Snow Day!

Butterflies and mobius strips

Eldest and a moth (Io moth?)

No that wasn't our 'lecture' subjects today but it was on the menu for the homeschool activity group that we participate in. We started off at a butterfly show which was packed with school tours and suffocating compared to the cool fall air outside. Despite the winged beauties most of us quickly retreated to the second part of our tour which was exploring the work of a family member of the group - a prof of math.

That was way fun! Eldest (and the rest of the group) sat rivetted as he wrote some fancy looking differential equations on the board. She sat forward and said to the mums sitting next to her, "I can't read that." Neither could I. In fact, prof claims few can. Anyhoo, after introducing what he did as a lecturer, he started cutting loops of paper. Now that was fun.

A single loop cut along one side creates: 2 loops
A twisted loop or mobius strip creates: one big loop.
A double twisted loop where two sides are once again obvious creates: 2 joined loops.
and so on...

This is seriously fun so here's a link to explore further. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/331665/no_magic_at_all_mobius_strip/

Afterward, he asked the kids who liked art and math and all the rest which prompted a range of questions being throw at him like "How does the sun make light" and "How was the Earth formed." Poor math prof. We had to hush the children.

Math Story Book Extra-ordinaire!

This book really blew my socks off as it can be read on different math levels from basic counting to thinking about cubic volume:

365 Penguins

A fun math book which introduces the concepts of 7 days a week, different amounts of days that make up a month, 365 days in a year, the + 1 sequence, some addition, some multiplication and division. Oh, and it's funny too. My kids loved it.

The whole math story book list to date

I'm baaaaaaaaack

Oh yes, back from a holiday of which I have mixed feelings so what's up in our world?

My eldest has moved on from her fascinations of natural science into history and right now we are knee deep in books about medival knights and pyramids. Monday it will be off to the Museum of Civilization for the Greek Exhibit.

Not to be outdown, my youngest is on a quest to learn about different kinds of critters. Being the more neglected and consequently (I assume) less neurotic younger one she is adamant about how she is discovering all about - phonetically dragged out -'iiiinnnssseeecccttt' with a punctuated 't' at the end.

I have vowed once again to keep our approach relaxed and fun. "Remember, it's supposed to be fun!!" I think I'm going to post that on my forehead. We're concentrating on what I call:

1. Reading Circle - go around and read to each other
2. Word Work - spelling and stuff
3. Writing/Drawing - 'cuz no one can handwrite worth a darn save me in this house
4. Math you Make - I'll post pictures
5. Way too many fieldtrips and library books.

Empty shelves at the library? It's not the bookworms, just some homeschoolers.

2008/2009 has begun!

Cutting off my hair

I have had really long hair for a while now... okay, 6 years and was going for the 'classic length' which according to internet sources is just below your bottom. However, it was getting on my nerves what with brushing out the tangles every morning, never having time to do anything with it and just generally being a bit grumpy (I had other words in mind but let's keep this rated G), so one morning I said to my eldest:

"Want to see mommy cut off all her hair?"
"Yeah!"
How kids love naughty things.
"Okay, but don't you do this. Ready?"
It took longer than I imagined cutting through the steel wire which is my hair, and two scissors later - gone. I had thought that I would stop there. You know, go to a professional to finish the look but what the heck...
"Hey, how short should mommy cut it?"
"To your ears like papa!"
"Okay."
A little while later.
"Mommy can you put it back on again?"
"No honey, I can't."

The shackles of feminine locks are gone. The last of my original vanities have been donated to the wig makers. Am I sad? Heck (G censored word) no.

Before:


After:


BTW: I had asked several hairstylists what they would suggest but all of them had been lets just say unencouraging mentioning my 'strong jawline' and other nonsense. This and my reluctance to let people 'do' my hair (or any other part of me) made me fearless about cutting my own hair.

It has been fun watching the shock/horror on people's face too. I think it looks good but really I DON'T CARE if it does or not.

Relief. No more hair obscuring my gaze on the world, to restrict my speed of my movement, and to be looked upon as admiringly as proof of my fertility or other such blather.


This is the first ever blogger pic of me so "hi"

Math is fun fun

Money math - we use dimes and pennies to learn about adding double digit numbers. That way, she adds her ones first and trades if she has ten or more for a dime and then she adds up all her dimes or the tens collumn.

I went upstairs from the computer to greet my freshly woken eldest and said how did you sleep?

"Can we do more math," she responded.

-- just a reminder why we homeschool --


We were going to do some exploration of multiplication and area of rectangles and squares but when I went to do laundry or something boring, my daughter started her own game called 'archeology' using the squares as a 'dig grid'. Sometimes you gotta know when to leave them alone.

Division and fraction for beginners

A script of our game: dividing

Stage 1

Me: "Let's start with a number. Hmmm, which one?"
Eldest: "12!"
Me: (Oh good one!) "Okay, can you share 12 crayons with 3 people. Make sure everyone gets the same amount of crayons."
Eldest: Starts to separate them all by ones.
Me: "That's a lot of people. How many people were we sharing with?"
Eldest: "Oh." Starts to make groups with 2 in each.
Me: "How many do I get?"
Eldest: "Two"
Me: "What about your sister?"
Eldest: "Two"
Me: "What about you?"
Eldest: "Two"
Me: "But that leaves a bunch of crayons. Why don't we start by giving one to each person and then do it again until we have no more crayons?"
Eldest: "Okay." Starts handing them out. Fights ensue over which colour each gets. Finally...
Me: "So how many do we each get?"
Eldest: Counts "Four."
Me: "So what is 12 divided by 3?"
Eldest: Thinks a minute to figure out why I changed the words from share to divide. "Um..."
Me: "How many is in each group of crayons."
Eldest: "Four"
Me: "So what is 12 divided by 3?"
Eldest: "Oh. Four."


Stage 2

Me: "Do you remember when we divided 12 crayons?"
Eldest: "Can I draw?"
Me: "Yes, can you draw 4 circles, make them big because we are going to divide some numbers into 4 groups."
Eldest: "Okay."
Me: Takes out 4 counters. Writes 4 divided 4 on a slip of paper. "Can you divide these 4 counters into these 4 circles?"
Eldest: Hesitates. "Like this?" Puts all four in one.
Me: "No. You want to make sure that each circle gets the same amount. Divide the counters into 4 circles. Divide by 4."
Eldest: Puts one counter in each circle.
Me: "Tell me how many is in each circle. What is 4 divided by 4?"
Eldest: "One."
Me: "Good! Let's try it with a bigger number. Let's divide 8 by 4."

This game continues with different circles and different amounts of counters until the words 'share' 'same in each circle' etc.. are entirely dropped and only divided by and equals are used. It can also be done with blocks making evenly sized towers. This is great for making sure that you have divided evenly - all the towers are the same height.

Of course, if your child gets bored, it is good back to concrete examples such as plates and raisons. In fact, in order to use math effectively, concrete examples should never be abandoned entirely. This ensures that instead of word problems being difficult, they are easy, maybe even easier initially.


The Script: Starting with Fractions

Me: "Who wants to make a pie?"
Eldest, youngest: "Me, me, strawberry!"
Me: "Okay, I'm drawing a big pie. Youngest, how many pies is that?"
Youngest: "One."
Me: "Okay, I'm going to divide the pie. Do you all want a piece?"
Eldest, youngest: "Yes."
Me: "How many of us are there?"
Eldest, youngest: Counting overtop each other. Somehow the number "Three" appears.
Me: "Okay, I'm dividing our pie by three." Cuts up pie with scissors. "One, two, three pieces. How many pies do we have?"
Youngest: "Three."
Me: "Really? We started with one. I'm going to put it together again. How many pies is that?"
Youngest: "One."
Oldest: "Just one."
Me: "Yup, but we all get a piece." Drawing on each piece, I put the fraction 1/3 and say "One piece out of three. That's one out of three. One divided by three. We divided our pie three ways. Wait. Oh no!"
Eldest, youngest: giggles.
Me: "I see a mouse. Do you see it? It's over there." Points. They both look (we hope). I take away a piece. "Hey, that mouse wasn't over there. It was over here. A piece of our pie is missing! How many pieces do we have now?"
Eldest: "Aw. We have two."
Me: "Sigh. Two. Two out of what? What did we start with?"
Eldest: "Three."
Me: "Can you say all of that so I can write it down."
Eldest: "Three. Um"
Me: "What do we have left?"
Eldest: "Two."
Me: "Two out of ?" I write two with the fraction line
Eldest: "Three."
Me: "Which is?"
Eldest: "Two out of three."
Me: Write the three on the bottom. "Wait, there's that mouse again." Point. "Hey, it's not two out of three anymore!"

Continue.

Later on,

Me: "Let's make a pie with 8 pieces: one for ..., one for ..., one for ... How many pieces do we have all together?"
Eldest: Counts
Me: As she counts, put a cherry sticker or counter on each piece.
Eldest: "Eight."
Me: "So what should we put on the bottom?"
Eldest: "Eight."
Me: "Did the mouse eat any? Did YOU eat any?"
Eldest: giggling "No."
me: "What number should we put on the top then? Are they all there? All ..."
Eldest: "Eight?"
Me: "Okay." Makes fraction. "Does that look right? Eight out of eight pieces of the pie."
Eldest: nods.
Me: "Did you know that this line also means divided by?" Put dots on either side of the fraction line so it looks like a divided by symbol. "What does this say?"
Eldest: "Eight" Looks at me.
Me: "Right. Go on."
Eldest: "Eight divided by eight."
Me: "You got it. What is eight divided by eight?"
Eldest: "Um... one?" (This only works if they have learned about numbers dividing by themselves in the first place obvioulsy)
Me: "Hey one is how many pies we have. How did you know that?"
Eldest: "We only drew one pie."

This game can be extended to look at adding and subtracting pies with the same number of pieces, as well as in the mouse ate two pieces so 4/4-2/4 = 4-2/4 = 2 and adding as you unevenly share pieces so that daddy gets 2/4 and kids only get 1/4 each which still adds up to 2+1+1/4. If you use two pies, you can practice converting fractions like 8/4 into 8 divided by 4 or 2 (pies).


Enjoy and let me know how it went with your kids!