Tuesday, June 30, 2009

almost July


Anyone have goals for Summer Math?
I do. Adam was SUPPOSED to be done with all of his 2nd grade work but the summer sun is distracting him...greatly. Since he's more than a year ahead of his peers, I probably shouldn't hassle him too much, but he's lollygaggi'g. And I don't care for lollygaggin'.......

So our new goal is to knock out the remaining Units before the 4th of July.

It has been action packed around our house. Adam took a flying leap off the top bunk on Sunday night and had a nice trip to the ER. During whole drive in, my husband (smartly) was asking him math questions.....he knew as long as he was cognizant enough to do basic math, he probably would be okay. He escaped with a concussion and is presently resisting the doctor's order to lay low. My son doesn't DO laying low very well.

So our laying low includes Living Room Floor math. With many, many, many rounds of Math Bingo. My kids LOVE Math Bingo. And it's a FUN way to reinforce basic math skills. My kids detest flashcards but they BEG for Math Bingo. There are a million different sites where you can print off Math Bingo sheets. Give it a try for your kids and I bet they'll love it.

Friday, June 26, 2009

is Math music to your ears??

While most of you are loading up for trips to the Beach, we are getting ready to kick off The Summer of Science!! (which is such a misnomer, because it's HEAVILY involved with MATH, too...)

I have been busy combing the 'Net for the coolest project, funnest worksheets, and yes, the most memorable songs. One the things that Adam and Micaela dig about the

Time4Learning.com site is the cool music. (He still sings that song about logging....)

So I was thrilled to discover this site:

Math Songs: Teaching Math Facts & Concepts (Addition, Subtraction ...

For my daughter, information is FIRMLY implanted in her memory if she associates it with music. I think most of all of us are wired that way. I mean, look at commercials and jingles! I'd love to hear from other parents how you taught multiplication songs.....that's where we are headed. I don't know....maybe Math Drills would be more fun if it had a beat and you could dance to it...

Music could help you get your kids over math anxiety, too...

Thursday, June 18, 2009

whatcha doing?

It's mid-June and the (infrequent) sunshine is distracting my kids.
It's summer and that makes it challenging to hold my kids' attention...any of you have that issue? The sunnier it is, the shorter that attention span.....

While I am talking and teaching about the finer points of multiplcation, they're just thinking "How long until I can go ride my bike?" I just know it....

So in my class, I try to use tools that will engage them. Make them WANT to learn.
Which is why we turn to http://www.time4learning.com/ as one of our online tools and it serves us well...

For Adam, who is 2 grade levels above his age range, he is very 7 and all about Science and Math, he enjoys all of the lessons in Science. There was some silly song he learned about logging that he sang for WEEKS. Drove me batty, but hey, he's learnin'.....I like that T4L doesn't hold him back, it sets him free to learn what HE wants to.

For Micaela, who is 8 and very much the girly-girl, she struggles still with reading. She has special needs (has fragile x syndrome, to learn more about that, click on the link below....)

Symptoms of Fragile X Syndrome

Micaela poses my bigger challenge. I can turn Adam loose and let him run. But Micaela is easily overwhelmed and when she doesn't immediately succeed, she's crushed.... For her, T4L is a confidence builder. It's non-threatening and fun and at a pace that she can tolerate. She's such an amazing kid and I have seen her gain skills while we've been homeschooling. It's not as scary to her as public school was.

So what are we doing this hot, sticky summer? Well, The Summer of Science, of course!
(Here's the Mom-trick that I didn't reveal to them: it also involves lots of Math, Reading and Writing...but Summer of Science sounds so fun, they eat it up!) We're going to have weekly lessons, vocabulary, spelling tests, experiements and public speaking: all under the umbrella of The Summer of Science!

I'll be posting here from time to time. I promise the blog will be more active! But if you can't wait and need a fix of homeschooling wit and money-savings tops, you can catch me at my personal blog....send in a comment, a suggestion, we want to hear from you!!

Just a bunch of nothin'