Ah, Math

It's 12:30am and I am up with a sore throat. I drank caffeinated pop at 9:30 because it was cold and made my throat feel better, so that doesn't help either. I guess that makes this a good time to blog.

Math, in our homeschool, is kind of a bugaboo. Math is not my favorite subject, although I did get A's in high school. My oldest understands it well, but finds it pretty boring. I am torn between trying to make math more interesting for her and just telling her to do it because it is part of school.

I bought Abeka Math 3 for her this year after using the Comprehensive Curriculum workbooks for K - 2. This year is a testing year for Colorado homeschoolers and figured I had better use a "real" curriculm to get her ready for it. I picked Abeka because TWTM recommends it and it was cheap. Mostly, because it was cheap. I didn't buy the Teacher's Manual and spent $20 on the workbook and speed drills.

SK hated it after about two months. I knew Abeka had too much drill and so I only made her do a couple of problems in each section. She still hated it. Finally, I bought an addition and subtraction book, a multiplication book and a fractions book and I use Abeka as a guide for what else to teach. She still doesn't love math, but doesn't hate it as much.

So, on to what I really wanted to blog about. The other day, SK was making multiplication flash cards (her dad's idea. She doesn't hate it and seems to be learning the facts...) I had mentioned to her about books I had seen that have stories to go with the facts like this website and this book and this book I gave her the example " Door times Door is Sick Queen. She thought is was pretty cool and has now decided to make up her our rhyme/stories. Here are some examples:

mix and hive is birdie
6 x 5 = 30

door and gate is birdie shoe
4 x 8 = 32

She is planning to make a book with pictures and has already made a list of words to go with other numbers. Yeah, a math success!

Another math success has been the introduction of games. I borrowed a friend's Right Start Math Games book (I really want to buy the 4th grade curriculum, but I am not sure I can afford it on a grad student salary...) Anyway, the girls have been ASKING to play double memory and go fish. Friday, I introduced Addition War and SK and KE had great fun playing it. So we shall see, perhaps math wil no longer be our bugaboo subject.