Mad Maths!

                   

 

 

This week, i call it Maths week. Sonshine finished a chapter on Time. I think we are about to complete the above assesment book, just a few chapters left.

 

                                                    

                  

 

We continue working on Word Problems. Example of a question he did was "There were 24 pigeons in the park & some flew away. There are 9 pigeons left in the park, how many flew away?"

 

We re-visited substracting by borrowing from the hundreds column. I realised he was a little rusty & i blamed it on my shady teaching. So i did it again, this time, he seems to understood the concept better.

 

 

In our class this week...

 

 

I have decided to pursue copywork as part of my homeschool curriculum. There are too many benefits of copywork to give it up though its boring. You can read more about copywork here. But to each his own. Before you jump in, i suggest you take a second to think if it suits your child's learning style. I don't think every child will benefit from this style of learning. For sonshine, i think he needs this type of drilling to help highlight the sentence structure, punctuation marks, capital letters etc.

 

 

I gave him a simple book to copy. The key thing i was looking for was minimal punctuation marks (just commas and periods) and repetitive sentences (hoping that he can magically learn the spelling of the words he wrote several times over). Pelangi books are right up my alley for this purpose.

 

On a separate note, we had quite a frustrating time doing this on one of the days. I had him re-write some letters because it was not written accurately (he wrote '0' like a '6'). I ended up scolding and caning him. Not because of his error but his 'i can't do it' mentality which made him cry in despair. I didn't like that he cried over such a small matter (not the first time) and told him that it is okay if he doesn't know or needs more time but its not okay to cry and give up! 

Do you have days like these? I do! So, don't ever think its all bed of roses for us. Just keeping it real.

 

 

He did some Maths on calculating money. I had him do this since he was taught this in school last week.

 

 

He continuously surprise me with his ability to understand and solve mathematical questions. For instance, a question he encountered was  "Jim had 3 five-dollar notes. He bought something and left $3. What did he buy?" I was certain he needed help and was just about to explain to him when he said 'car' (see diagram above).

 

 

As for the girl, she did some sensory play. Squeezing sponge and spilling water all over herself and the floor. She even used a towel to wipe herself and the floor with each spillage. It was very amusing to watch to say the least.

 

 

She enjoyed this scooping activity. Actually, she is able to handle the utensils and self feed very well. Now when we are out eating, she would insist to feed herself and i am proud to say she is getting quite professional!

 

 

I secretly think she loves the scooping activity because she loves the beads. She poured them in a tray and decided that it was more fun to step on it.

 

 

Oh, how about 'bathing' in it?

In this week's news....

These were what we have been doing for the past week:

 

 Grammar:

 

                

 

For the past few weeks, we have been working on Personal Pronouns i.e 'I vs you', 'We vs they', 'He, she, it, vs we/they' and 'am vs are', 'is vs are'.  

 

                

 

I also threw in another exercise on how & when to use 'who'. Actually, i don't really teach him, i just make him do! LOL.

 

Maths:

 

                       

 

We did some Word Problems. An example of the questions we have been focusing on is "Lisa has 10 eggs. Eliza has 2 less/more eggs than Lisa. How many eggs does Eliza have?"

 

 (I usually toggle between Kumon grade 1-3, the difference is not the type of questions asked but usually is doing the operation within the ones, tens or hundreds unit. I don't need him to practise his operations (i.e add/subtract) so i usually let him do grade 1 or 2 just to expose him to the type of questions. I don't want him to spend too much time on adding/subtracting.)

 

On a separate note, I saw the following word problem on another blog & on a whim, i asked him to solve it:

 

Jars A and B have 12 cookies each. There are 14 fewer cookies in jar C than jars A and B together.

a) How many cookies are there in jar A and jar B altogether?

b) How many cookies are there in jar C?

 

He did this quite mentally, just by reading it off from my ipad. Without telling me the answer for a), he straight away told me '10!'. Well, okay, son. Now i know you know.

 

Mandarin:

 

                     

 

I made him practise writing using the newly bought assessment book i bought. The words he learnt to write were '他，也'.  

Time for change

Sonshine will be attending Primary school in 2 years time. So we thought it was time to teach him about change- money wise that is. I mean, he would need to buy his own meal at recess right? He needs to learn how to pay and check for change, if needed.

I didn't have a grand plan on how i wanted to teach him, i simply grabbed a few coins and the toy cash register we have. I first handed him $0.50 and said that we were going to play. He wanted to 'buy' a cup of corn and i said it would cost him $0.30. I asked if he had enough money, he checked, yes. He handed me his $0.50 and i asked if it was too much or too little or just the right amount. He acknowledged that it was too much. So i explained to him that means i would have to return to him the extra, that is $0.20 and told him how i got that amount.

With that, he took off and i didn't need to explain any further.

Subsequently, i 'tested' him and asked if i was to buy something that cost $4.10 and if i gave $5.50, how much change did i get back? He was quick to give me the answer, $1.40.

To raise the bar, i also asked him if a train cost $0.50 and i buy 5 trains, how much would it cost me in total? $2.50 was his swift reply.

Well, i guess that means i wouldn't have him coming home with less money than he should, right? :P

Subtraction within 100

I was trying to lay off Subtraction within 100 (involving borrowing over from the tens to ones) because i found it a tad too tough for my yet-to-be 5 year old to understand.

But he recently is into doing Word problems frenzy and we inevitably reached to subtracting within 100. That is when i reluctantly decided it was time to teach my little fellow.

I first taught him the Singaporean way, or rather the way i was taught. But i think i shouldn't have done that although he showed that he could do it. Still, i had him work on the Montessori Stamp game (which i personally think is THE BEST way to illustrate this topic) because i wanted him to be very clear about what it meant to 'borrow' from the tens to the ones.

So now, the sonny can subtract within 100. I dare not ask him to do it mentally although i vaguely remember he did it before. But i'm not going there, don't want him to be confused.

Very proud of you sonny, well done!

Problem Solving & alittle humour

I find it ironic that Singapore Math is commonly adopted by overseas homeschoolers while we, Singaporeans, are rolling our eye balls out at our Math curriculum. I really don't understand why our maths must be sooo difficult. I mean hello, how many of us encounter such degree of mathematical difficulty in our daily lives, let alone careers? 1%? No, wait maybe make it 0.5%.

Unfortunately, the son is born here and will be suck into the system. What should a mother to do? Prepare him, what else? I was told that our Problem sums are the real killers. To a certain extent, i do agree. I remember struggling with it and i would go '????!!!!??????!!' after reading the questions. Anyway, i learnt along the way that the key to cracking the problem sums is to practise lots. That is why, i have been slowly introducing him to solving problem sums.

I first started with very simple addition and subtraction questions from the above assessment book. Questions like 'If mama has 5 toys and sonshine as 4, how many toys are there altogether?' or 'Mama has 10 toys, she gives 4 away. How many toys are left?'. I didn't explain the questions, i made him read the questions himself and tell me the answers. I was pleased that he could understand the questions and derive the correct answers. After which, he dabbled simple multiplication questions.

Since he could solve the questions, we moved on to tougher questions like 'Peter has 5 boxes of sweets. In each box there are 6 sweets. Peter gave away 8 sweets, how many does he have?'. Of course, he couldn't solve it at first. So i gently guided him without showing him the workings (we did all problem sums verbally & mentally by the way). I read the first part of the question and asked how many sweets are there altogether? After he gave 8 away, how many sweets are left? With that, he can now solve such questions mentally. For some reason, the odd ball has been asking me for more such questions. I was like 'er...later'. I was too tired to entertain him. :I

I recently read a question on time to him. For instance 'Jane took her nap at 4 o'clock and wakes up 2 hours later. What time did she wake up?' Sonshine had no issues with that either.

So for fun, one night i randomly asked him,

Me: If the time now is 9 o'clock and mummy says you will bathe 15 minutes later. What time will you bathe?'

Sonshine: 10:15!

Me: Nooooo! I said it's 9 o'clock now....

Sonshine: It's 10 o'clock!

Me: (looks at the clock- oh okay, it IS 10 o'clock) Okay okay, So if it's 10 o'clock now, i say you bathe 15 minutes later, what time will you bathe?

Sonshine: 10:16!

Me: (about to say 'noooooo' when i realised the clock had turned to 10:01). Alright! Alright!

Multiple Fraction-completed!

The day after we did the multiplication in 1/2s activity, sonshine asked to do the 1/3s. Of course, i happily obliged. After completing 2-3 equations he asked to stop and i was ok with that too because i knew he has gotten it.

The point of this activity was so that sonshine understands why say 4 X 1/2 becomes 2. I just wanted to make this point loud and clear. When he understood that, i felt comfortable to show him that dividing 4 by 2 is the same as multiplying 4 by 1/2. So i randomly gave him other equations like what is 20 X 1/4 or what is 18 X 1/9 etc- equations we didn't practise at all. He was able to give me all the answers mentally and i knew he has gotten it. Awesome! I don't have to make the rest of the equations- yippee!!

Mutiple Fractions

Adventures of Bear did a fraction activity with her daughter which inspired me. So i thought of one for sonshine.

First, i made card labels.

Sonshine took out an equation label. We first determine we are to count by halves 4 times (for this particular example).

Then he took out 4 halves cards.

Sonshine joined the halves to make into full circles. We counted how many wholes there are- and that would be our answer!

Sonshine worked on the rest of the equations.

After this activity, i discovered sonshine was able to give me all the answers mentally- including those equations we didn't work on.

At first, i was taken aback. Then i figured he must have remembered that i once told him that half of say 4 is 2, half of 8 is 4 etc.

But i never presented it in multiplication format until now, so i am still puzzled how he figured that both forms are actually the same. Anyway, i guess its great that he can multiply in halves and that he enjoyed this activity very much.

A twist to 'Egg in a cup'

What was meant for babydoll to play, turned out to be a simple lesson for sonshine.

I prepared this Egg in a cup activity for babydoll.

Sonshine had other plans. I watched him took out each volumeric solids and tried to fit them into the cup.

He discovered that the cube and rectangular solids couldn't fit into the cup.

We discussed why this was so. I pointed to him that only the round bottoms would fit into the cup which had a circular mouth while the others wouldn't because they had  differing bottoms.

Isn't it amazing that the children can create their own lesson plans just by exploring and us just observing? It would have been a shame if i had stopped him and insist edthat he plays the way i had planned it. We would have lost a meaningful lesson!

Mental Sums

When i taught sonshine to add 2 digits, i had expected him to be able to calculate in his head too. Normally, i wouldn't have such expectations but this time i know my son is capable of doing so hence i decided to give him a little nudge.

Initially, he couldn't do it. So i pulled away for a few weeks until i realised, he couldn't do it because he didn't have enough practise on paper i.e. he didn't get enough visual on adding in 2 digits. Hence, i took out the ipad  and worked 3-4 sums with him.

It worked like magic!

I gave him a couple of verbal sums, 19+19? 26+15? etc and

Straight away, he learnt how to add 2 digits- all his head. :)

Adding in 2-digits

Ever since, we did the Montessori stamp game (addition), the boy has been able to add in 2 digits. Today, i whipped out the ipad just to practise. We had fun adding 2 (and more) digit sums together.

I just love how the boy gets so so so so excited whenever we do home teaching stuff like this. I love how i do not need to force him to learn, i love how he so readily, so excitedly, so willingly joins me for, what i call, homeschool-minutes (because that's as long as my 'lessons' last!).

I love how he loves learning. :)

I gave him a sum and he worked on it independently.

He was excited when i showed him we can add the same way in hundreds and even thousands. He has caught on the concept and was able to work on the sums pretty much on his own.

Since i was at it, i showed him how to subtract ( 2 digits) by borrowing over. He seems to have understood but i think i will use the Montessori stamp game to illustrate again.  

Fractions

In the last few months, i've slowly introduced Fractions to the boy. I read a couple of Fraction books to him just to expose him to the concept.

I also gave him some half-minute verbal lessons. For instance, i'd ask him how many in our family own Crocs shoes, and he would say 2. I then ask him how many people are there in our family, he'd answer 4. So i told him that 2 out of 4 people in our family has Crocs Shoes! I would throw him similar questions using our everyday lives as the subject. And that was that until...

the school holidays when he asked and asked and asked and asked to 'play' with the Fractions game set on our shelf. I rejected him a couple of times (because i hadn't done any research on how to play it) but finally had no heart to decline him again. So we just dived into it without any lessons planned.

This was the first set we 'played'. It was passed down to me by my sister. I've NO idea where she got this from (and neither does she remember). I've seen this series on shapes, spelling etc everywhere but not the Fraction set.

Using the pieces to reinforced to Sonshine that 2 halves make a whole. He already knows this as well as 4 quarters make a whole, 3 one-thirds make a whole etc. But i still used them to reiterate it.

What i love about this fraction set is that i could also show him that 2 quarters equal a half!

We also discovered that one 1/5 and three 1/10s also make a half!

I was clearly out of my mind. I went on to make felt fractions for him in the midst of my crazy schedule! This was inspired by Counting Coconuts. But unlike her, i deliberately used the same colored felt ('cause i wanted to make all things equal except the size) and i didn't write down the fraction on each piece ('cause i wanted N to tell me himself).

Right after we finished that set, he asked to do another set! Here, he had to match the fraction to the correct picture.

This is the set, in case anyone out there is interested. I think i bought it from Toysrus.

At other times, i would grab a few pieces of Lego, say 3 yellow and 2 red. I would ask him how many out of how many are yellow (3 out of 5) and how many red? I think he's gotten it. :)

He can tell the time

Sonshine can now tell the time by looking at a face clock. He can tell me the hour and exact minutes. He initially was able to tell by the hour and half-hour. He could read the digital clock, 24-hour as well. I taught him to read the minute hand before but he was alittle rusty hence i decided it's time to brush up! With a little help from some books on telling time and this trusty clock (bought from Popular Bookshop), the boy can read time like 4:23 or 10:09 etc. Some days, i would ask him to look at the digital clock and arrange the hour & minute hand accordingly. No sweat! PASS!

Tis a season

We did the Montessori stamp game again this time with a Christmas twist!

I printed the Christmas tree printable (see photo) from Confessions of a Homeschooler (but i tweaked it). I wrote numbers & the answers to our sums on it. N had to work on the sums, find the answers on the worksheet and color the spot.

I made our own Christmas printables. On this worksheet, Sonshine had to circle the different Christmas symbol in each row.

And tracing, printed from Confessions of a Homeschooler  as well.

More Xmas activities to come!

Time-24 hour clock

I know not how but the boy can now read the 24 hour clock. I accidentally found out one day when he just blurted to me that 15:43 means 3:43. I can't quite figure out who taught him, he isn't very clear either. But, who cares! I just love it that he knows this since our clock in the living room is a 24-hr digital clock! WOOT!

Completed!

You know that you've successfully homeschool your kid when he ask to do assessment books. :I

This was a book i bought earlier and we've completed it this week! WHOO-HOO! When i first purchsed it, i was apprehensive that we'll ever finish it, but we did! :))

I with-held the book for some time because of his weak pencil grip and some of the chapters we've yet to dabble. But few days ago, i realised he should be able to do it and hence i asked him to do a few pages just for fun. I told him we'll do just a few pages but he kept asking to do more till we finished the book!

The last few pages were about time. He had to write the time and draw the clock-hands. I was pleasantly surprised that he was confidently writing his answers unlike the previous time where he hesitated alot just to write one number.

Some pages were on simple fractions.

Lastly, he worked on counting money. I took the chance to teach him that 100 cents make up $1, 200 cents make up $2 and on.