Fun with Math

This past learning year Daughter started learning math concepts. I think some parents can only dream of the following scenario: while trying to balance the family budget I was scribbling numbers on paper; Daughter comes up to me and says “Ooooh! Equations!”. She was excited, and insisted on doing some. So we brought out the dried beans (her “manipulatives”) and I wrote a page full of equations (addition and subtraction) and she happily solved them using her beans. We even began some rudimentary multiplication later on using groups of dried beans. 

Then this past summer she was playing on her father’s iPod Touch and discovered a “brain challenge” game involving Math. It included multiplication and division and was a game where you simply entered the answer – no manipulation, drawing, or other activities. She became frustrated that she couldn’t get the answers right and, while I tried to explain that this math was for older kids, she eventually declared that she “hated math” and that she “sucked at math”. Sigh.

So, I went out and bought her a couple of fun math workbooks. She did games like colouring pictures based on the number in the area (simple numbers moving up to simple equations), or connecting two numbers that add up to 10, etc. She whizzed through the book and the only thing she had to be taught was how to count in 2’s and 5’s. Husband also found a more age-appropriate math game for the iPod and she is now feeling confident and declaring that “math is fun!”. Daughter has logged several hours of math each week for our weekly reporting, and is ready for the grade 2 books only one month into the learning year. 

There are a zillion resources out there that provide fun and creative ways to teach math. Ultimately, however, I know from experience that math is best taught by experience. When you are using math, truly using it as the tool it is, you gain an understanding that no amount of rote learning can provide. I know there is much more “fun” out there for Daughter with respect to math, and I’m so pleased that she has rediscovered the joy of learning this particular subject.

Soup Season

We didn’t have much of a summer this year. It rained a lot, even for this part of the world (known as “the Wet Coast”). And while popular media makes it seem like everybody loves summer and spends the rest of the year longing for it, I actually enjoy every season. 

Fall means root vegetables, squashes, and yummy warm meals. And…it means the start of Soup Season! I have some wonderful soup recipes and tonight I made my first soup in months: Spiced Red Lentil Soup. Seasoned with cumin, cardamom, and cinnamon it was a lovely meal. I poured some over rice for Daughter, but Son refused it. Well, three out of four fed from one pot is still a success right?

So I say bring on the colder weather, the grey wet days. And bring on the soup!

Preschooling and Unschooling

My son started preschool this year. That may seem rebellious (or conformist?) considering we’re homeschoolers. The reaction from many people seems to be one of “oh, are you changing your plans?”. No, preschool is one of the last bastions of child-led, play-based learning and if you are fortunate enough to find one with a high adult:child ratio and a good disipline philosophy it fits right into the unschooling life. 

My son is going to be four years old next month and is a typical high-energy, physically active boy. With Daughter getting involved in more intensive studies of her favorite subjects it’s getting harder to find activities that appeal to both of them. She also has a very dominant personality with strong leadership tendencies (some might call her bossy; I try to stay away from that negative term but you get my drift…). Son, on the other hand, is pretty laid back and willing to consent to her plans (and changes of plans) most of the time. I wanted to find a place for him to fully immerse himself in age-appropriate activities, out from under the shadow of his precocious sister. The preschool environment is rich with wonderful toys, games, and activities (sand tables, water tables, painting, building, etc) and it gives him a chance to really blossom as his own person, to find his own identity. 

It’s a Parent Participation Preschool which means that all parents are involved in running the school as well as being present on their “duty days”. There are 14 children in Son’s class, and on any given day there is the teacher, two or three duty parents, any other parents who feel like attending that day, and a teacher’s assistant. Social interactions are thus closely monitored and adults are ready to step in and guide them through any altercations. The discipline philosophy is exactly what I strive for at home and the teacher is a fan of all my fave parenting experts (Gordon Neufeld, Barbara Coloroso, Faber and Mazlish, to name a few). There was a one hour parents meeting last week where all were instructed on these techniques. It was one of those situations where I was made plainly aware of how unusual my circle of friends and acquaintances are, in that for us these sorts of things are already embraced and accepted. Some parents were clearly confused about such things as not forcing children to share, or not using phrases like “be nice!”. 

And for those of you who have been following my family story for some time, you’ll know that my son has an issue with hitting and being otherwise physically rough with children when trying to communicate with them. While he has made immense progress in the last year it is still an issue for him and I tend to shy away from the very situations in which these behaviours are triggered. Accordingly, he’s not getting  much practice with alternative strategies. Preschool offers him a safe, secure, and well-supported environment for him to practice his skills in that regard. They’ve already figured out that he tends to “use his hands instead of his words” and I’ve watched how gently and respectfully the adults handle the situation. I’m very confident that with this regular experience of situation/resolution that he will truly blossom in this area of his development. Now you might fairly ask why I would want to entrust this social instruction to adults other than myself: well the truth is I have a pretty heavy emotional involvement in those situations, and past experience has left me jumpy about it. In this case, I think it’s actually better for him, and easier on him, if I’m not the one always dealing with it. I tend to get too emotional and reactive. Having the preschool community working together with him is an ideal substitute, IMO.

Next year Son will be five and will enter the Self-Design program in which Daughter is now enjoying her second year. I’m looking forward to seeing where his interests lie, and working to incorporate that into our family’s routine of living and learning. In the meantime, I am very excited about his learning year and my involvement in it!

NOT Back to School Day

Today millions of families woke up to a schedule of rushing kids into their clothes (which they probably dropped a small fortune on last week), packing backpacks (also likely new, and filled with new school supplies), rushing them through breakfast (which was perhaps not home-made whole wheat pancakes?), and piled them into the car to take them to their first day of school. Many parents maybe breathed a sigh of relief to be unburdened of their children again, while others may have shed a few tears at seeing their children taking a giant step away from the nest.

At our house today things progressed at their usual slow and comfortable pace. I got up around 8 am (after staying up late watching old episodes of Battlestar Galactica with Husband while our snuggled around us and fell asleep) and headed out the door for a run (I am on week 8 of a Learn to Run 10K program) while husband got showered and dressed for a 10 am meeting. I got back in time to see him off, showered and made the kids pancakes for breakfast. Husband came home around noon while I was packing a picnic for the kids. We headed off to the forest to go geocaching while hubby did some work from home, made a lovely bean and rice soup, and prepared dinner for the kids.

So while a lot of people were experiencing this:

And this:

We were experiencing this:

The geocaching hunt was great. I wrote a while ago about wanting to get started with this sport. Last  month our geocaching friends took us on our first cache hunt with their handheld GPS. Today marked our first venture out alone – I don’t have a GPS but I do have a geocaching application on my iPhone. After a bit of backtracking we found the hidden cache! I enjoyed trying to decipher the clues and figure out where it was, Son enjoyed sliding down and hiking back up the switchback trail we were on, and Daughter collected about a dozen samples of mushrooms and photographed an impressive variety of local slugs:

   

 

Sigh!….Can I just say I love our life?