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Angel
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 9:23am | IP Logged
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I'm looking for some nitty-gritty help here. Every year, with my younger kids, I start off in July using a more hands-on, living math approach. My kids enjoy this and the ones who need a more concrete approach seem to need it. But then around the end of September/beginning of October, I've run out of steam. I realize we haven't been doing math as often and I decide we need a more structured, curriculum, workbook-type approach. That works for a while, but then the kids who need the concrete become hopelessly confused and start saying things like, "I don't like math!" or worse. So then I stop, and the whole cycle repeats itself.
This year I want to break my cycle by planning with a little more structure for myself. We'll still use a variety of resources, including some curriculum, but what I am hoping is that the curriculum functions more as support than the main resource.
I'm not exactly sure where to begin, though. I have 3 kids who are approximately on a 3rd grade level (2 math gifted 6 year olds and a dyslexic 9 year old who is very good spatially and mechanically but needs arithmetic to be concrete). And then I will have a young kindergartener this year, too. (Birthday in August.) Fortunately I can keep the 6 yo twins and the 9 yo together mostly, and the K child I am not stressing over, but I want to make sure I have enough materials for everybody. I think that my problems have been twofold in the past: I didn't plan out enough activities in advance and I didn't plan out *enough* living books, assuming that I would go to the library (or amazon) on an ongoing basis.
So what I would like to do is lay in enough of a math library to at least be the skeleton of a math program for a good long while... say at least half a year. But how many books is that??? And I have to decide what topics to cover, and how to cover them. I am thinking that I would like to plan topically instead of by week exactly, considering that I don't know how quickly the boys will go.
I do have some math readers already, including a few books from the I Love Math series, which the boys didn't really get into last year for some reason. I have also been thinking about the elementary Life of Fred books.
In other words, help? Written down structured planning is not my forte. I need help brainstorming:
1. How many books to use/buy
2. How to organize the plans
3. How much time/work to reasonably expect (related to #1, I guess)
Also, keep in mind that these plans have to be flexible. We are more the kind of homeschoolers who strew and invite, rather than the kind that provide assignments down to the letter. So actually, I guess there's a #4:
4. How to incorporate materials for strewing into the plans?
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 10:19am | IP Logged
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This may be more my style and experience than yours, Angela, but I find I need the "spine" of something . . . workbooky. Otherwise math doesn't get done, and we go totally off the rails. And while I want our math to be "living," at the same time I feel strongly about laying down a foundation of basic skills -- I've seen the knock-on effect for a high-schooler of not mastering ground-level facts, which makes me tend to override complaints about hating math or finding it boring or the book not "fitting" or whatever. The last time I listened to those complaints, the complainer didn't learn to do multi-digit addition and subtraction very well, or multiplication and division, or dealing with fractions, and remediating in high school was a LOT harder than if we'd just plowed through when she was younger. My second child, on the other hand, is a total math autodidact and has been fine with years of very loose math learning prior to about the 6th grade (Saxon Algebra 1/2 made him fall in love with math -- go figure. Takes all kinds to make a world). Still, even though in general we're fairly relaxed and literature-based in our learning, I tend toward the uptight when it comes to making sure we get the math done . . . Just so you know where I'm coming from, here!
Anyway, the approach I'm continually settling into is something like this:
1) to use our Morning Basket time to explore more "living" resources like Greg Tang books and, next year, Life of Fred. We also do interactive MEP exercises together, because I'm determined not to lose MEP out of our lives! They're often more conceptual and puzzle-like, so fall under *my* very loose "living" umbrella.
2)during our fairly brief table work time, to do roughly 20 minutes of actual, basic, "boring" math practice in a workbook, for the sake of competency/essential numeracy. I guess I look at this as analogous to language practice.
Read-aloud math books I have slated for next year, for my 8/9yos (grades 3/4):
Life of Fred (don't have it, plan to get the first couple, at least)
Greg Tang: Math Appeal, Mathterpieces, Grapes of Math)
Adventures of Penrose, the Mathematical Cat (fairly advanced concepts, but my kids like Penrose)
String, Straight-Edge, and Shadow (history of geometry -- this one will be kind of experimental)
My hope is to incorporate 3-4 living math readings into our Morning Basket per week, though I haven't decided quite how to rotate them. If the books are in the basket, then we'll do them. I'll probably have some in the basket, some strewed, and switch them out as the year progresses. Meanwhile, we'll do our 20 minutes of boring practice daily. Actually, I find that with the inclusion of the more conceptual, playful elements of math via our more living resources, my younger kids find even the basic practice far less boring than they used to. And I also find that it helps me to think in terms of offering them tools for understanding the things I have strewn about -- even basic math facts are conceptual at their heart, and offering practice in that language provides my kids with a kind of lens for recognizing patterns and otherwise seeing the world numerately (if that makes sense!).
Don't know if this helps or not . . .
Sally
PS: I'm thinking that for the Morning Basket part of our daily routine, a few very well-selected living books which will see us through the year in a fairly sequential, spine-y way (like LOF, I'm hoping) will be of more value to us than lots of books. I'd like to spend 2-3 days using a more spine-y book (like LOF), then another day or two on more playful, random, general-math-interest resources. Our Morning Basket things don't necessarily have to line up with our workbook work, I don't think -- it's just that one way or another, math will get done, and in a forwardly progression, so that we're not just spinning our wheels in the mud of math, which would definitely happen here, let me tell you . . .
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Aagot
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Hi Angela,
I don't want to get your thread off topic so I will be brief. Have you tried RightStart? It is very hands on, lots of games, very little prep and best of all... you don't have to reinvent the wheel. All three kids could work on it together and your K child can join in the easier games. Then you could follow Sally's suggestion and read the living books as a morning basket routine.
I know this goes against your "strewing" instincts but math is just so sequential. One idea does build on previous ones. I have found, it really does matter how math is taught so that the student understands it intuitively.
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AtHomeScience
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 11:37am | IP Logged
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This resource might be helpful. Scroll down to the Math and Literature connection. It has links BY GRADE to extensive lists of living math books.
You can try white boards and math journals, too, to have your child extend what they learned on the books.
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kristinannie
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 12:11pm | IP Logged
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Aagot wrote:
Hi Angela,
I don't want to get your thread off topic so I will be brief. Have you tried RightStart? It is very hands on, lots of games, very little prep and best of all... you don't have to reinvent the wheel. All three kids could work on it together and your K child can join in the easier games. Then you could follow Sally's suggestion and read the living books as a morning basket routine.
I know this goes against your "strewing" instincts but math is just so sequential. One idea does build on previous ones. I have found, it really does matter how math is taught so that the student understands it intuitively.
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 I completely agree. It sounds like a lot of work to make your own program and Right Start is amazing!
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 12:34pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for posting that resource link, Kris. I've just bookmarked the grades I need for this year, when I'm looking for a lot of multiplication reinforcement, among other things.
Sally
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Angel
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 2:14pm | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
Anyway, the approach I'm continually settling into is something like this:
1) to use our Morning Basket time to explore more "living" resources like Greg Tang books and, next year, Life of Fred. We also do interactive MEP exercises together, because I'm determined not to lose MEP out of our lives! They're often more conceptual and puzzle-like, so fall under *my* very loose "living" umbrella.
2)during our fairly brief table work time, to do roughly 20 minutes of actual, basic, "boring" math practice in a workbook, for the sake of competency/essential numeracy. I guess I look at this as analogous to language practice.
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I probably wasn't clear enough in my original post (big surprise, considering I'm still trying to articulate what it is I want out of a math program after nearly 12 years of homeschooling), but, Sally, this *is* kind of what I'm thinking about, except we can't use workbooks too much because my 9 yo can't read and my 6 yo's have fine motor problems and can't write. I was looking at MEP, too, and thinking it looked very interesting for us to do together. Plus it's free and I have already bought every math curriculum in existence... except, of course, for Right Start.
I'm sure that all you Right Start users will think I'm weird, but I have avoided Right Start for a number of reasons: 1)I thought it would be confusing to teach my kids a different method of counting after they'd already learned to count and 2)I know I am talking about writing my own plan of activities combined with books combined with curricula, but... I do not do well with scripted programs which are completely dependent on me. I can read math books at night when my ADHD kids are sort of worn out and in bed. I can have my 13 yo dd read the boys books. I can set out math games like SET and the boys can play them themselves. I can have math CDS like Rainbow Rock around for them to do, or Teaching Textbooks (which is what all the boys have been working on, but we needed a little more concreteness for my 9 yo.)
Probably I make absolutely NO sense at all!  But this is just the way things work in my house. We can't use math curricula, and we can't not use math curricula.
Sally, I hear you about having a solid basis in arithmetic for high school math, but that's actually what I'm trying to achieve with this. Unfortunately, my 15 yo learned to hate math with Saxon and doesn't have a good feel for what's actually REAL about math - why you might use it in the first place, what it's like in the real world. On the other hand, my 13 yo dd, who absolutely could not understand numbers in workbook fashion ever (and took so long to get multi-digit multiplication and division!) is actually doing a lot better than my 15 yo at algebraic concepts, etc, and I think it's because we would ditch the book and go to something different or the real world or whatever whenever abstract numbers became meaningless for her. (My 15 yo is actually somewhat similar; we had to stop doing the abstract problems in Jacobs geometry in favor of the word problems. Because if he had nothing to connect the numbers and images to in his head, they were meaningless.) BUT -- I have always had a problem being consistent when we veer off the beaten path, and that's what I'm trying to remedy.
For the record, I'm trying not to go at math willy-nilly. I do have an idea of the sequence of math skills to be mastered, and that's what we're going to be working on. (Thanks, Kris, for that link! It's very helpful!) I just need a little help in ideas for how to get it all on paper and put it together.
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Chris V
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 2:19pm | IP Logged
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AtHomeScience wrote:
This resource might be helpful. Scroll down to the Math and Literature connection. It has links BY GRADE to extensive lists of living math books.
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Thanks for posting that resource, Kris. That's quite a list!
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Angel
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 2:32pm | IP Logged
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Here's a list of Common Core Standards, which seem helpful.
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kristinannie
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 3:07pm | IP Logged
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I was worried about the strange way of counting since my son has already learned to count as well. It hasn't been a problem. I say thirty six and then say (three ten six). He doesn't seem bothered by it. I honestly think that you should try RS. It is "scripted," but you don't need to use the script as shown. I go through each section of the lesson and then just do it on my own. I never use their words. You sound a lot like me. I went through 3 math programs that all led to tears. RS was the answer. I had avoided getting it because I had heard how time intensive it was (but I was sitting next to them while doing math anyway) and how "weird" it was. I cannot say enough good things about it. My kids love it and I love it. 
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 3:16pm | IP Logged
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MEP is a good program, and we've liked it a lot -- it's very conceptual, a lot of it can be done mentally/orally, and so on. It is a good fit in many ways for the kinds of needs/difficulties you're describing. I am wishing we'd started it on the ground floor in K or 1st grade, rather than starting with grades 2 and 3 and taking them both back to Year 1, as recommended by the yahoo group . . . I began to feel that I was taking my 3rd grader backwards in some ways, even as we were making progress on some levels. So I added in some traditional skills-based workbooks in their grade levels, which they fell on like starving people in the desert, and there we were.
Can you tell that math is a huge area of insecurity for me? I tend to be kind of schizophrenic about it, though now I think we're settling into a rhythm that works, with a kind of integrated approach. I'm also not good at following curricula, but I think I'm (finally!) starting to get a sense of how to use what's at my disposal so that my kids experience math learning on a number of different levels, which is what I want.
When I think about math learning, I think about how I'd (ideally) teach something like music: not just playing scales, and not just listening to concerti on the radio, but both, because I would want my child not only to be able to do, but to appreciate how much there is to do in that medium. That's kind of how I come at math -- find a way to play the scales daily, but also to listen to the concerti, to keep the imaginative scope large and open.
NB: MEP is quite teacher-intensive, which is another reason we haven't been doing it as written so much -- I was spending all morning doing math, and the curriculum, as written, seemed to conflict with my desire to encourage my kids to work independently. But I think there's a lot of value in at least following the curve of a given lesson, picking what's going to work best for your child/ren. I really like the interactives, which begin in Y3: we started doing them (jumping forward rather abruptly in the curriculum) as part of our Morning Basket time, just one exercise at a time, kids taking turns mentally working problems or doing them on the whiteboard. The interactives are nice because you can check your answers immediately, and if you've gone wrong, there's a "do it for me" function that's useful to talk through.
( I know, my oldest hated Saxon, too. It's definitely not my first recommendation, though my one mathy kid does well with it. It's one of those either-you-do or either-you-don't things).
What I think I hear you saying overall, though, is that you want some kind of larger framework, or organizing principle, to make all the hands-on things that you already have available make sense and add up to something, ie a solid foundation in math literacy, so that you don't feel that you're being random about it, and so that you'll keep going forward with confidence. Maybe something that will feed them ideas that they'll then go on to *play* in a hands-on way? Plus a way to offer them some more regular practice, though perhaps via more real-life models than simply problems on a page? But at any rate, a way to connect concepts with something solid . . . Am I hearing you at all clearly?
I like those common core standards you linked to. Very helpful. I don't want to be a slave to scope-and-sequence, but to use something like that as a kind of touchstone, to help orient us year by year, and even throughout a given year. By those core standards, we're a bit behind -- fourth grade will be a big multiplication/division year for us, for example, more than third grade, when we were still solidifying bigger, more complicated addition and subtraction, place value, and other concepts. But it's very useful to see that kind of four-way breakdown of concepts, because then you can think: how am I going to offer this to my child? And you can start gathering literature, manipulatives, games, etc, with a definite focus.
Sally
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Angel
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| Posted: June 14 2012 at 9:26pm | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
When I think about math learning, I think about how I'd (ideally) teach something like music: not just playing scales, and not just listening to concerti on the radio, but both, because I would want my child not only to be able to do, but to appreciate how much there is to do in that medium. That's kind of how I come at math -- find a way to play the scales daily, but also to listen to the concerti, to keep the imaginative scope large and open.
...
What I think I hear you saying overall, though, is that you want some kind of larger framework, or organizing principle, to make all the hands-on things that you already have available make sense and add up to something, ie a solid foundation in math literacy, so that you don't feel that you're being random about it, and so that you'll keep going forward with confidence. Maybe something that will feed them ideas that they'll then go on to *play* in a hands-on way? Plus a way to offer them some more regular practice, though perhaps via more real-life models than simply problems on a page? But at any rate, a way to connect concepts with something solid . . . Am I hearing you at all clearly?
Sally |
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Yes, all of this! That's exactly what I mean. I just have a problem organizing it all.
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 15 2012 at 8:41am | IP Logged
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Yes, that's always been my problem. I am not a big-picture person -- or, I can see the big picture of what I want, and I can see all the little daily concrete stuff spread out before me, but I can't put the two together. That's where I need some "just turn the page and do the next thing" element, which for me is some kind of workbook, but I can see how that wouldn't be a great fit for you.
What about following the MEP lesson plans? They *are* scripted to a certain degree, but you wouldn't necessarily have to follow the script: just look from day to day and week to week at what concepts are covered, decide which activities you might want to use from MEP, and then fill in with your own hands-on and/or living-books elements. If your 6yos are quick at math, you might start with Y2 for everyone as a spine, using a whiteboard as needed for written work but doing a lot of it mentally and orally, in very short increments, and strewing hands-on activities that more or less correspond -- the nice thing about MEP is that it is a spiral program, so that a number of concepts are introduced at once and repeated. It's an easy template for connection-making.
For basic facts practice, I also make use of computer apps: Adding Apples, Multiplying Acorns, etc, are popular in my house and seem to take the "kill" out of "drill and kill." I don't know what's available to you in that department, but for kids who don't do well with workbooks but could use some practice in those foundational skills, something like that might be an option as well, as a part of a whole multi-faceted math experience.
I have to admit that a lot of what drives my anxiety about math is our state testing requirement. Yearly tests have been a good thing in some ways -- I'm not opposed to testing on principle -- but one of my kids, particularly, melts down when he encounters something he hasn't done before, or done much. (this year it was division) Nobody sees the test scores but me, and I downplay their importance as much as possible to the kids, but we do have to do them, and it's a far pleasanter experience if we're prepared to encounter what's actually on them. That's basically why I added in skills workbooks mid-year -- to allay my meltdowner's anxiety, and mine. I know we can knock the verbal stuff out of the park, but I want us to be at least IN the ballpark in math . . .
If I didn't have to deal with the tests, I'd be a lot more laid-back about it all. My 14yo, who's a math whiz, did very little formal, schematic math until he was about 10 . . . that was in TN, land of the relatively free . . . Meanwhile, my youngers are having a very different experience. Not worse -- we all mostly enjoy math -- but definitely different and more directed.
Sally
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We've been using MEP for 3 years now, and IMHO it is the best math curriculum I've found--but of course every family has different styles and approaches. It does have a Scheme of Work, a.k.a. a scope and sequence, so that may help you organize your approach.
My guess is that you are familiar with the Living Math website and Yahoo group? She has lesson plans based on mathematics history and many other resources as well. Also Jimmie's Squidoo lens and her blog have ideas as well.
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Pardon my musing, I hope it is helpful and not too rambling...
IMHO, before high school (ie. algebra), kids have only a handful of foundational skills to acquire. In those years they master arithmetic and fractions/decimals/percentages, as well as some basic geometry.
Now, there's a whole lot of additional math related applications that we learn--time, tables, word problems, graphing, find the missing value, probability, and so forth. What I find to be the genius of MEP is that a foundational skill is introduced, and then--and this is key--the arithmetic is kept very simple while that skill is used for a wide variety of math-related applications. The two are seamless, so using math to solve math problems becomes very natural. The difficulty of the foundational skills very gradually becomes more difficult, first crossing the 10s, then using whole tens, and so forth.
Contrast that to the "typical" math program in which a foundational skill is introduced, made increasingly complex in a short period of time through series of "drills". Once the skill is mastered then "word problems" are introduced usually to the angst of any learner that cannot connect the skill to the application.
While I have not tried this, I don't see why you could not combine literature with MEP pages. Most of the "scripted" teacher portions are to introduce concepts or to help build skills (like daily sequences, or when older daily factorizing.) While these may not seem to have any reason, eventually you do see the payoff of those exercises when kids are solving more complex problems.
That MEP is free is a huge advantage in that you do not have to sink a lot of money into experimenting with this approach. It may give you enough structure while retaining a good bit of flexibility.
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SallyT
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This may be a sidetrack to Angela's questions, and I'd be happy to start another thread devoted to MEP, but I have a few questions for Kris, and maybe it would be helpful to Angela, too, if I ask them here?
Anyway:
I guess my main question, Kris, is: do you really implement MEP as written, with three children? The whole daily lesson plan for each child's level, including the practice-book exercises? Do you combine any of your three into a single level? If you are doing three, or even two, different levels daily, how does this work in terms of time and scheduling? Do you do all of a given lesson every day?
I appreciate the beauty and wisdom of MEP -- as I say, we've really liked it -- but in addition to the whole testing-anxiety thing, I've also struggled with how to implement it. A single whole lesson takes a long time, even when you adjust for having a single, or at most two children doing it, and when we were doing MEP exclusively for math, we were spending entire mornings on math. I'm comfortable giving math a larger place in my program than Miss Mason seems to indicate it should have, but I was feeling that what we had was a math-centered curriculum going on . . . And the long, elaborate lessons, while fun, seemed to leave little time for any other math resources, eg math literature. We were all just thinking, "Enough!"
But then if I left anything out, especially from the scripted lesson, I felt the kids were missing important things. And if we did only partial lessons, we fell behind, which as I'd started us out at Y1 was hardly what I wanted to happen. Also, what the kids wanted was to get on with independent work, without a lot of teaching from me, an approach which has overall worked well for us . . .
All of which has led to schizophrenia. For all that, the kids do do okay in math, but I would really like to settle into something for the long haul, because all this curriculum upheaval cannot be good for us.
The bottom line is that I want everyone to wind up having mastered those foundational concept/skill sets by grades 6-7 (though in a way, all pre-algebra does is go back over them) so that, ideally, we're doing algebra in 8th. A less mathy kid can do it in 9th . . . I just really don't want to repeat the angst we experienced with my #1 child (who did pull a B in her college geometry class, and so is done with math forever, or until she takes the GRE . . . ).
Anyway, I think that in many ways I'm looking for much the same thing that Angela's looking for: that scales/concerto thing.
Sorry to hijack the thread with these questions -- again, I'd be glad to start a new thread devoted to MEP in order to hash things out. I belong to and really like the MEP yahoo group, but I think it would be helpful to consider this program in light of the overall objectives of a CM (or an eclectic CM-inspired) education, in this conversational context.
Thanks for indulging me a little! Back to Angela's nitty-gritty.
Sally
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SallyT
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MEP thread is here, if we want to keep talking in greater depth about MEP per se, rather than broader issues of living-math curriculum, which are really more the topic here. Of course the two are related, and I think there's a lot that's "living" about MEP, but I don't want to shunt all Angela's questions onto that sidetrack.
Thanks!
Sally
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I'm going to pipe in for the Living Math website.
There is a lot there that could be easily utilized to put a "program" or "routine" into place, without being workbooky; and there is plenty there for those who are using a curriculum and just want to supplement.
I LOVE that website! (and group - some of the topics discussed are fascinating!).
:)
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Garden of Francis
HS Elementary Montessori Training
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Erin
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Angela
Realise this is a whole year later but just in case you're experiencing it again, just found this post that broke it down for me. Thinking whether we should be doing a living math approach ourselves, then again considering MEP (off to read those threads)
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Erin
Faith Filled Days
Seven Little Australians
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Angel
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Thanks, Erin. That's a good blog. She's got some other living math posts, too; did you see them?
Last year my big plans kind of imploded when I found out I was pregnant. Saxon 5/4 turned out to be a good fit for my then 9 yo... he doesn't always like it, but he really needs the spiral approach. My twins, on the other hand, are a different story. This year I tried out Saxon 5/4 with them. Technically, they would be in 2nd grade this year, but I know they could handle the math. Unfortunately, what they can't handle is the writing. So we're back to a more "living" approach to math with them. I'm using Primary Grade Challenge Math with them right now. We just started but it seems to be going better... they're up to the "Super Hard" and "Einstein" levels in the first chapter on sequences and they seem to be enjoying themselves. It gives me a little bit of structure, too, because I can "do the next page" using that book. But it's geared toward kids who like and are good at math. My 6 yo, however, is pretty much doing all his math using picture books.
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Angela
Mom to 9, 7 boys and 2 girls
Three Plus Two
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: Planning a living math curriculum
