SANTA maths

We took a slight detour to do some Christmas-related maths:

The above is written as "targeted for Year 5-6" (age 9-11).  It is a set of nine photocopiable task sheets that let the children complete tasks to work out certain clues leading to a solution to the final puzzle.  Each task is a mathematical question that seeks to incorporate a number of maths concepts disguised as puzzles.  It's a nice idea, and I wish I had used it with Tiger two years ago.  He completed all of it within half an hour, and was clearly underwhelmed, but he was happy to discuss what gifts he could claim using the piece of paper he 'achieved' at the end of the book:

I bought the book based on the user reviews of another book in the same series.  The users are school teachers who used the series with secondary school children, and who claimed that the children at that age "enjoyed the tasks".  Hmm.  When I asked Tiger whether he 'enjoyed the tasks' in this particular book, he said, "Yes, because they're so easy!"  I am slightly annoyed that I did not get more value out of the £17 I paid for the book.

With this book, I felt as though I have put Tiger in a toddler's paddling pool when my intention was to let him have a leisurely swim in the big pool.


This post is linked up to:
1) Homeschool Mother's Journal: December 7, 2012
2) Collage Friday
3) It's a Wrap
4) TGIF Linky Party #57
5) Weekly Wrap-Up: The Busy One

Random maths

Even the study of mathematics schedule has gone out of the windows in this household these days.  Once given the free reign, Tiger has read more maths-related books on his own than ever before:

He attended a Maths circle where he played some maths games and solved some math puzzles...

Apart from the topical maths done at Halloween, Tiger has also spent much more time practising various areas of Khan Academy's Arithmetic section.  Most homeschoolers have already discovered this site, but Tiger has just been using it more frequently lately.  He is very motivated by the various badges and awards he can earn as he progresses through the various sections.  The best part is, he is doing what we would consider to be drills without even realising it.  The website has a clever system built in to adjust the number of drills the child has to do according to how quickly and accurately the child has answered the previous questions, so there are no unnecessary repetitions, which suits Tiger very well.  It is more or less self-paced and would suit an independent learner very well.



This post is linked up to:
1) Homeschool Mother's Journal: November 16, 2012
2) Collage Friday
3) Favourite Resources: November 16, 2012
4) It's a Wrap
5) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Before Thanksgiving
6) Math Monday Blog Hop #75

Halloween: the sweets

We had a bit of fun looking at how different types of sweets are made, as well as investigating the colour coating of sweets and their solubility.  The idea was taken from here.

At the start of the experiment.

At the end of the experiment.

I thought we could extend the activity above by going into an inquiry-based chemistry curriculum (I much prefer to have some kind of structure going, if I can help it), so we went along and did chapter 1 of this curriculum.

The curriculum itself is well designed and attempts to inspire questions, rather than being a fact-based textbook.  However, very soon I realised that it does not work for us because the questions that the curriculum is guiding the student to ask are not the questions that Tiger is interested in.  Hence, we stopped after stuggling to maintain our interest beyond chapter 1.  Yet another example of a well-intended curriculum plan that does not match the way my son wants to learn.  He is the child who is interested in learning but who is not interested in being taught.  One thing I've learnt from going through the one chapter in this inquiry-based curriculum with Tiger is that he wants to find the answers to his own questions, rather than answering the questions that someone else has set for him.


This post is linked up to:
1) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Autumn
2) Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop #36
3) Homeschool Mother's Journal: October 26, 2012
4) Collage Friday
5) Favourite Resources: October 26, 2012
6) TGIF Linky Party #53
7) It's a Wrap
8) Weekly Wrap-Up
9) Science Sunday

Summer with Fred

There has been much interest in various homeschooling circles, both in the UK and in the USA, about the Life of Fred math series.  I decided to take a look at the sample pages and liked how the author has interwoven important math concepts into the story, while introducing broader philosophical and historical concepts in a conversational style.

We used the first book, Life of Fred: Apples, last summer and Tiger loved the quirky character, Fred.  We didn't pursue the series further in the year until we found time again this summer, so I ordered the rest of the elementary series , and Tiger read them several times by himself at the start of the summer.

There are rave reviews for the series.  While Tiger loves the series and I think it is an interesting and broad way to introduce some very complex maths concepts to children, I am not sure I would use it solely as our main math curriculum, even though I know of homeschoolers who swear by it.  I get the sense that this series is very successful with children who fear or hate maths, as the series is written in a humourous way to grab children's attention while exposing them to the applicability of mathematics in real life situations via the adventures of Fred.  For a child who already enjoys maths (e.g. Tiger) this series is useful to the extent of exposing him to concepts that he would otherwise come across much later, and to use them as jump-off points to investigate certain areas further.

Having said that, Tiger enjoyed the series so much that I decided to sit with him in August to work through all the end-of-chapter questions to make sure that he did not gloss over the parts that he did not understand.

Things began to become more interesting for us in the sixth book, Life of Fred: Farming, where concepts such as sets and factorials (amongst a host of many other non-mathematical concepts) are introduced in a straightforward way.  I like the way the author is commited to introducing seemingly complex mathematical ideas in a straightforward manner.  Nowadays, many subjects have been made confusing and complex to the learner due to poor quality teaching and/or unnecessarily complicated explanation.  Mathematics, when explained in a straightforward way, should not be an intimidating subject to anyone.

We have completed the series up to Life of Fred: Goldfish.  There are 3 more books in the elementary series, so it looks like we'll be seeing Fred again next summer!

**Note: I am not affliated with the publishing company or the author of this curriculum.  Neither am I paid in any way to say anything about it.  This review is done purely out of interest to share our experience with using this curriculum.


This post is linked up to:
1) Homeschool Mother's Journal: August 24, 2012
2) Collage Friday - All about the Haircut
3) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with the First Week Off
4) Favourite Resources: August 24, 2012
5) Enchanted Thursday Blog Hop #28
6) Math Monday Blog Hop #64
7) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Summer