Should I Give Colin a Break?

lifted from this website

Now that the kids have settled down for a nap (I hope), I can ruminate on how the kids and I have been doing in homeschool this week.

Karyn loves going over shapes, numbers, and the alphabet. She has even asked me to teach her the letter sounds. I have no fears for her as far as pre-school education goes.

Colin is doing okay as a reader, in fact, far better than I would expect if I had decided he should go to public school. I should probably keep doing what I am doing with him as far as reading goes: flashcards, phonics instruction, and practice. I'm also starting to give more time and practice to lettering neatly and accurately, which Colin is enjoying. However, we seem to have hit a wall as far as progress in arithmetic goes.

I think he just needs a break. During math time, Colin has become so distracted, that he can not seem to focus. He understands the mechanics of single digit addition and subtraction, but his attention roams all over the place and it takes a long time to get even one problem done. However, when I proposed that we take a two week break from math (we've had school over the summer), he got angry. After twenty minutes and having only gotten through three of the ten math problems I assigned for the day, we were exhausted, and I very gently but firmly said we are going to take a break until Monday or Tuesday. Colin immediately dissolved into tears and cried, "I don't want to take a break from math! I don't wanna!"

If he wasn't so heartbroken I would have laughed out loud. I gave him a big, extra long hug, and told him we would still count by fives and tens, and that we would find some math games to play. That calmed him a little, but he still wasn't very happy.

I'm going to look around for some new ideas on practicing single digit addition and subtraction and decide whether we need some changes in the way we approach math. Next week we will come back to the subject fresh and rested... I hope.

Weekend Lesson Planning

I'm teaching Colin to add, just the x+1 family of math problems. Colin works best with a number line, so I am looking for a very good, proffesional looking number line that a kindergartener would like to use. However, Colin is very particular. This number line is not good enough:

lifted from Elizabeth Richards

He likes the above image because it has animals, but the number line is not "real" because it doesn't have arrows.

So far nearly every time I've drawn a number line, I've included arrows on the ends symbolizing infinity in either direction. It's an old habit from high school and college algebra. Now Colin won't accept any number line without arrows.

Here's the one he liked best that I found online:

lifted from Smart Exchange

Seriously. The absence of numbers does not matter to Colin. As long as it has points and arrows on both ends, he is very happy.

Colin Surprises Me

Most days of homeschooling are mediocre at best. Colin makes apparently slow, but steady, progress. Some days are not as good and Colin make it clear he has no interest in reading, writing, or math. Today was fantastic. I was pleasantly surprised with him.

Colin applied himself today and showed that he reads far better than what he showed me yesterday. In fact he tells me he is ready for the fourth lesson of the McGuffy Eclectic Primer and I'm inclined to believe him.

Practicing addition didn't go very far today. He seems to understand the concept of adding 1, but he likes to guess at the answer without thinking it through, and usually gets it wrong. 1 + 1 does not necessarily equal 2 yet in Colin's mind. It's a little disappointing, but he is five after all, and there is plenty of time. In the meanwhile, perhaps I could try teaching with a number line and see how he takes that... or I could just make some flash cards and give him a rote memorization base to rely on while he learns the pattern.

What Colin does very well, math-wise, is understanding relative amounts. This came as a big surprise to me.

Just to see how he would answer, I wrote down two numbers, 1 and 2 and asked him which represented more or which one was bigger. Without hesitation, Colin answered "2", and I had him circle it. Then I wrote down 5 and 3, and asked the same question. He answered "5" and circled it. He got correct for 6 and 16, and especially surprising was that he understood that 31 is bigger than 27 (I only introduced those numbers just this week). He didn't need to pull out manipulatives or, or visuals, or require an explanation from me; he just understood intuitively which one was bigger.

I guess my teaching methods are working, either that or Colin is further above average than I previously thought. I have no reason to believe that Colin has genius level intellect...

 but he does surprise me from time to time.

No Fruit Salad in Math Class!

This tasty image was lifted from Fruitmagic

When I was a little girl in the second grade in California, I received a math question to this effect, "Ronnie has 5 apples and George has 3 oranges. How many pieces of fruit do they have together? Answer 8 pieces of fruit". That problem stuck with me for years and caused a lot of issues in my studies of math.

A variation on that question came up again in the fifth grade in Michigan. "If Sandra has 12 oranges and Jim has 7 apples, how many pieces of fruit do they have combined?" I answered 19 and to my great astonishment, was struck down with zero ceremony or explanation.

It came up again in the seventh grade. "What is the sum of 39 apples and 23 oranges?" I answered 62, and was wrong again. I wondered if there was some unexplained prejudice against fruit.

In high school Mrs. Warnaar brought it up again, "Calculate the sum of 3 apples and 5 oranges". Of course I hadn't learned my lesson yet, and answered 8, but this time my teacher kind enough to explain that the correct answer was, "The sum of 3 apples and 5 oranges is 3 apples and 5 oranges". I felt appalled that trained professional math teachers would set up such a dirty trick.

By the time I got to college I was ready to slap the professor for again using fruit as a metaphor for an algebraic concept; at least this time I was wise to the trick and would substitute other things no one groups together like monkey wrenches, socks, batteries, rubber erasers,... and maybe steaks when I got in a food mood. Many problems in algebra were cleared up for me when I threw out the convention of mathematical fruit salad.

I won't be using fruit to teach my children math. Never again will I visit that chaos on a child's mind.