Let me get this off my chest: I am really not happy with any one math curriculum. There. I said it. I've been exposed to MANY math curricula over the years, and not one of them makes me sigh contently. With that being said, our choice of math this year was based on the professional advice of a neurodevelopmentalist in the Atlanta area. By degree, she is an engineer and has a high view of math. By profession, she specializes in training brains. So, after debating many math choices, I decided to go with her recommendation. For elementary, she recommends Spectrum Math. These are very straight-forward math books that show some promise. A bonus is that they are inexpensive.
The neurodevelopmentalist recommended a certain method of teaching new concepts in a way that the brain can learn easily. She said for the teacher/parent to do 2 math problems so that the child can see how it's done. Then allow the child to do 3 math problems on their own. If they do them correctly, then lesson done. Keep it short (which keeps in step with Charlotte Mason's brilliant idea of short lessons). It is not necessary to do all 600 problems on the page. If the child does not understand, simply do 2 more problems and then let the child try again. This seems almost too simple, but if a woman who has been specializing in brain training for 25 years says it works, I'll go with it. So far, so good. Lots of success...and no whining children. I'll let you know at the end of the school year if I've finally found a math curriculum to smile about.
For high school students, the neurodevelopmentalist recommended the Keys To series, which does seem to be a good approach for the brain to process algebra and geometry. Our high school student is very right-brain dominant...incredibly gifted in the arts...and with not the least bit of love for math (just like her Mama). So, even the Keys To series needed a boost. We threw in some Painless Algebra this year. Not sure how painless it really is, but let's just say that we are praying and plodding our way through algebra.
So, how do we do math in an organic learning style? Well, for us, we always include math in our daily life. We are always cooking and baking, so we are always measuring, converting fractions, doubling recipes, etc. And math really does come up often in the course of daily happenings or in things we read. For example, the other day we were reading about the number of pilgrims who survived the first rough winter, and one of the children figured out how many had died, based on knowing how many pilgrims began the voyage in the first place. This is higher-level thinking, as it is applying math in order to solve something they want to know, rather than simply what a random math problem asks them to figure out. To me, this is the goal...that they can APPLY what they learn in math to real world situations...that they know HOW to think on their own.
I've heard of many unschoolers who don't open math books but rather learn math in life, and I applaud them. I've heard of many who go on to higher maths, naturally intrigued by math. If this interests you, you can simply google unschooling math and do quite a bit of reading. But after reading much information about it, I decided to keep math books in our lives but to have a relaxed relationship with them. In other words, we do use math books, but we also have many other avenues of learning math in very fun ways.
Here are our math shelves... Math takes many forms, and games are a GREAT way to learn math. Have you ever been the banker in Monopoly? Now that's a way to do math for HOURS! All the games on the math shelves are fun, so these are inviting and aren't seen as "work."
Here's one of my personal favorite games: Color Connection Maze made by Discovery Toys. I've actually had this game for 17 years, and it's still working perfectly and still one of the favorites. I cannot seem to locate it on DT's website, so I'm wondering if they no longer make it! UGH, too bad...it's just the best ever.
The goal is to get the little balls into their respective color slots below. You can do this by colors (i.e. to get the pink ball into its slot, you need to choose the red and the white switches on the left side...red + white equals pink) OR you can do this by numbers (the pink ball needs to go into the pink slot below, which has the number 9...so the child can choose the 8 and the 1 switches on the left in order to add up to 9). After the switches are chosen, they hit the play button and watch to see if the ball rolls correctly through the maze and then drops into the correct slot. It's a GREAT way to do addition. Keep in mind that this is FUN, not "work."
You can up the difficulty level by covering up the maze so that they aren't tempted to trace the path with their fingers but rather figure it out mathematically. You can also up the difficulty level by setting the timer so that they finish the maze within a set period of time.
Here we see that the brown ball is the next one that needs to be placed into its correct slot. Looking down at the brown slot below, we can see that brown has the #14. To get 14, we need to choose the switches that are labeled 8, 4, 2, which add together to get 14.
Then, he hits the play button to see if the brown ball falls into the correct slot. And yay, it did! There is immediate reward for correct answers.
Here's another math game. This one is the Multiplication Master, and it is a timed game to see how many correct multiplication problems you can do within a certain amount of time. This is much more fun than using flashcards to practice multiplication tables. You can also try to beat your high score, so there's always a competitive aspect. I found this math game at Toys R Us some months ago.
This is not what I would call a "fun game," but it is definitely a much more interesting way to do some basic math sentences. This can take the place of boring columns of math problems that test basic skills.
This game is made by Discovery Toys. It covers a range of skills for younger children...matching colors, matching shapes of bugs, adding, completing patterns, etc.
If this one looks simple, think again!
When I pull out these games, I do not announce that we are going to be "doing math." I simply pull it out as a fun game. Sometimes I will pull out the quieter of these games for one child to do while I read aloud that day. Sometimes I pull them out for one child to do while another child helps me make dinner. These are FUN (not work!), and I keep it that way. But, while they are having fun, I also know that they are learning math concepts.
Blokus is a game that is fun for everyone to join in. We have both the travel size game for 2 people and this full-size game for 4 people. (Sorry for the photo with a mind of its own that will not turn on its side no matter what I try!) We pull this game out, and the whole family enjoys it. Our littlest, who is not developmentally ready for this game, also sits with us and helps me organize my game pieces (which are bright and shiny and very fun to play with).
Also on the math shelves are fun math books. These put math in story form and make a concept come across in the course of short stories with characters. The ones I have for the younger children are Math Start.
One day last week, instead of working in the math book with addition problems, I pulled out this book and read it to one of my children (and all of them listened in). This particular book was about counting the number of shoppers who walked into the mall and awarding the 100th shopper with some silly gifts. The children had to add groups of people and then add them all up to see when they reached 100.
And the books I have for the upper elementary ages are the Sir Cumference books, which are raved about. These are located on the math shelf and are picked up when someone has an interest. I often don't know they are even using these until a child will come tell me what a good book they just read about Sir Cumference. The math concepts in these books are great. I could also choose to pull out one of these books after one of the children has covered a certain concept in his textbook...to simply solidify the concept in a fun way. But, so far, D has picked these books up on his own in his free time because they are enjoyable. Again, it's fun, not work...so the concepts are learned almost effortlessly...AND in context...so they mean something.
And there's a good activity book that goes along with the Sir Cumference books. Interesting activities can be done in conjunction with the books that are read so that the child can try his hand at the math concept that was presented in the adventure they just read.
This is another book we sometimes use: Math Perplexors. It contains perplexing stories that require students to use deductive reasoning to figure them out. These are definitely challenging and use higher-level thinking skills. Great to add in every once in awhile for a challenge. If they did these every day, it would probably be frustrating (especially to those children who are not in love with math). But done once a week or a couple of times a month is a nice change in pace to challenge them to figure out the math "mystery" in the story. I like these perplexors.
Okay, let's talk organic math for special needs children. G is very much an organic learner. No canned lessons for this one. So today she asked me if I could do these certain flash cards with her. They were up in a cabinet, and she requested them. I'm not normally a fan of flash cards, but since this child loves these particular ones (as in, she claps and says ooooooh when I pull them out!), we dive in.
Today we chose to do the shape and color cards. I like them because they repeat. I've laid out the black and blue cards to show you what I mean. There are many other colors too, so we just keep repeating. She says, "Black circle" and then moves on to the next card and says, "Diamond," then "Oval," etc. When we switch to another color, she says, "Blue Circle," and so on. She does these well. She does hang up in a few places. For example, she confuses rectangle and square. And she struggles greatly with saying "Square," which has that difficult consonant blend (though I will say that I was thrilled when her very last time of saying "square" was verrrry close!!). As far as shapes and colors, she's golden and was most thrilled with herself today. (Again, sorry...photo doesn't like to rotate in Blogger for some reason)
To recap... Learning math organically can happen with or without textbooks. We choose to incorporate the textbooks that were recommended for building brains, but we don't use those exclusively nor do we complete every math problem on every page. We supplement in many math games, fun math books and real life math as often as we can. Any math concept that we can illustrate in real life, we do that in preference to textbooks. We are relaxed with math as with other "subjects." If one of my children has been working in his math book for a few days but then wants to take a break, he will pull out a math game. Or sometimes I will look at his math problems for the day and realize that we have a game that covers that same concept, so I will suggest that he pull out the game instead (though ultimately I leave the choice to him). Sometimes a child will be so intrigued with his math lessons that he CHOOSES to do 3 lessons that day instead of 1. I am supportive of this too. Organic learning has wonderful freedom within boundaries.
In the high school years, we relax math by allowing our daughter to choose when she does her math. She knows she needs to complete her algebra in order to receive credit for it, but we don't keep her on a tight all-day schedule with a block of time set aside for math. We tried that last year, and we all hated it. So, we relaxed her schedule, and she responds much better and is more productive being in charge of her own hours and lessons. I will go into this in more detail when I blog about organic learning in high school (which some of you have asked about).
