Another successful week of living math! Yea! I'm really liking this and so are the kids. It just seems so natural. We started the week off with this book:
The following day we made a group graph using coins, so we were able to accomplish 2 things at once. I think that this really helped to solidify their graph skills. We used our white board and I drew a blank graph. Then, sorted all of the coins and discussed the names of the coins. To my surprise, my Dd already knew the names of all but one of the coins. Huh. Interesting.
Then, we worked together to make a graph of the coins. We were just comparing the number of coins in our graph. My oldest liked the graphing so much that she wanted me to make another blank graph for her to do on her own. She did a pretty good job!
The kids now seem to have a solid grasp of graphing. So, later in the week we got out our Singapore books and stamps and completed pages 43-52. The pages go super quick, because we use number stamps to answer the problems. Educational Insights See and Stamp Jumbo Numbers and Math Symbols Stamps. I don't require my son or daughter to complete any workbooks at this age, but I do offer it to them. Both children were more than excited to get to do the workbooks, because they love stamps. The stamps are a little big, so we had to improvise in some areas, but I think the size of the stamps are good for their little hands.Honestly, I don't think that there is any need for the workbooks. I can tell just by working with them whether or not they know their stuff. I guess I'm just adding it in for fun????
For the last day of the week (we do math 4 days per week), we did an activity pages 68-69 in Family Math for Young Children.
It is an activity where you guess how many Tablespoons of rice or beans, etc. it will take to fill up a cup. Then, you take turns rolling a die (dice) and putting in that many T. of rice until the cup is full. I didn't have any dice, so we used a poker chip a I wrote the number2 on one side and the number 3 on the other side, so that we could flip it.
I have both of the Family math books. In my opinion there is a pretty big difference in the young children book vs. the older book. I really, really like the young children book. It helps the children form a really good foundation of comparing and estimating which are essential skills for math and science. I'm pretty impressed!
In our evenings this past week and our upcoming weekend we will be using these fun and educational games:
Mighty Mind is AWESOME! Again, Mighty Mind is AWESOME! No joke. It's fabulous. It progresses the child through a series of number cards that increase in difficulty. They also have a magnetic version that you could use in your car or just simply if your children are having trouble keeping the pieces steady. I higly recommend them.
On to my future plans, after looking through our Singapore Earlybird books, my state standards, and the Family Math series I have put together a sort-of game plan. Just basically an overview of things that I would like to accomplish over the next couple of months or so. Please remember that we school from Jan.-Jan. So, our school year just started.
The main things that I am going to be focusing on come out of the Scope and Sequence of the Singapore. Things such as:
Unit 3: Numbers to 10
Unit 4: Order (Number order)
Unit 5: Shapes
Unit 6: Patterns
Unit 7: Length and Size
Unit 8: Weight
Unit 9: Capacity
However, a lot of these things are things that my children are alrea comfortable with (if not mastered) from prior teaching or just daily life. So, some of these units I won't be spending much time on. plan to s a living book to teach these units asas living math activities. I will use the Singapore pages when I want to, but I won't feel pressured by the Singapore books. Some of the units the kids will pick up using other acitivities such as the pattern puzzles for shapes, etc. I do, however, have some goals for the next year or however long it takes.
- I want to do a lesson out of the Family Math for Young Children book (see link above) at least every other wk if not every week.
- I also want to make sure that my children can count to 30 and count objects to 30. The kids are really close to this, but we still need to work on it a little.
- I want them to be able to add using objects to 10
- I want to improve my children's estimating skills
- I wan to work on things like length, weight, etc.
- I want to continue to offer fun games and activities that are math related for in the evenings and the weekends.
I'm not sure how it will look from week to week, but I do have some things to focus on when I plan my week. I have a couple of fun things lined up for next week so come back and check them out! I'm also getting my blog renovated by the girls over at the Cutest Blog on the Block. YEA!!!
Here is our oldest enjoying the Geoboard puzzles.
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