There's a book for that--Math

I am a librarian.

Well, I am a librarian by degree, and formerly by practice. I have learned that once a librarian, always a librarian. It's like a sickness. I rearrange books at every library I visit. My homeschool shelves are in Dewey decimal order (mostly). And best of all, I love to incorporate all types of books into my homeschooling.

Let's start with math.

You may not think that math lends itself to picture book and juvenile non-fiction supplements, but it does. How much drill can our poor children take? I'm bored just assigning it.

Anno's Magic Seeds

Anno's Math Games

These are just a few math books written by Matsumasa Anno. A number of questions are asked about each illustration. The reader is asked to add, subtract, compare, estimate, etc.

A Pair of Socks

Stuart J. Murphy is, in my opinion, the king of math non-fiction for young readers. Pick a math concept, and he has likely written a book about it. This is just one example. In this book, the reader looks for matches to socks. It's useful for matching, pairs, and even numbers. As a bonus, this particular book is illustrated by Lois Ehlert.

How Much is a Million?

We actually watched a Reading Rainbow video of this book, where the original illustrations were shown while someone read the text. A great book for your math student who is obsessed with giant numbers.

Domino Addition

This is a simple, repetitive introduction to addition. My 5 year old loved it, and by the end had figured out the pattern to the text and was "reading" along.

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes

Is it Larger, Is it Smaller

So Many Circles, So Many Squares

I love Tana Hoban! When my kids were in preK and K, we read her books every chance we got. They are so simple, with everyday things that are familiar to kids. Highly recommended.

Math. I don't want to hate you.

I was not the best math student you ever met. In fact, in 11th grade, I ended up taking Algebra 2 without the trig that every other "average" student was taking. I was still lost, although I am sure the pace was better for me. My senior year, I opted not to take any math. Yeah, not the brightest decision I ever made, but, you see...I had math anxiety.

In college, I took what basically was remedial algebra. Every other "average" student took one semester to cover what I did in 2. For the first time, however, I understood math! I almost liked it! When I had to study for my math Praxis in order to become a teacher, I loved it! I sat with my little test prep book. It broke everything down step-by-step. I loved solving a problem--and actually getting it right!

I don't know where that delight has gone. I am right back to how I was in high school (minus that whole "I'll never have to know this" attitude. I know better now.). My ds, Scrappy, really excels at math. He just opens up his Math-U-See book and does it. Every once in a while he watches the video, but I think it's more procrastination for him. My dd, Funny, she's another story. I've tried Singapore Math, Math-U-See, and now we're using Saxon. And I love Saxon--for her. I think it's step-by-dull-step approach is good for her. She likes repetition and predictability, as much as it makes me want to scream.

Today, Funny decided that 12 and 21 were the same number. Before you go telling me how normal it is, please let me say that I have been telling her for over 2 years which is which. I have done every little silly game I could do. If only I could tattoo it onto her brain.

This brings me to my point: Math frustrates me! I want so badly to leave my bad attitude elsewhere when I sit down to do it. I'm out of ideas for making it fun or silly. It is what it is, and it just needs to be done. For my lovely little Funny, this is likely painful for her (as it was for me). I have a hard time not telling her that, yes, the number 0 is sad, and he would look much better if you gave him a little smile.

At what point do I have to tell her, "Some things you just do because you have to?" Is this what someone told me? How come Scrappy loves it but Funny doesn't, when they both have the same miserable teacher?

I know someone out there has amazing insight because I am too close to it to see. It's probably my fault, though. I can see that much!

Week in Review

My loving husband has mentioned that he would like me to post about what we're doing for school. He said once a week, I said once a month. We'll see how it goes.

The Olympics have been our main focus lately. And why not? There is so much potential to use them as a jumping-off point for a number of discussions. Hub spent some time showing Scrappy a bunch of videos about the science of the games. They cover such topics as why lugers and skaters wear those skin-tight suits and where you can "see" kinetic energy transfer from one curling stone to another. Here's a link to a video about the physics of the slap shot.

For math, the kids have been playing games on coolmath.com. I'm such a math slacker this week. I better get on that. But, I have to say, this site offers really fun ways for doing drills.

I've been reading aloud from Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary. We all love Ramona, and she is one of my all-time favorite book characters. The kids already have a list of the books they'd like me to read next. That's so exciting! So many books, so little time.

I have definitely been slacking with having Scrappy and Funny do their own reading. This is something I need to be better at, and perhaps by doing these updates, I will hold myself more accountable.

As for writing, I have noticed that I hear very little complaining from Scrappy when he is writing for his Olympics lapbook, which was made by A Journey Through Learning. It's only a little bit of writing at a time, which I guess he finds manageable. Getting an 8 year old to write really is painful. There is a great article about it here.

Here's the progress on our lapbook so far:

These are some highlights of the past week or so. We normally do a nature walk as well, but there's over 2 feet of snow out there. So I have to think about how to get around that...