Math Monday - Guest Hollow Math

Lots of great math resources listed here

Have fun exploring!

Math Monday - 9/19/11

My 16 year old is doing a precalculus class with an on line teacher.  He's only been at it two weeks, but so far he likes it.  Josh was having trouble understanding something about real zeros and Mr. Owens made a special video for Josh to explain it!

If you are interested in checking Derek Owens' offerings, his address is simply:  www.derekowens.com

Math Monday - The Math Shark

I bought a Math Shark years ago.  (Mine is purple and red not blue and yellow as in the picture; I wonder if that indicates just how old it is?).


Anyway, it proved to be a good investment.  The kids played on it without any prompting.  It goes through long periods where it gathers dust on a shelf, but then the kids rediscover it at some point and it is like a new toy all over again.  It has gotten a lot of use and is still being used by my 12 and 10 year olds.

It is one of those items, that looking back over the years, I'm glad I plunked the money out for it.  That statement can not be said for much of the educational stuff I threw money away on!

Check out other Math Monday posts here.

Math Monday - Teen Review Plan

My 16 year old has always enjoyed math. I remember when he was six years old, he noticed that there was a difference of 6 minutes on two different clocks in our house. He spent the day (and maybe the day after), adding six to the clock that was slow and subtracting six from the clock that was fast (or maybe on time). He did this without prompting at all. Simply because it was fun for him. He did stuff like that all the time.

He thought memorizing his times tables was fun (unlike my other 4 children!). He did it so well, that the next year in 3rd grade when he attended school for a year (life was complicated that year!) he always won a holy card for being first in the times table bee! He was unbeatable!

In 5th grade he got mad at me for unschooling math. He wanted a textbook. "How am I going to learn math if I don't have a book that tells me!" He demanded. So I got him Saxon. Somehow he tested into their 6/5 book even though we hadn't done much formal math at all since his 3rd grade school adventure. How do you know about percents? I demanded to know.  Daddy told me, he said. No lessons, just conversations with Daddy were enough for him. His brain just picked up the math. Now I don't think he's a genius or anything. But he's quick and math comes easily.

Anyway, he's getting ready to take PreCalculus this year in his Junior year of high school. He wanted to review math for a couple weeks before his on line class started. At first he thought he'd go to Khan Academy and review that way, but that is massive amounts of information to push through for a two week review period. So I thought his solution was pretty clever. He's working his way through a SAT Math I exam. This is a test for those who have studied Algebra I, II and Geometry.

Dear reader, why don't you check it out yourself, to see what you remember?

For more Math Monday posts please go here.

Math Monday - Relaxed Retrospectives

I enjoyed reading these posts from a couple of Australian Catholic Unschoolers.  They are midway in their homeschooling journey, with kids who are grown and kids still growing up.

Here's a post from Sue (which includes a link to another post about 'maths.'  I just think it is so cute how the British and Australians pluralized the word 'math.'  It makes me hear their accents in my head.  LOL!)

And here's one from Leanne.

Enjoy!

(Oops!  Forgot to link to the Math Monday Blog Hop:  http://love2learn2day.blogspot.com/2011/08/math-monday-blog-hop-20.html )

Math Monday - Our Family's Classic Math Lit.

Since we are on vacation at the beach, we haven't gotten very mathy.  In fact playing Rummikub is about as mathy as we've gotten, so far.



So I thought I'd just share the top three books my kids all enjoyed when it came to learning about numbers and math.




How Much is a Million?




G is for Google





The I Hate Mathematics Book



These are books my kids all have picked up on their own, time and again and enjoyed thoroughly.  They are old (in that they were around when I was teaching my oldest kids, so 12 or so years ago) but they are classics!

We never got into as many 'math literature' books as others.  I know some folks really specialize in discovering all sorts of books on math topics.  Not us!  But these three did a wonderful job at making reading and exploring math great fun for my kids.

Edit:  Oops!  I forgot to include the link for the Math Monday Blog Hop!  I was posting in a hurry!  Here's the link!

Math Conversations - 8/8/11

Midday in the kitchen, 16 yo son walks into the room.  He says:  I wonder how much 16 to the 16th power is?

Me:  rather startled, 16 to the 16th power?  What made you think of that?

Him:  I dunno.  I just wondered.

(perhaps his age?)

Me, spotting a little calculator on the lazy susan (where it most certainly shouldn't be):  There's a calculator.  Why don't you use it and figure it out?

Him, trying not to be too condescending:  Mom, there isn't enough space on that calculator to write out that big of a number.

Me:  oh.

Him:  I'll use the computer.

Son goes to  the computer, does something, announces that 16 to the 16th power is 1.84467441 × 10¹⁹  (I just copied this from the internet)

12 yo son who's been playing on his gameboywhachamacallit on the couch, looks up idly.  Hey, what comes after a  trillion?

Quadrillion, 16 yo answers.  

After that?  asks 12 yo.  Quintillion? I guessed.  We agree that sounds right.  

After that?  12 yo wants to see how far we can go.

Sextillion, Septillion, Octillion. . . 

We get stuck at nine.  Nontillion?  Maybe?

16 yo says - isn't it funny that we used to say billions of stars to mean some amount we could hardly imagine?  Now we should just say "as big as our national debt.  That's in the trillions!"  ( He might have read that somewhere.  He tends to quote cartoons a lot.)

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19 yo son gave his old ipod to 10 yo sister.  10 yo sister is thrilled.  He downloaded lots of music he deemed suitable for her (he's a good big brother that way, very careful of protecting her innocence).

10 yo comes marching into the room.  She marches around the coffee table and then around the kitchen table. 


 Look mom, I'm measuring my steps.  I just figured out the pedometer function on Will's old ipod!


Me:  Really?  I had no idea ipods had pedometers in them.


Her:  Well, this one does and I'm measuring my steps.  


She continues to march around.  Then she stops and inspects the ipod.


142!  She announces.  I've taken 142 steps!


Then she gets a puzzled expression her face.  


Her:  How can a pedometer tell you how far you've gone.  It can only tell you the number of steps.  What if you want to know miles?

Me:  Well, you probably have to measure your step and then calibrate the pedometer so that it can calculate how many feet, yards or miles you've walked.  But, I have no idea how to do that!


Her:  Hmm.  But what if I'm just walking around the coffee table. I'm not really traveling miles, am I?  I'm just staying in one place.


Me:  Well, it would measure how far you would have gone if you had been covering ground instead of walking in circles.


Her:  Oh.


Pause.  Then:  Okay!


Then she's back to marching through the house.


To see other Math Monday entries, please go to this link

Math Monday - Multiplication Review

Over the weekend I put together a little unit study for Becky on multiplication.  We've covered this before, of course, in little stops and starts but it's February now which means the end of the year testing to 'show progress' is looming in front of us.  And she hasn't done much multiplying in math for a while.  So I'm trying to come up with something engaging that will refresh her memory and deepen her understanding.

I thought I'd start off with some fun worksheets that use arrays to get the idea of multiplication across.

Then I thought we'd do some multiplication tables. ( I just think the internet is so amazing, how I can just do a simple search and come up with such a variety of fantastic resources for teaching something.  Life is good!)

Finally, I found this fun little hands on way to practice one's times tables.

Monday Math - 1/31/11

 Math comes up naturally in daily living.  There are so many teachable moments if the parent keeps an eye out for them.  Like when Daddy and Becky decided to build a little bedside table together and Josh joined in to do the geometry necessary in figuring out exactly where to attach the legs.  Sean was interested too.

Rick's carpentry hobby often brings up math moments.

Oh my!  Josh needs to shave!  LOL

Unfortunately, I can't show you the finished project because when they went to put on the legs, they discovered they didn't have long enough screws.  They then determined to go to Home Depot for the proper ones, however, Daddy got distracted by something (can't remember now) and they wound up never going.  So I guess the finished product will have to wait until next weekend.  Stay tuned!