Halloween: Investigations

Do you know how the festival of Halloween came about?  It has an interesting historical beginning going all the way back to the pagan rituals of the Celts, which were adopted by the Christian church, followed by its development into a major festival in America:

Following the historical investigation into the origins of Halloween, we undertook a Halloween-themed mathematical investigation.  The maths problem looks deceptively simple, but it is a good training for logical, systematic thinking, and is the beginning of the concept of combinations and permutations.

Mathematics at the elementary school stage is a lot about common sense, so Tiger has no problem visualising what the solution is.  In fact, he could work out in his mind (some call it intuition) and tell me the answers to the different parts of the problems - and they were correct answers when we checked later using the spreadsheet.  When I asked him to explain how he got the answers, he couldn't tell me why.  This was not a new phenomenom and I used to let that pass.  I was happy as long as he consistently arrived at the correct answer.  However, as Tiger grows older, I think it is important for him to develop different ways to communicate his solution.

With me acting as his scribe, Tiger started to narrate how he would go about solving the problem.  The process soon became a discussion as we determined together the best way to represent his solution.  We started with working out the solution on paper, but soon realised that if we were to answer all the questions in the problem, we would have to find a more efficient way to work it out.

As Tiger has been playing around with Excel spreadsheet on his own for a while, he has some idea that the spreadsheet can be used to represent and solve maths problems.   We then spent an hour or so on Excel, with Tiger learning software user skills that include:

• how to represent data in a table
• how to format tables
• how to cut and paste
• how to use simple spreadsheet formulae as short cuts to represent the logic of the solution

Tiger was fascinated by the spreadsheet's ability to represent his solution visually, so he did not mind spending an hour to work out the answers on the computer when he could have given the same answers in a few minutes in his mind.  I am also not convinced that it is necessary to show step-by-step procedures to every maths question therefore we will only do so for the following reasons:

• to train Tiger's communication skills
• to learn a new skill, e.g. how to use spreadsheets

This post is linked up to:
1) Math Monday Blog Hop #71
2) Hip Homeschool Hop - 10/23/12
3) All Year Round Blog Carnival: Autumn
4) Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop #36
5) History and Geography Meme #47
6) Homeschool Mother's Journal: October 26, 2012
7) Collage Friday
8) Favourite Resources: October 26, 2012
9) TGIF Linky Party #53
10) It's a Wrap
11) Weekly Wrap-Up

You can't get away with that!

So said my son, about my making the Irish Stew as our hands-on project when we studied the Celts.  Apparently, he was not happy that we did not try to do more than eating, so he insisted that we actually make something!

Alright, it's his education so I'm more than happy if he wants to do additional work on a certain topic.  I let him choose a project from the same project book that was used in the previous week.  He wanted to make a Celtic dagger and scabbard, so we got to work.

The original instructions in the book suggest using card to make the items, but I used cardboard instead, for a stronger weapon.  A card dagger will be too flimsy.

I drew the patterns on the cardboard and cut them out.  Tiger did the rest.

Now he is happy.  We can move on to the next topic.



This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.

Coming together...

Our study of British History and World History, that is.

We do both world history and British history side-by-side.  Last year in World History, we explored the Ancient World; in British History, we covered the periods from the Celts to 1066.  This year in the first few chapters of world history we are rediscovering the periods from the late Roman period to the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, all of which feel like a revision for us.  Therefore, we are covering these topics quite quickly, in contrast with our usual pace.

First, the Celts.  We watched a documentary on The Celts, which I think is very informative.  I read The Kingdom of the Celts to give myself more background on this very interesting group of people while Tiger read the books pictured here.

Another very well produced documentary that we watched was A Nation State by David Starkey.  This is the first part of his acclaimed Monarchy documentary series, which we intend to follow along as we go through the different periods in British history.  Although I don't agree with everything he says, David Starkey's programme is still, by far, the most recent and well documented account.

In addition, we also listened to the podcast of the Mold Gold Cape, which we saw on display at the British Museum the previous time we were there.  If you cannot get to the British Museum, listening to the podcast while looking through the slides is just as useful.

Of course, there is food -- the Irish Stew, taken from pictured activity book.  I am not convinced that the ancient Celts actually ate this (I suspect their version would more likely resemble the pottage than this very modern stew, since I don't think carrots and potatoes were readily available in England back then).  I am sure the ancient Celts would laugh their heads off if they were to see this very modern stew being used as an example of their food.  Nonetheless, it was delicious!



This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.