Imagine That! They're Asking You to Do Math!

Sometimes a conversation will occur during the course of a homeschool morning that just makes me laugh. If you could eavesdrop on some of the conversations at our house, I have a feeling you'd chuckle too, though some of these conversations are not the kind you'll find in magazine articles about the joy of teaching and learning.

Because let's face it -- real kids and real teachers sometimes get cranky. They get bored. They get frustrated. They miss the point. Real learning, and real teaching, is full of ups and downs and moments that look anything but graceful. And sometimes they're just downright funny.

Take today's math lesson. The sweet girl has been swimming in the land of fractions for a few weeks now. Although we've moved on to ratios, fractions still loom everywhere, and today the book had the audacity to present not one, not two, but three sections of dividing fractions.

Now...the sweet girl is good at dividing fractions. She totally gets the concept, and she does them well. But frankly, she's bored. Now sometimes when a student is bored, it's OK to say "go ahead, skip that, and go on to something else." But she's been struggling a good bit lately with keeping a good attitude and persevering on things she doesn't really feel like doing, and today I decided to die on that hill. So I told her she needed to soldier through.

"But I know how to do these," she said (okay, whined might be more accurate). "They're easy and I know how to do them and I don't want to do..." she paused and counted..."26 dividing fraction problems."

"Well," I encouraged, "break them up. Do one section and then go on to something else. Then come back and do another section."

Often this works. She's found it a helpful strategy in the past, to break up doing several sections in a row of the same thing. Today she sighed. "But the only other section left is the one on equations," she said in a aggrieved voice. "You know I don't enjoy equations. Especially when I have to check them. Checking them is such a pain because if I don't know for sure that it's right, then I actually have to go back over and do the math to figure out if they're correct."

I was in the kitchen cutting up veggies for the crockpot when she said this, and for some reason, it totally tickled my funny bone. Although I try hard not to give into sarcasm very often (knowing how much it bothers my daughter) a snarky little elf seemed to be giggling right next to me. Without thinking I said, "Imagine that! Having to do math in a math lesson! What could they have been thinking?" As the snarky elf continued to giggle madly, I added, "I mean, you might think they could have come up with something a little more creative! They could have asked you to do science...or yoga...or cooking. But no, they asked you to do math!"

Lest you think the snark elf masquerading as mom went too far, I am pleased to report that I suddenly heard snickering from the dining room. Once the giggles subsided, she did the rest of the math with nary a complaint. OK, maybe one or two small ones.

Early Elementary Math Resources

One of my homeschooling inspirations is the memory of the many things my Dad taught me at home when I was a preschooler. My father (who turned 77 yesterday, happy birthday!) could almost always make learning fun. When I was about four or five, he kept a blue notebook (we simply called it the blue book) where he and I did fun things together: simple math problems, writing poetry, learning the color wheel and how to mix paint colors. I loved that book!

I've tried to tap into his "learning is fun" approach when it comes to teaching math to the sweet girl. Kindergarten math went well, but we both struggled a little (as teacher and learner) in the first grade year. I think it's a combination of things: my own lack of confidence that I can teach this subject as well as history and language arts, and the fact that my daughter's skills in math feel very different than mine. While I loved lower math, especially addition and subtraction (partly thanks to the games Dad taught me) and struggled with other, more complex spatial ideas (like fractions) the sweet girl is almost exactly the opposite. Her grasp of fractions, for instance, was better at the age of four than mine was in second grade. She also enjoys learning concepts like place value.

But she's balked at learning math facts, and it doesn't help that I've second-guessed myself many a time about having blended (or moved too quickly) from manipulative to mental/abstract phases. (We use Horizons curriculum, which tends to present certain concepts and keep on reviewing them even as they present new concepts.) She actually adds and subtracts quite well, but she's not memorized many facts (much beyond 10). She can get anxious with double-digit work and carrying, a concept we just began toward the end of first grade year. And she went through a phase in spring where she decided she really didn't like working with flash cards, which just about drove this mama bear crazy. I've never been able to invest in those cool, expensive math manipulative sets (we use decorative stones from Wal-Mart's floral arranging section for counters!) but I did invest in two excellent sets of addition/subtraction flash cards from "Math in a Flash."

Watching her set up mental blocks for herself can be frustrating, especially when I know she has it in her to do the work easily. I know that both because she's bright, and because on days when everything seems to be "clicking" she can glide smoothly and easily through problems that stump her on other days. Playing math games, encouraging number play/work in every day situations, and trying to find new ways to work on memorizing facts are all part of my current plans (in a more relaxed way this summer, but stepping up the pace as we move toward fall).

With all this in mind, I've been delighted to find some terrific free online resources/helps. Here are some of my favorite early elementary math resources at the moment:

Dr. Mike's Math Games for Kids. The link is set to his page of games for first graders, but he covers bases for kids older and younger than that as well. Lots of game ideas and printable charts and worksheets.

Open Wide, Look Inside, a blog self-described as a blog about teaching elementary math, science and socials studies, with heavy emphasis on the integration of children’s literature across the curriculum. The link is set to my current favorite destination on the blog, a list of addition/subtraction resources for second graders, but you'll find all sorts of useful things for other grade levels if you poke around.

Ten Frame, one of the games we found through the Open Wide post just mentioned. It's a simple but fun computer game where children can do all sorts of things involving a frame of ten squares (two rows of five) and colored circles (filling the squares with the correct number of circles, adding circles in two frame sets, noting how many frames are empty in a given set, etc.) Cute graphics and sounds. Though this one is mostly pretty easy for her skill set, the sweet girl likes it, and I like that she can review basic concepts in such a painless way.

If your child can't get enough of worksheets, check out the Math Worksheet Site which lets you generate different types of worksheets depending on what skills you want to emphasize.

Besides these online resources, I also highly recommend Ruth Beechick's The Three R's, which combines her old title "A Home Start in Reading," "A Strong Start in Language," and "An Easy Start in Arithmetic." Sometimes I just need to go back and re-read portions of her basic but usually very solid guidance on teaching young learners in a natural way.

And we love Mathtacular, the DVD series produced by Sonlight. We used the first one last year. They call it "unbelievably understandable math." Justin, the young man who presents the concepts, is enthusiastic and engaging, and I love that my daughter gets another "teacher" at least once a week.

So Much Math, So Little Time

The sweet girl was finishing up her math lesson today when she suddenly said, oh so sagely, "It's impressive how many kinds of math there are. You can do math with almost anything as long as you have more than one!"

And then a few minutes later: "Actually you can do math even when you only have one. Look..." (holding out one colored pencil) "here's one pencil. Take it away and you have none!"