’t good enough for me; if she’s not quite there 100%, I want to help her get there.

It was when I was researching math options for Drama Queen that I learned/realized that Saxon math simply may not be structured the same way her right brain thinks. She may be able to muddle her way through it, but there may be options out there that she responds to better. It was at that point that I looked at the SOS math that we already had, saw how the material was grouped with only two or three concepts in each unit, saw that the material began at the same point that she was at in the Saxon 5/4 book and realized that she could transition from one to the other without missing any material at all. So we took the leap and we did it!

I will say this: as far as the organization of the material goes, Switched on Schoolhouse was better for Princess than the Saxon 5/4. That much is true. On the other hand, one of the big bonuses of SOS is supposed to be the student independence, as they read the lessons on their own. For Princess, this is less of a bonus and more of a con. Though she was able to handle that for the other subjects, reading her math lesson would really weigh her down. By the time she got to math problems she was already checking out mentally. I did try to be more involved so she didn’t have to be so independent with it, but I finally got to the point where I thought, “this is really not the best way to be doing math; it doesn’t have to be like this.”

Math is non-negotiable. It must be done. But it does not have to be sheer torture, I’m sure of it.

I began to remember Teaching Textbooks. I’d looked over their curriculum before. Several times. But then we used Saxon because we had it and it was free. And then we used SOS because we had it and it was free. But I keep coming back to Teaching Textbooks. I’m drawn to it!

Another computer-based curriculum, Princess and I have done several of the demo lessons online and we both like it. The lecture is animated, with both audio and video instruction, which will definitely appeal to Princess’ learning style. (Though, truly, having both I think it will appeal to any learning style.) As an added bonus the lectures are short, about five minutes or so, but thorough not lacking. And if that weren’t enough the lecture also involves student feedback, asking questions for the student to answer, having them try a practice problem.. the same way a teacher would. It’s like having a tutor sit in front of your child rather than a textbook. The lessons weren’t too long either. Most of the lessons in the demonstrations had less than 20 math problems. And last but not least, I’ve looked over the table of contents and the way the material is organized also seems to be more like SOS with an entire chapter covering concepts that go together. You can also order a physical workbook (which we did, for all the reasons they listed on their website.)

Teaching Textbooks really seems like the answer to our math problem. (Snicker at the pun.) I’ve talked to a lot of homeschool moms who use it and it comes very highly recommended. It’s expensive (the most I’ve ever spent on one subject for one grade!!) but we’ll be able to reuse it with subsequent children–which we should be able to do with no problem since it accommodates a wide range of learning styles. For Princess, the lecture style and lesson style both seem ideal for her so she should actually be able to do this *truly* independently. And that’s an added bonus for her because that’s an area that she needs to grow in, not to mention that I need her to do some things independently while I teach her younger siblings!

Our Teaching Textbooks are scheduled to arrive later today. (I don’t know about Princess but I’m excited.) I’m looking forward to giving it a go, and really hoping that this makes a big difference in our school day as far as math is concerned. After we’ve gotten our feet wet with it, I’ll check back in and let you know how it’s going… we’re committing to seeing this through to the very last lesson. Looking ahead, I’m really hoping we love it because they offer curriculum all the way through Pre-Calculus — and a program of this nature is definitely going to come in handy with higher math!

I KNOW how some of you feel about flash cards.. I can *see* your reason, but I’ve never really *gotten* it. Perhaps.. it’s because flash cards appeal to my learning style.

We’ve used flash cards before but they’ve been a tool that we’ve used for a little here and there. I’ve have never been very strict or diligent about them. They’ve been a tool, not a regimen.

I’ve been even less strict with verbal recitations. You know, like reciting times tables and such. Perhaps because those DON’T appeal to my learning style at all. (I find it incredibly boring, and a big bother in my day to have to go through reciting the entire chart of facts with my children.)

However. (There’s always a however.) Perhaps… If we had been more strict with one or the other (whichever is more appealing to the learning style of the child in question) math facts would come a little bit easier for the girls. They can do them. They know them. But they have to think about them, and sometimes count on their fingers. It doesn’t come easy. And I want it to be EASY for them. I want the girls to be like their Daddy, who has the fastest score on Nintendo Brain Age for computations. He’s unbeatable! I mean.. GOOD GRIEF he’s fast at rattling off those answers! My brain, she is not so fast.

Unfortunately for Princess, she is more like me than her Daddy when it comes to math. She’s right-brained, artistic, visual.. and math is doable but not easy. After doing a little bit of research online yesterday, I landed on this article at the HSLDA website about “Right Brain Math.”

Check out these quotes:

Left brain dominant children learn their math facts easily by repeating them orally, practicing them in timed tests, and working with flash cards. This is the sequential way that works for the left brain, auditory learner. The right brain dominant child, however, likes and often requires a different approach both to memorizing facts, and performing calculation procedures.

Left brain: Orally. Right brain: Other methods. CHECK!

When first- and second-graders learn how to add and subtract, they are frequently given manipulatives to aid them in understanding the concepts. Frequently, however, manipulatives are used longer than necessary and become a crutch, so that rapid calculation is unobtainable. Fingers replace the manipulatives, and continue to slow down the process of quick adding and subtracting.

Manipulatives, fingers, crutch, slow down the process. CHECK!

To learn the number facts using flashcards, since the right brain child learns best when he sees the “whole picture,” put the answer on the front of the flashcard, preferably in color. Then have him look up at it, just as he does to learn his spelling words. With the answer on the front, (which left-brainers tend to think of as cheating), the child learns to see the problem with the answer, so that when just the problem is presented, in his mind’s eye he can still see the answer, usually in the color you originally had it.

Love this idea!!

So now we come to “The Biggest Flash Card Deck Ever!” (Echo on “ever, ever, ever…”)

Inspired by this article, using what materials I had on hand, and tweaking the idea a little bit, I sat down to make the most complete flash card deck for my right-brained, visual learner child.

Using a stack of note cards, a red crayon and a black crayon, I started with multiplying by zero and went all the way through multiplying by 12. The front of the card has the equation in black, with a blank line where the answer belongs, and the back has the full equation with the answer in red. Do the math on that– 13 times 13 is ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY NINE FLASHCARDS!! Double-sided! Princess and I were joking about it later, “Yes,.. with one mega stack of flash cards and only HOURS a day, you too can master multiplication!” ;0)

So how does she use them?

1. She uses them herself. I listen in, but she’s ten, so she’s completely independent on this.
2. She starts with the unanswered side facing toward her, reads the problem out loud and says the answer. Then she flips it over and reads the equation out loud WITH the answer. This time she gets the visual input, with the added benefit of having the answer to stand out in red.
3. If she can’t answer the blank side, gets it wrong, or hesitates too long (I want her to get strong enough in math to be able to answer within 2 -3 seconds) then she adds the card to the back of the stack to do again. If she gets it right and answers quickly, she sets it aside.
4. The math facts that she doesn’t know as well will get more practice, because she’ll keep practicing them until she gets it right quickly enough and can set it aside.
5. By having EVERY sum from the multiplication chart (both “4 x 6 = 24″ and “6 x 4 = 24″) she will have mental pictures for both variations, rather than having to flip it in her head, hopefully making it easier and faster for her.
6. We’ll be reviewing these every day until she can quickly answer all of them (we may break it up into 2 or 3 sessions. Yesterday she did it all in one, today she did it in two.) Once she masters the entire set, we will do small portions each day or review the entire stack once or twice a week for maintenance. Once she’s mastered multiplication, we’ll need to make a set for division so she can *see* those, too.

This sounds like a lot of work. Well, it IS a lot of work. But it’s a lot MORE work trying to do long and short division with weak math facts LET ME ASSURE YOU. Princess is on board (even though the stack of cards is a little daunting) because she sees the benefit in the long run. The article on HSLDA also talks about using the Touch Method, triangle families, and word picture stories to help a visual child.

Bonus Points! When I read the paragraph about the Touch Method I thought, “Yes! Yes! That’s exactly what I was talking about!” Just a week or two ago I was explaining Big Daddy how I *see* math in my head – that when he SAYS “7 X 9″, I SEE “7 X 9 = 63″ in my mind’s eye. He looked at me like I was crazy, or had two heads. Then I told him about being young and counting dots on the numbers. “DOTS ON THE NUMBERS?” Then he really thought I was crazy. He thought I made it up. “Probably some crazy thing you just started doing, not something somebody taught you,” he said. See – Big Daddy is the left brain, auditory learner. He has NO CLUE what I’m talking about. It might as well be Greek!

Princess is definitely NOT an auditory learner. One of the things I’m trying to do in school this year is make adjustments for learning styles and teach the kids how they learn, how to learn things for themselves in ways that match their learning styles. It just makes sense to do more research on teaching math to visual learners. You’d THINK that math would come easily to visual learners, since it consists mainly of visual numbers on a visual page waiting to be visually completed. Unfortunately, the traditional approach to teaching math facts is largely oral. What I need to do for Princess is make sure that she gets the visual instruction and support that she needs.

Now Drama Queen on the other hand…. I think she might NEED to recite those addition tables over and over. I need to some research for her!!

You know what “they” say about first impressions…

We got our 2nd grade Horizons math book in the mail! I immediately opened it and started looking through it. I’m very excited to start using it. Drama Queen still has a little bit left in her 1st grade workbook left so we’ll finish that up first. She and I both are eager to use up the rest of that workbook as quick as possible!

Having flipped through it but not using it yet, these are the things that I like it about it so far:

1.) Having a good teacher book is always a plus.

• This teacher book has easy and detailed lesson instruction for each section of each lesson.
• It lists any extra materials you may need so that you can see it at a glance.
• It also includes a section of reproducible worksheets at the back and lists which lessons those will be used with.
• Another thing the teacher book includes is a readiness evaluation at the beginning of the book. That makes me feel comfortable, knowing that when Drama Queen is finished with her 1st grade book we can use the evaluation to make sure she’s ready to move on.

2.) The 2 student workbooks are colorful and well laid out.

• Each lesson has 4 or 5 different sections to it, each working a different concept.
• There is a chart in the teacher book that shows when new concepts are presented and how many lessons they cover, when they reoccur and how they overlap.
• Each concept is worked for 5 lessons in a row when it is introduced, and each time it reoccurs it is worked for at least 3 lessons in a row
• In short, the approach seems very thorough, spending an adequate amount of time on a new concept and revisiting the concept later with good regularity.

3.) There is a certain amount of flexibility.

• The lesson plans intend for you to sit down with your child and give some instruction before each section of each lesson, let them work the section, instruct for the next section, and so on.
• Since each lesson will at the most include one new concept or add one “new” revisited concept at a time, you could choose to give instruction for the newest concept, a quick review of the concepts you’ve been working on, and then let the child to complete the entire lesson on their own.
• The first thing my daughter asked me was, “Can I do as many pages as I want at a time?” Looking at the book right off the bat, I wasn’t sure. But after seeing how the concepts re-occur, it looks like it would be easy to let her do several lessons in a row that cover the same set of concepts.
• Also, each section does have a short instruction sentence that Drama Queen will be able to read by herself, and that’s a good thing.

I’m really expecting to get a lot of out of this curriculum. I hope I’m not setting myself up for disappointment but after all the recommendations I received for it, I don’t think that will be the case. I’m really looking forward to it!