FUNTIMES HOME EDUCATION

We had kept most of K's past year 1 and 2 maths books from school, so we worked through these with B and found he'd successfully completed them by Easter.  He also did pretty well at the first level of an old year 2 SATS booklet I'd picked up for K when she was in that year.  As B has now finished these, we've been going over the completed work and extending it or reiterating areas of it.  Quite often B will initiate his own maths - measuring a long wiggly line of toy cars, making a simple weighing machine to test the weight of a variety of objects and making a couple of maths based "board games" based on his favourite PC game characters.  I also entice him to play maths based games on the internet. 

For K, the maths subject was slightly different.  She was in the top school year class for this subject when at school, although I'd always thought she'd struggled (as her text books revealed), and she had been put off this subject purely because she wasn't able to keep up with the teacher and had little confidence to ask for help.  We found, even from an early school age, that she'd get stuck on the simple problems, but could cope quite well with the more difficult maths.  K would say she felt the simple maths was just too simple to be right!  With this in mind, trying to build K's confidence to take her knowledge further was quite tricky. 

By chance I came across a bundle of maths workbooks from The Book People entitled "Using Maths - exciting real life maths activities" suitable for ages 8-12.  One book was about being a zoo vet, right up K's street.  The books are full of photos, interesting information and facts and are easy to follow with tips on how to complete the maths problems and, of course, the answers (at the back!).  It basically covers the day to day things a zoo vet would need to do mathematically.  Each page had a set of  questions that would start easy and progress to a more challenging level. The maths included:-

• the best size crate to transport an animal (perimeter, area and volume),
• understand weight to work out how many worming tablets or feed to administer,
• use time to work out how often an animal would require food,
• work with money problems to run the zoo gift shop,
• convert mixed weights to one workable unit to find heavy and light animals.

We have just finished this book successfully and will continue with the other books in the series.  As the problems are all "everyday" issues K found it helped to make learning maths more acceptable.

There are so many workbooks available to purchase in stationers and book shops, not just on maths but to cover literacy and science too and they range from pre-school age right to the senior level.  When choosing maths workbooks for us to use at home, I found that they varied quite a bit from publisher to publisher, especially in the way they show their working out of a maths problem.  I am trying to teach K and B the way to do problems as I was taught at school, mainly because this is logged in my mind and is therefore easier to teach.  As K had already been taught some different problem solving methods I thought the change may be a awkward for her , but in fact it seems she has found my way of learning easier to retain.  K also uses he BBC maths books to boost her learning.  I found these followed my way of teaching and K managed to complete the "Spark Island Maths, ages 7-9" very quickly.  We have moved on to 9-11 and are working through this more slowly.  Bearing in mind this would take K up to the end of year 6 (Juniors), she is doing remarkably well.  Other home educated families have recommended the "Monstrous Maths" books by Letts which we are also trying.  The learning is broken up into smaller units with lots of fun wizard and witches pictures to aid learning.  The addition of gold stars and silver award stickers help too.

This subject will probably be added to time and time again as we progress with our learning together. 

Maths crops up in all areas of everyday life, and it is the basic skills that are so very important for children to learn.  Quick thinking when checking the change given to them during a shopping trip, or adding up the cost of a toys or goodies that they've bought so they are sure they have enough pocket money to pay for them is all part and parcel of life.

The children get pocket money, K is given a small sum of  money at the end of each month, and both children earn extra coins for helping out.  They also have a savings account, although at the moment only B is keen to keep his money for a rainy day.  K quickly learnt how to add up a long list of goodies she desperately wanted to buy, listing the amounts then totalling them; seeing how much money she actually has and working out how long it will take her to finally obtain the sum she needs.  Amazingly she never gets these amounts wrong, as this information is important to her, but when doing sums in workbooks, she will frequently do a hit and miss with the answer as it has no meaning to her what so ever! 

When doing our weekly grocery shop, we divide the list between the three of us.  Now that the children are aware of the store layout and where to find the usual items, this not only makes the shop much quicker and so less boring for them, but they have become aware of price differences and are quick to compare costs and choose items of good value.  Sometimes we estimate the cost of our shop before we go and then see how much we have actually spent and do a comparison.  We use the scales available in fruit and vegetable section to weigh our items and work out how much they should cost.  When shopping for their own items, I encourage the children to either find the correct money in their purse or work out how much change they should receive back from the shop assistant.

We have been growing our own vegetables this year and have been keeping a weekly diary to see how well the seedlings grow.  By measuring the height and width of the plants and in the case of the pumpkin, the diameter too, the children have needed to use first a ruler, and now a tape measure, to keep their records accurate.  We measure the children too once in a while and work out how much they have grown.

B recently did a lovely estimating/measuring game when playing with his toy cars, lining them up nose to tail to make a long wiggly line.  After counting them he added more cars to make a total of 100 and then asked to measure the length of the line.  By showing B how to use a long piece of string to follow the wigggly line and then measure the string he was able to reach the answer.  When faced with a small wiggly line to measure in his maths work book, he knew instantly how to go about it.

The three of us are regular cake bakers so weighing and measuring ingredients ensure quick learning in ths field.  Both children are able to weigh dry ingredients and measure liquids accurately.  We have electronic scales and use pounds and ounces as well as grams when making our cakes.  When using ounces the children also learn about fractions and have quickly worked out that 7/8 means just a tiny bit more ingredient is needed to make the next whole ounce.  During our forces topic (listed in Science) we made a force meter using a large yoghurt carton with string handle attached to a hook (bent to have a pointer) on an elastic band which we attached to the door handle.  By placing unopened jars or packets of food inside the yoghurt carton and then carefully marking where the hook pointer directed we were able to make our own version of weighing scales.  B loved this and spent a considerable time weighing multiples of packets to work out their weight (and their Newton weight - 100g = 1 N) and used ordinary scales too to find the total weight of a number of items.

There are so many games that can be played to encourage the use of maths, bingo is a good one or games using a deck of cards.  When K and B were in pre-school, I used to do an Avon round close to home and the children quickly learnt their numbers by following the house numbers along the streets. We sometimes add up the numbers on car plates or work out the best train times using the time tables (and the 24 hour clock).  The list is endless!

There are numerous mathematical based games available to play and learn from the internet.  As children become more and more used to using computers in their everday environment, to use games like this is an added bonus when trying to drive home a problematic maths situation.

Here are just a few of the many maths links we have used to help build our mathematical understanding - hope you find something useful here:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/ - a mixed bag from BBC Skillwise on whole numbers including multiplication, addition and subtraction, place value and decimals, estimating, big numbers, rounding and others.

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/MathBrain/MathBrain.html - Math Arcade from Funbrain was great fun for B and K.  It is played like a board game where you answer math questions correctly to move along the board.  The questions become harder as the game moves up different levels and you can save the game and come back to where you left off by entering a password.

http://www.dltk-kids.com/money/lemonade2/lemonade-unregistered/index.htm - Lemonade Stand, although played in $, this was a fun idea to help the children learn about running a stall by judging how many ingredients you'll need to order (according to the weather forecast), to how much you'd sell the drink for, then sit back to hopefully pocket a profit!

http://www.numberlinelane.co.uk/ - Numberline Lane is a cool maths site for younger children.  Names are given to numbers 1 - 10 with short stories about each character and fun easy activities and worksheets.

http://www.aaamath.com/B/grade3.htm - this is called Third Grade and has lots of maths pages listed so you'll find something to help you here.

http://www.techniquest.org/exhibits/sketch.php - this is cool, named Sketching Symmetry, move your mouse to draw a pattern and the computer will draw the symmetry as you work.

http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/ - Super Kids Worksheet Creator - does just that!

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/interactive.htm - we use these all the time to help learn the all important times tables - a whole host of multiplication games from Woodlands Junior School.

http://www.mrnussbaum.com/tonyfraction.htm - learning fractions by making pizzas using Tony Fraction's Pizza Shop game.

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~jenolive/percent1.html - a refresher on working out percentages, came in very handy for me recently!

When working out how fast something is going you need to know the distance it has travelled and the time it has taken to do it.  Find a safe area to take your bike, like a clear cycle path that is free from traffic.  Take a tape measure with you so you can measure the distance between two object, like trees.  These will be the guideline posts along the edge of the path and should be positioned at least 50 metres apart.  Start cycling well before the first post to obtain a steady speed.  When you get to the first post, get a friend to start timing you and to finish timing when you get to the second post.  The equation for working out how fast you were cycling is this.

average speed = distance travelled / time taken

(if you measured the distance in metres and the time taken in seconds
the answer will be in metres per second,
written as m/s)