>>Hi. I am really on board with this educational concept of not pushing kids but practically speaking, how do you do math in this way?<<

With Yirmiyahu’s surgery mostly over, we’re gradually easing into our academic routine for the year.  My kids were resistant when I mentioned math workbooks, which reminded me of the above question waiting to be answered.

Math is everywhere!  You just need to learn to recognize it.

Here’s some of what has been happening in my house in the last few days that is math related.

Yesterday, my nine year old son took out our new kitchen scale.  He experimented with how it worked, then he started weighing different things on it.  He and ds8 spent quite a while weighing different eggs and organizing them into cartons according to weight.  (Apparently the standard sized eggs aren’t as standard as we thought – the ones they weighed ranged from 18 – 20 ounces each.)  Then they switched the scale to grams and measured the eggs in grams.  This was play for them but this is one of the topics that is covered in their math workbooks.

We recently acquired a math balance – the kids had a great time playing with it and figuring out different number combinations that equaled one another.  Another topic from their workbooks.

I saw ds8 and ds9 at different times sitting out on the porch playing with our math wrap-up for multiplication.  This is a game-like way that makes practicing the times tables fun and easy.

We have a card game of math war (addition and subtraction) – each card is a math question, and ds6 and ds8 play this together for fun. They found it with the games and play it without prompting or suggestion from anyone.  It’s fun to watch them playing and knowing they’re practicing their math facts without even knowing it.

Last night my kids put aside a book they want me to read to them today- it’s a story about a twelve year old who learned Morse code.  Is that math?  I think it could be.

Cooking leads itself to practicing measurements and multiplying or dividing quantities, and it teaches useful life skills as well.  The younger boys made pancakes yesterday; the basic recipe is intended for small quantities and they have to figure out how much of each ingredient to put in to quadruple it so there’s enough for our family to eat!

Puzzles – recently ds8 and ds13 were doing puzzles while sitting together at the table.  Ds8 did a 200 piece puzzle while ds13 worked on a 300 piece puzzle; when they finished they decided to work together on a 1000 piece puzzle.  This is great for visual discrimination and spatial development; visual perception is an important part of the skills needed for reading, writing and math.  It’s also an opportunity to work on patience and forbearance when your three year old brother pulls your newly finished 1000 piece puzzle down to the floor.  And then they got to practice persistence, perserverance and having a good attitude when they put it all back together again – without yelling at the said younger sibling.

I’ve accumulated a lot of manipulatives and games and the kids have free access to all of these.  I feel like I recently wrote about this, but I just did a quick search and it’s been two years!  Wow, time goes quickly!  Take a look at this because it fleshes out what I’m sharing now: http://avivahwerner.com/2013/10/26/making-math-fun/.

The kids play a lot of games together – in the post that I linked to above, I shared a list of some of what we have and play.  Games are a great way to learn math skills (and other skills, too – my kids’ spelling improved lots after long sessions of Boggle and Bananagrams – they each keep their own copy of a student dictionary next to them when they play!).

When you have an awareness of topics or concepts you want your children to learn, you start to keep your eyes open for ways to include it during the days.  I often integrate questions about math or other topics in the middle of stories or conversation.  That may sound awkward but it’s really not – and there’s no rule that says talking to your kids has to be superficial and meaningless, right?

Having said that, I do use math workbooks on a regular basis.  Their appearance has been unusually delayed this year, though.  Today I told ds9 and ds13 to take out their math books and was met with a lot of resistance, but I am easing them into a routine that includes daily structured math again.  Ds8 also uses a math workbook (if you’re wondering why I didn’t ask him to get his out today, it’s because there’s only so much resistance I’m prepared to deal with in one morning!).  Until about age 7 or 8 I haven’t found any benefit for our kids in using structured texts so ds6 doesn’t yet use a workbook.  Even then I’m pretty relaxed about it.  I usually ask them to do a lesson a day but if it’s a half a lesson daily sometimes, it’s fine with me.

In case you’re wondering, I use Singapore math through elementary.  I started using this with ds22 when he was in fifth grade, and have stayed with it since then since we like it.  It uses the concrete pictorial approach, which means the explanations are picture based and I don’t need to do much explaining to them of each new concept.

Here’s a secret I’ll share with you that will make academic work much easier: when your kids feel connected to you, it’s lots easier to get them engaged in things they don’t want to do!  I almost always precede math time with reading out loud to them, and have found in the younger years the rate at which they finish their work is much faster when snuggled next to me on the couch as they work – even if I’m not helping them at all.  If you’re not homeschooling, try this with your kids next time they need to do homework and let me know how it goes!

None of my kids have come close to doing algebra in first grade but I’m confident even at this young and very relaxed stage that their math skills are at the very least age/grade appropriate.   The older kids so far have been extremely strong math students, so this approach – of lots of interactive learning of math concepts in the early years, followed by systematic study in a relaxed way as they get older – has had good results for us!

Avivah