Another Reason to Homeschool

If there's one major thing I have learned over the last two years of homeschooling, it would be that it's imperative to remain FLEXIBLE.  Not as in yoga-flexible (although that's good), but as in time and attitude flexible.  Because stuff always comes up.  Life happens to you when you plan.  Expect it!  Then you won't be disappointed.  It is wise to plan for the unexpected and give yourself some wiggle room during your year, or cop an attitude of going with whatever happens.

We are trailing down to the end of the school year, but I don't have a date set wherein we'll officially stop.  Today Max yelled in celebratory parlance, "only three more days of school!"  Where did he come up with that number, I wonder?  We will likely continue on with some math through the summer courtesy of my extra generous husband who has agreed to strap the math load to his back.  Together they are working it out and I am humbly giddy about it!

With respect to being flexible, we dropped everything on Friday and made arrangements to fly to Minneapolis to attend my grandmother's funeral.  She was 99 years, 1 month and 2 days old.  Born in 1912, she lived out her entire life in a small farming community in Minnesota.  Those are my roots!  Deep in that black soil up there.  My grandparents were farmers and left me with many sweet memories of days on the farm, of all the animals they tended.  I spoke at her church service in an effort to share with everyone what it was like growing up as her granddaughter.  I hope I did the experience justice; she was a gift as a grandparent and I certainly was lucky to have her for 45 years.

This was Max's first funeral.  He's eleven, so I felt strongly about him attending and experiencing the custom of the wake and church service, even though we aren't active church goers.  He was extremely anxious about attending the wake as this would be the first time he would actually lay eyes on a real human being who had passed from life.  He had never seen a casket before, or a funeral home, or a cemetery, or his own grandparents crying.  It was an incredible experience from all angles and I couldn't help but observe him as the events unfolded.  It was an emotional ride for all of us, but overall Max handled everything very well.  He was exhausted by the time we boarded the plane last night to make it back to New Mexico in the wee hours.  Needless to say we slept in very late and completely ignored any school subjects today.

Not once did school or math or language arts cross my mind while we were gone. All of my energy was catapulted to another place so that I could say goodbye to my grandma the way I needed to and I was drinking up the farm, taking a walk through my memories.  An exemplary reason for homeschooling.  You can stop for as long as you need to to cope with life.  You are not bound to an arbitrary, contrived schedule dictated by others who are certainly not interested in the needs of your family.  You can create your own schedule on top of the ebb and flow of your own family's rhythms.

You can have space to grieve your losses.  The world needs more spaces like that!        

Gladly Passing the Reins

Tonight I popped THE question lovingly to my husband.  "Honey, would you consider taking over teaching math to Max?"  Without hesitation he asked to see where we were at in our quest and agreed to take the reins.  I am practically swooning with relief.  I need a break from Max's math monsters!  He holds such disdain for the material and it wears me out at times to try and find different ways to engage him.  We've just come off of a two week break and I can't tell you how nice it was not to have to deal with math-itis.  I've lamented about this many times on my blog and have wavered between loosening up on math, to changing curricula, to playing lots of math games, to not doing any math at all.  I was very excited to purchase the first Life of Fred book on fractions and thought for sure it would be a hit; Max is super-sleuth when it comes to sensing math, though, and he immediately recognized the book as such and lumped it into the "NO" category.  I adore the Life of Fred series.  Max enjoys the stories but resists working out the problems at the end of each chapter. 

I have come to the conclusion that Max, math and I should not hang out in the same room together, at least for the time being or the rest of this school year, which ever comes first.  We coexist very well with language arts, history, literature and geography, so we'll stick with those subjects in the 'Mom' camp.  Dad and Max can play video games, paint trim, practice skateboarding and do math together.  It should be great!  Mom is going to put up her feet and grab a good book (probably some nonfiction on how to teach kids math).

My husband is planning to make breakfast for Max in the morning and work on math together before he leaves for work.  We'll see how Day 1 goes........wish them luck!   

Later.........Day 3 and all is well so far.  Max and Dad are hammering away on least common denominators in the early morning and I haven't seen any formal complaints filed from either of them.  This is great!  Three days in and they are working well together.  It's given me a breath of fresh air to concentrate on all the other stuff we're doing.  Yay!  Max and I seem to be having a bit more fun during the day together!  

Create-A-Story

I don't know if you experience this, too, but it seems that when you become aware of something new, you begin to see reminders of it EVERYWHERE!  For instance, you've recently peed on a stick and two blue lines appear in the little window (oh my!); from that moment forward everything and anything remotely related to pregnancy catches your eye, including all the pregnant animals at the zoo.  Pregnant people or babies pop out of every nook and cranny, you glance up just in time to see a baby jogger rolling by in front of a huffing mama, the color pink suddenly becomes interesting........it's just a phenomenon that I've noticed with all sorts of topics!  If I'm interested in a Subaru, I start to notice them all over the road in all manner of colors and styles.  Prior to that I never paid them any heed.  It's like your brain throws a switch and you suddenly see!  Does this ever happen to you?  I think it's weird.  Not saying I'm pregnant!  That's merely an example to get my point across.  Really. 

What I am becoming more and more aware of lately is information and materials to help teach a bouncing kinesthetic learner all sorts of things from world history to math to writing and more.  You know you have a kinesthetic learner if he or she has a hard time sitting still with pen in hand.  While helping him sort out the directions to an assignment your happy little kinesthetic child vaults from his chair to "go get something".  He returns a moment later with his rubber sword and a cape, stuff he says he needs to complete the assignment that you have so diligently planned out the night before.  You had intended that he'd sit at the table quietly and his little hand would craftily wield the pen, creating a mighty hand-written story replete with stunning character development, witty verbal exchanges, titillating plot sequences and a nicely wrapped up moral lesson that executes itself exquisitely in the last sentence.

Instead, your brave little swordsman leaps into action to slay the invisible dragons in the living room, the ones belching fire from behind the couch, the ones that apparently you can't see, but they are going to set the curtains on fire any second.  He insists that the house must be saved and he is the only one to do it!  You are left standing next to the table holding the pen, a bit bewildered about how he slipped out of the writing assignment.  Again.

Well, you have a couple of options.  You could grab your laptop and join your little knight in the living room and ask him to narrate his story, capturing his skill and prowess while faced with a fire-breathing beast surely set to gobble him up at any second.  You could video tape his play and have him watch it later while he narrates what happened.  You could also let him play out his dragon theme for awhile and then call him back to the table to play a very fun game called Create-A-Story!

I think I need this game or I need to design one like it and use it.  Max hates to write and he's clever at coming up with ways to avoid it.  During game play players work their way around the board and pick up story cards that provide the characters, plot, dialogue, moral or lesson, problem, resolution, ending, etc.  Then you use the handy outlines that are provided to help organize your very silly story and make it work.  It seems that humor surely comes in handy during this game, of course.  At the end of the game, the child writes out his story and hopefully it wasn't too agonizing for him to do so!

Stuff like this is popping up all over my radar screen, which is great.  I obviously need to pay attention and to continue to seek and find.  Maybe you've got a little dragon-slayer lurking in your household, too?  Let him wear his cape, brandish his sword  and try games like Create-A-Story to help make the learning stuff fun and more aligned to his style.  It might just be the best thing ever!

NOTE AT A LATER DATE:  I ended up purchasing this board game and we've had it out to play it.  Fun!  Challenging, too.  We giggled several times as we drew our characters and descriptors and tried to fit them together in our outlines.  Getting Max to do the outline was easy and I saw him think through several possible scenarios.  He wasn't so excited, however, to figure out what happens first, second and third and how to pull it all together into a story, so I wrote the first one.  He loved it - it was about a mummy getting to meet the president at an amusement park on the hottest day of the century.  We'll continue to work with this game; the important thing is that he gets a feel for elements in a story and how to tie them together.  It's tricky sometimes to wrap up a story neatly with the resolution and lesson!  Fun game, though.

JUMP Math

Was pointed in the direction of a pretty cool math curriculum yesterday that may be a good fit for Max.  We'll see.  I researched it a little more today and like what I see so far.  Currently we're using a mix of Key Curriculum Press workbooks for fractions, Life of Fred for fun, and some Math Mammoth for clarity, along with some clever Nerf math and other games.  Max likes Life of Fred the best, at least the story (the story is beyond fabulous - I've read ahead several chapters just to find out what happens), but he doesn't much care for doing the practice problems at the end of each chapter.  He'd rather gloss right over those puppies.

Gradually I've learned that he benefits best from a mastery approach, versus a spiral approach.  Sometimes I think we underestimate just how much we have to practice something to really have a grasp, at least a working grasp that we can carry with us to the next concept, right?  And sometimes getting a grasp on a new concept isn't all that straight forward because the leap from where you are currently to where you need to be is much too large.

Enter a program called JUMP Math.  I read an article in the New York Times about it.  Here's the link to the article:

New York Times - JUMP Math 

Kind of unique because this program is primarily used in the UK and in Canada; I haven't taken the time to correlate their standards to ours, and if you've been hanging around my blog long enough, you probably already know that I don't pay that much attention to standards, anyway.  Manmade gobbledy gook in some cases.

What's really different about this program is that it breaks down concepts in math into micro steps; tiny little incremental jumps (ahhh - the link to the curriculum's name!) that allows a child to experience success and build confidence in doing math.  It also puts a different spin on math problems and helps a child to "see" what is asked for in the problem.

Jump Math, at least in Canada and the UK, has been successful in doing away with the bell-shaped curve in classrooms.  Teachers who have implemented this special curriculum have been able to bring ALL of their students up to the 90+ percentile.  No child is left in the dust to fend for him or herself!  Kids that were labeled as slow learners have gone on to compete in math competitions and have done great!  That's what strikes me about JUMP - it believes in the child until the child is able to believe in him or herself.  Cool!

The program's originator, John Mighton, believes that all children can acquire math skills all the way up through the university level and flourish while they are at it.  Here is what the website quotes:

JUMP Math believes that all children can be led to think mathematically, and that with even a modest amount of attention every child will flourish. By demonstrating that even children who are failing math or who are labeled as slow learners can excel at math, we hope to dispel the myths that currently prevail. We offer educators and parents complete and balanced materials as well as training to help them reach all students. 

I've looked over the sample worksheets, the introductory program on fractions, and some testimonials so far.  Good to this point.  Still want to dig a little deeper.  The introductory program on fractions is available as a pdf on their website, free of charge, so it wouldn't be a problem to at least try JUMP at home. 


Here's a link to their website:  JUMP Math 

JUMP math even has a YouTube channel!  Might be worth a peek.  I bet the article in the NY Times will help boost their exposure and that's probably a great thing for kids!  Check it out if you're curious.   

Now I Know by Dan Lewis

For the past few months I've been receiving daily emails from Dan Lewis.  I don't personally know Dan, but I have to say that I enjoy his emails.  He is an historian sleuth of sorts who finds interesting information, repackages it into a short little essay and sends it on its merry way right to your inbox!  We occasionally will use some of his information in our history lessons; he has the knack of pulling all of the quirkiness from history and presenting it in an engaging fashion.  Stuff you never knew or bothered to think about!  Like purple carrots (you'll need to read that essay to figure that out).

Not many people know about him just yet - he has around 3,000 subscribers.  He would like to expand his audience and perhaps homeschoolers are good folks to target!  Because we have a tendency to want to learn the stuff he offers, so it could be win-win, don't you think?

If you'd like more information or would consider subscribing to his daily emails, here's the link:

Dan Lewis:  Now I Know

My Krazy Kinesthetic Learner

We did something rather unconventional today.  Um, really unconventional.  Before you read any further, I'll tell you right from the start that Nerf guns and foam darts were involved!  Don't read anymore if you object to Nerf guns (and I completely understand if you do.  For a very long time I was anti-any-type-of-gun.  Makes for an interesting mom when you are raising a boy who seems to have a built-in trigger reflex.)  Want to keep reading?

We decided to mix Nerf wars with math this morning and it was a big hit.  I'm happy to report that ONLY index cards were harmed in our endeavor!  As I'm learning more and more about the movers and shakers who inhabit the world, or those who learn best through movement, I realize that I need to stretch my own brain further over the edges of the box which I've apparently been living in for the last 40+ years.  My box is of an entirely different composition and shape than Max's box, and sometimes I just have to haul myself out of my own worldview to get a better handle on his.  I live in a box filled with workbooks, orderly concepts (most of the time), spreadsheets, lots of words, lots of visuals, lots of stuff for my eyes to behold and take in.  Max can hardly stay contained in his box because he's jumping, performing, twisting and turning, tumbling his way out of it.  If I try to have him do some school work my way, I see my avid little mover wilt at the shoulders and hear him offer up a heavy sigh.  We are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to preferred styles of learning, so I'm learning how to help Max learn best!  That's a lot of learning to undertake, isn't it?  Learning about learning.

In the past few posts I've mentioned that we've recently completed some learning assessments to try to better address all of this multi-intelligence business.  And based on those results, I am coming to grips with me needing to change a few things around here for Max's sake.   I, (sniff), am having to loosen my white knuckle grip on any and all workbooks I may have been harboring for a future date.  I am having to let go of the pen and paper mantra that has carried me through my own life.  I am trying to keep my chin up and look for novel ideas to keep him stimulated!

Today I planned to take another run at the multiplication facts and noticed Max stalking about the house with his Nerf gun strapped to his side, looking for imaginary bad guys (apparently they lurk in corners and hide behind doors and under tables - who knew?  I'm oblivious to them.)  I had just finished making up some index cards with the 4's, 6's and 7's facts written on them in brightly colored sharpie.  My intention was to have him manipulate the cards on a big table, match them up and make a quick game out of it.  We started that way, but Max came up with a different version that suited him much better.  I stood next to the table and flashed an index card with a multiplication problem on it.  He jumped up on one of the kitchen chairs and shot a Nerf foam dart, trying to hit the card with the answer on it.  After he hit his target he said the fact out loud.  Next time we'll tape the answers to a wall and let him take aim!  He said, "Mom, I'm doing math!"  and laughed because it just didn't feel much like math.  I had never thought of putting together Nerf foam darts, math facts and index cards, but it worked!

We've also gone to the basketball court at the community center using 8 1/2 x 11 inch pieces of paper with the facts written on them, placed on the floor.  He picks a problem, bounces the ball on it a few times, states the answer and tries to make a basket.  He seems to really enjoy these diversions from the other ways we work on math.  A ping pong table could come into play, too.  Trampolines, jump ropes, pogo sticks, baseball gloves.........wow.  We could really stay in shape this way!  Exercise Math.  Hmm.

Not that he HAS to be completely solid on his math facts at this juncture; I've posted about my anxieties related to this before.  We are working on fractions, multiplying and dividing, and I see him become easily frustrated if he doesn't have the simple math fact at the tip of his brain.  Then he gets distracted and loses interest.  I figure if we keep doing fun games like Nerf Math, he'll be less frustrated as he finds he's able to apply the information and make the "other" math less cumbersome.

If you have a similar kiddo bouncing about the walls of your house, I encourage you to implement some of these ideas or other movement ideas that resonate with him or her.  I'm coming at this from a boy angle and he has a trigger finger, so the Nerf idea kind of fell into place today.  We'll review tomorrow and see how much he retained from today so we can keep working on those pesky fractions!

****A FEW DAYS LATER.........we did the Nerf gun thing again today, but this time I taped the answers up on the wall and we pretended that Max was the sheriff.  "This town ain't big enough for the both of us, 4x6.  It's time you, Mr. 24, went to live elsewhere!"  "Number 56 (8x7), you are the baddest of the b..a..d.  I've had enough of your shenanigans.  I'm going to git my deputy and we'll be back to round you up and escort you and your posse of 8's out of this here town!"  We had a good time playing up the voices and pretending we were clearin' the town of rowdy no-gooders.  Too fun.

Teasing Your Brain

Don't know why I never thought of this before - duh.  Today before we did anything else school related we sat down and tackled part of a book of brain teasers for kids.  Max got into it and kept asking to move on to the next puzzle or problem.  I thought it was a nice way to do some brain calisthenics and we'll definitely use books like these again.  The puzzles provided a super segue into more focused work.  It was a nice transition between the morning wake up routine and school work. 

Here are some suggestions for some books you can utilize if you like this approach:

Classic Brainteasers

We used this book this morning; some of the puzzles were pretty clever.

Wicked Whodunits: Dr. Quicksolve Mini-Mysteries

These look fun.  I put this one in our wishlist.

One Minute Mysteries: 65 Short Mysteries You Solve with Math!

One Minute Mysteries: 65 Short Mysteries You Solve With Science!

Stories to Solve

Some abstract thinking needed to solve these one to two page tales; a nice introduction to some folklore, too!

True Lies: 18 Tales For You To Judge (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

MindWare Perplexors: Level C

We've played with these and there is a slew of them to choose from; some more math/logic, others focus on language arts.  These make for good companions on long car trips, too.

I like the 'I can KenKen!' books by Will Shortz, too.  These are like Sudoku:

Will Shortz Presents I Can KenKen! Volume 1: 75 Puzzles for Having Fun with Math

Okay!  There's a good start for you.  Have fun looking for puzzle books that you can use as transition material as you see fit.  Also, try really hard to keep your nose out of them to see if you still have what it takes to solve puzzles!  I have a slight weakness for puzzle books and get this amazing sense of accomplishment when I actually solve something!

Dealing with Math Anxiety from Another Angle; Let's Look at Mom!

Math has been consuming much of my attention lately as I've been trying to figure out how to approach it with Max. Up until this point math has mostly been a distasteful undertaking for us,  mainly because I can't seem to land upon a curriculum that he didn't want to run over with a truck after a few days of use.  If you've read any of my previous posts about math, you may have picked up on the subtle undercurrent regarding how my kiddo feels about math.  Ahem.  I'm overhauling my math strategy to better accommodate Max's needs and I have to say that I'm pretty excited about it.

Panic set in after months and months of trying in vain to implement various ideas to engage Max with math and I'd like to draw attention to those panicky feelings.  First, they are unpleasant and kind of buzz about you like a pesky fly while you try in vain to swat them away.  Second, your child readily tunes into them and may or may not use this new information about his/her mom in clever ambush.  Third, they serves no purpose, nothing really good comes out of them - wasted energy that could be put to better use.  I'm just now hopping off the panic wagon and shredding my ticket!  Really, though, I've been pondering my reaction to Max not warming up to math for a very long time, trying to ferret out my feelings and wondering why I was so bugged about it.  I'm slowly returning to my better senses.  Sometimes this homeschool mom business is tough!

The panic I was feeling stems from misguided perceptions that math is a must-do subject on a preconceived time line.  That line of thinking is just plain silly.  My training in math was quite linear.  Orderly, predictable and extremely arcane.  It came in the form of flashcards, worksheets ad nauseum, busy work, workbooks, chalkboards, textbooks and spiral notebooks filled with solved problems and notes, none of which I ever went back to look at after I filled one up.  Multiplication was learned in third and fourth grade, division in fourth and fifth, geometry ninth, trigonometry in tenth, then algebra, or some such order.  I'd have to go pull the college notebooks to nail down my math journey as an undergrad (I'm wondering why I even saved those notebooks.)  Graduate work revolved around learning statistics.

The panic has also resulted in those pesky 'what ifs' floating around my mind, running wild and unchecked because reason had not yet made it to my front door.  What if he never becomes solid in his math facts?  What if people discover that he can't recite his multiplication tables and he's nearly twelve years old?!  What if I can't teach him math?  And what does that matter?  Why would I worry about that?    Does this all boil down to my concern about being judged as a failure as a homeschooling mom?    It isn't Max who needs scrutiny - it's me and my notions about how math should be taught.  And it may go deeper than that to those fears I have about being able to teach him this subject or my ability to guide him at all.  Nothing like peeling away the layers to take a good hard look at something!  People ought to do that more often.  Go ahead - schedule it into your calendar for, say, next Tuesday.

I simply had to stop my run-away-train panicky thoughts and think this through to face my own math demons.  A very wise homeschooling mom on a forum I frequent recommended an essay about math called Lockhart's Lament, which I read and marveled at.  Paul Lockhart also wrote a book on the same subject which you can find here.  It helped me begin to unravel the tight knot in my tummy by reminding me about the big-picture view of learning.  I've been working on revising the 'should' word in my thoughts, too.  That word is never helpful and often conjures guilt and negativity which are unproductive.  So never mind the 'people ought to do that more often' statement I just issued in the last paragraph.  Don't want to make you feel bad :).

Spending energy on acquainting myself with Max's learning style is helping wonders, too!  In the post just prior to this one I've highlighted a wonderful book (Discover Your Child's Learning Style by Mariaemma Willis and Victoria Kindle-Hodson) that helped me to better understand his learning style, which is completely different than my preferred way to take in information and relate to the world.  This has been pivotal information!!  This is much more productive than trying to keep all of that anxiety at bay (good old anxiety always leaks out somehow anyway.)  It has opened my eyes to what will hopefully be a learning environment more in tune to his needs.

Now I've got some work to do and much of it will be creative and fun.  We've begun reading the Life of Fred Fractions book.  LOVE FRED.  FRED = FUN.  We can barely stand to wait until the next chapter to find out what happens in the story.  I can't say he is loving the math in there, but he gets so engrossed in the story that he is willing to challenge himself a little.  We've gone to the basketball courts and practiced some math facts by shooting some baskets, just to see if he'd enjoy it.  He did and wants to do that again.  We will.  I want to incorporate some more math games and more Living Math books.  Maybe we'll learn about famous mathematicians in history and what their lives were like.  I did purchase a Math Mammoth workbook and may employ parts of it to help him master certain concepts with which he struggles now and then, but that may not go over so well.  I need to figure out how to get him moving while learning.

I think I'm learning my lessons, too, pun intended.                

Out with the Bell-Shaped Curve (BAD), In with Life (GOOD)

Statistically many things in our natural world fall onto a bell-shaped curve, but "intelligence" (whatever that means) should not be relegated to a fate such as this; moreover, children should not have to think of themselves as 'below average, above average, or just plain average'.  Each of those labels can send ripple effects out through a person's ENTIRE lifetime.  Labels like this are cultivated with much vim and vigor in a traditional school system, the end results often being students who are either left in the dust, left to their own devices, or left to compete with those labeled 'the best and most likely to succeed'.  The whole mess effectively ignores the individuality of each child and fails miserably in helping children find their unique offerings and skills that each of us is born with.  It cuts kids off at the pass.

You might guess that I've got my nose in another book that begs to be recommended.  This one should be handed out to all new parents at hospitals and birthing centers across the nation.  Midwives and doulas should all fill up the trunks of their cars with this book so that a copy is always at the ready.  Administrators of school systems should be required to read this book annually and take a test over their comprehension of the material, lest they feel like slipping into old habits.  Teachers should place a copy front and center on their desks, making sure that the most relevant passages are earmarked, highlighted, or otherwise marked as special.  This book should be delivered to homes as regularly as telephone books are!  If all of the above 'shoulds' were to take place and people absorbed the message, children everywhere would have reason to celebrate and to embrace their unique futures.  The information is that important and I encourage you to get your hands on a copy and read it (or find other information about multiple intellegences, learning styles, etc.) Then implement much of the sage wisdom sprinkled liberally between the front and back cover and watch your child BLOSSOM into the person he or she is meant to become.

If you are currently homeschooling, this book is invaluable as a resource for you as the teacher.  Because you, in fact, are the BEST teacher your child has!  Absolutely (even on your worst days!)  This is not a teaching manual.  At the heart of the author's message, this is a parenting manual.  This is a way of being on a daily basis that will potentially foster an amazing atmosphere in which your child can learn to become his or her very best true self.  There are many books written about learning styles available.  I like this one because it considers the family system while fostering a learning environment that is tailored to its individual members.  It's a gentle and positive approach, one that may open your eyes to some key areas where you've all been struggling with one another.

This is hands-on stuff, written in a way that is easy to digest and progress through at your own family's pace.  We are sitting down to take the assessments tomorrow as a group; it's going to be very fun and revealing to determine our individual learning styles, preferences, ways of being.  I am excited about this book because it is critical information.  I wish I could send a copy to the White House and ask that President Obama read it.  In a perfect world the information would be digested and would magically trickle down through the education system and our world and children would be transformed!  Wouldn't that be the coolest?  Oh, I wish!  Unfortunately, the system is not currently willing to accommodate such radical thinking!

Here's the book, in case you feel a sense of suspense or "out with it already!"

Discover Your Child's Learning Style: Children Learn in Unique Ways - Here's the Key to Every Child's Learning Success

The timing of this book could not be more appropriate for me as I reflect on the issues we struggle with as homeschoolers.  I do wish that this had been at the top of my reading list when we first began researching homeschooling.  I have a little over two years of homeschooling experience under my belt as of this writing and cannot begin to convey the deep thought and research that has been invested in this undertaking; I also would have trouble putting into words just how much my perceptions, expectations and ideals have changed since we started.  Homeschooling is an emotional, evolving, eccentric, eclectic, energetic, nearly extraterrestrial experience!  One that I am completely ecstatic about and engaged with.  Deep in my bones I wish that other traditionally-educated kids could experience the freedom that homeschooling embraces.

Max summed it up today.  He had a friend over who attends a Catholic elementary school in the fifth grade and she asked him if he was going to be homeschooled again next year; Max affirmed that he was.  She said, "you should come to my school next year."  Max replied, "you might like that, but I wouldn't.  I like being homeschooled.  I don't ever want to go back to regular school."  Listening I wished she could know what homeschooling feels like.  I also spoke to a mom the other day who was busy using flashcards to prepare her child for the standardized testing that is coming up next month.  Ugh and more ugh.

Knowing your child's learning style is critical.  Knowing your own learning style bears the same weight. And how fun to expand this concept to the entire family system!  There are many books out there about learning styles; this book exemplifies a lot of practical application.  Dig in!

Postscript:  We completed the assessments today and discovered how each of us tends to relate to the world around us.  Max's primary disposition is that of a performer; his secondary disposition leans heavily on thinking and creating.  He is also a tactile-kinesthetic learner, which I already surmised.  My husband and I share the same primary and secondary dispositions - that of thinking/creating and inventing/discovering.  We are both visual learners.  The point to stress here is that Max's preferred way to learn is very unlike my way and I need to keep that in mind as I design learning avenues for him.  Time to invest in a basketball hoop and trampoline, I think!  I'm also picking up tips on how to parent him, encourage him and help him to work on the styles of relating he may not favor. 

The Whether Man and a Lament by Lockhart

Just a quick recommend here about a book I wasn't aware of until yesterday, and I'm sure there are LOTS of those, but the journey of discovery is something to be celebrated, I think.  This book passes muster in the clever department and it may help a math-phobe start to open his or her eyes as to how cool math can be!  Adults will appreciate the way the author plays with words and helps us to laugh at our silly selves.  This would be an excellent book within a living math curriculum.  This would probably be an excellent book to read, period.  Go read the reviews on Amazon about it.



The Phantom Tollbooth



And the best for next.  I encourage you to read an essay by a mathematician, Paul Lockhart.  It's titled "Lockhart's Lament" and is linked below as a PDF.  Go ahead - I'll wait while you read it!

Lockhart's Lament

All teachers and homeschoolers should read this essay.  It stabs at the heart of the matter as to what's wrong with the way math is taught and what can be done about it.  Math has become dry as toast thanks to the way it is taught; it is supposed to be a language of art and discovery, one steeped in history and deep thought about problems that popped up now and then.  This essay served as an eye-opener for me and it will, in the long run, likely help Max because it helped me to see the light.  Please read it.

I have a child who despises math and sees (as of yet) no need for it.  He places the subject on par with torture and unnecesary gobbledy-gook.  Last year for fourth grade we used a Living Math approach and read a lot ABOUT math.  We didn't DO much math.  We read about Archimedes, Penrose the Cat helped us play with many cool concepts, and we played games.

This year I tried the more traditional (and agonizing) method of teaching math by using a curriculum.  Epic fail.  Epic.  We managed to finish up the fourth grade equivalent in Teaching Textbooks, a program many families love, but boy was it a struggle.  I felt funny about forcing him to do something that he clearly did not want to do and after reading Mr. Lockhart's essay, I gave this predicament some more thought.

Next year, which will be our sixth grade year (technically), I've chosen to use parts of the Math Mammoth curriculum, some Life of Fred, and some more Living Math.  Math Mammoth is a mastery-based program that we can take in bits.  One thing Max despised was having to do addition and subtraction problems over and over and over until he wanted to scream, which he often did.  The spiral program is definitely not a good fit around these parts!  Books like The Phantom Tollbooth and others will help us to hopefully have more fun with math next time around!

A nice mom on the secular homeschool forum recommended these two links to help a math-reluctant child;

the term 'math-reluctant 'makes me want to chuckle.  I need to come up with an anti-math term that more befittingly describes my child - got any ideas?  Something more dark and sinister, perhaps.

Cosmeo

Powered by the Discovery Channel; 'Leon's Math Dojo' is supposed to entice kids to learn their math facts

AHa!Math   

K-5 computer-based math games

I have a few other posts about books and games that can be used to make math more palatable, too.  You can visit them here:

The Great Number Rumble

Math That Makes You Squirm!

Math Games

Math Adventures Part A

 Math Adventures Part B

Heading Math-Induced Whining off at the Pass

Gee, maybe I'll go back and read some of these posts to refresh my memory and get some new resources!  I for one am looking forward to a break from traditional math, or rather, the angst it seems to cause around here.  A happy learning child - I think that's possible, don't you?