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SeaStar
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| Posted: Jan 07 2014 at 11:32am | IP Logged
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I have picked up a few teaching gems from you ladies here over the years.
One math tip that has been so helpful (I think it was from WIlla?) was to do problems together with your dc. Instead of asking the child to do a scary looking problem on his own, sit together and do your problem while your child does his, and then compare answers. The "we're in this together" mentality really makes a difference at my house.
From the Life of Fred books, I love these two strategies:
When you are faced with a tough problem, first ask: will I need to add/subtract/multiply or divide?
If you don't know and can't figure it out, then restate the problem in really simple terms. Here is an example:
Question: If you have an 85 year wall calendar and hang it up, how many pages would you have hanging on the wall?
Add? subtract? multiply??? divide?
Restate in very simple terms to figure it out: If you had a two year calendar how many pages would that be?
Now you can easily see that you are going to multiply 2 x 12 months.
Next step is to multiply 85 by 12. Voila.
So all this got me thinking... why not start a thread for tried and true math teaching tips? I would love to hear them!
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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Erin
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SeaStar wrote:
I have picked up a few teaching gems from you ladies here over the years.
One math tip that has been so helpful (I think it was from WIlla?) was to do problems together with your dc. |
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I think really this is the best gem. Not just with problems but all areas of maths. When we switched to MEP maths last year this was one of of their strengths, you teach a lesson and then the child does the work. Nothing beats this approach.
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
Seven Little Australians
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MichelleW
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When teaching borrowing and carrying, I used rubber bands and pencils. I bound unsharpened pencils into groups of ten. Then it was easy to see that you had to "break" a group of ten to borrow, and exactly when and why to carry.
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Michelle
Mom to 3 (dd 14, ds 15, and ds 16)
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cvbmom
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Definitely lattice multiplication! It helped so much 
You can learn about it here...
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/times-tables/times-tables-lesso n-lattice-multiplication-3.html
Or here...
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/arithmetic/multiplication-d ivision/lattice_multiplication/v/lattice-multiplication
Hope this helps,
Christine
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Wife to dh - 18 years!
Mom to dd (16), ds (15), dd, (12), dd (11), ds (9), dd (8), dd (7), ds (5), dd (3), ds (2), and ds (1)
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Jan 09 2014 at 11:50am | IP Logged
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I love the pencil tip- what a great visual, plus a good hands on as well.
I have never heard of lattice multiplication! Where have I been? 
We will definitely have to try this. 
Sometimes it helps dd when we have one or more of her beanie babies at the table with us "doing" math. She likes to pick an animal to help with each separate problem, and that makes the lesson fun for her.
I have also vastly extended the life of our Sum Swamp game (much beloved),
I picked up higher number, multisided dice at a teacher's store, and we use those when playing. The game goes faster with higher numbers, so we play to the end and then play backwards, back to the start. Dd really loves this.
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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JodieLyn
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I like pulling out dried beans (on hand and cheap) and paper plates when switching to less visual problems.. when the child can see you set up the problem with these and move around the beans it really helps make the problems make sense when they're transitioning to seeing it in their head. Great for the very first bit of multiplication.. there's 8 beans each on 2 plates how many beans are there total. 
The other is sometimes I'll give a "cheat sheet" with the principles of something.. like dealing with fractions. For some reason one of my kids freezes up somewhat in dealing with fractions.. so I gave her a list of the rules..
to add or subtract you must find a common denominator
You find a common denominator by..
To multiply you multiply straight across
to divide you invert the second fraction and multiply
etc
Then instead of locking up with what to do next, she could check the list and focus on figuring it out.. and the more she did the less she needed the cheat sheet, because she wasn't "panicking" over how to do each problem. And doing it without the panic is what let her learn the steps without checking the cheat sheet.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
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All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Jan 09 2014 at 5:33pm | IP Logged
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Jodie- what a great idea! Definitely filing that one away...
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: Your best tips for teaching math
