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Greetings!

Deborah Wuehler and family

We have kids who hate math and kids who love math and every other child in between. We'd like to see most of them heading towards the "loving math" side since math will likely be a part of their everyday life for many years.

This is what I have at different times over the years to freshen up or just incorporate math into our homeschool:

• Set a timer and let them only do 35 minutes of math that day (obviously making sure they were using that time for math and not being goofy.)

• In text books, I've had them do the practice problems of the new concept, and then just the odd numbers for the rest of the lesson.

• I have involved them in the costs of items at the grocery store and had them find the cheapest unit price by ounce.

• I have helped them make money (extra chores around the house) and save money for many items (researching the best prices) and let them pay the cashier and know how much change they should get back.

• Exchanged math time for a game of Monopoly or Allowance or other math games occasionally.

• Demonstrated fractions with sandwiches, pizza, apple slices, etc. and also had them divide portions per number of people in the family with chocolate bars, bags of pretzels, candies, etc.

• Held competitions with times table memorization and Wrap-ups.

Whatever you do, ease up on being the homeschool math dictator, and add in a little fun or variety in math. And especially if your children are in tears over math, pray and ask God to show you a different way to teach the subject.

How can we help them like math time? I am sure you have some great ideas! If you do, please let me know! I'd like to share them in our Teachers' Lounge column in our free monthly magazine, too! Just email me at TL@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com.

~Deborah

TOS Senior Editor

SeniorEditor@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com

PS. There are so many approaches to math from games to manipulatives to workbooks and texts. We have tons of resources that have been reviewed by homeschool moms like you that just might also have kids your own kids' ages. Check them out here:

 http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Homeschool_Reviews/
Mathematics_products.php

Need help finding your keys (to happiness)? Click here for help from Denise Mira. 

Diana Waring

Dear Friends,

For this week's column, I want to share with you the musings of my oldest son, from a paper he wrote in a college class years ago:  

 Education stretches beyond the intellect to caress the soul, inspire the will, impassion the heart, quicken the body and enrich the spirit. Informational instruction is not always education . . . At its heart, education is relational, it is a process, and it is uniquely human.

For instance,  fractions and chicken. On my way back from New Zealand several years ago, I stopped to visit my friend, Eden, in Honolulu. At dinner with her family in the small white kitchen, the guests spilling into the living room, I engaged her young sister in conversation about mathematics. Not sure why, sometimes things like this just happen.  As the breeze blew scents of surf and sunshine-bathed flowers through the bamboo curtains, she confided in me that she was horrible at fractions.  Instantly I seized my utensils and crossed them in an X on my plate, dividing the pineapple-baked chicken breast from the green beans and separating both from the pile of roasted potatoes, which was now bisected by the handle of my fork.

"How many plates of food do I have?" I inquired good-  naturedly.

She was a clever girl.  She shot me a grin and a look that said I know exactly what you're up to.  But she played along.  "One."

"How many parts is the plate divided into?"  Obvious question, but she wasn't insulted.

"Four."

"Because there are four parts, we can call those parts 'fourths.' How many fourths does my chicken take up?"

She knew this was going somewhere.  Cautiously she     responded, "One."

"How about my potatoes?"

No hesitation. "Two."

I lifted my fork. "Now what do you see?"

The two-fourths of the plate filled with potatoes magically became one half.  Her eyes bugged out, the mental lightbulb blazed to life, and for the rest of the meal we subdivided all the food we could find.

That is exactly the kind of creative thinking, the hands-on adventure, the bring-it-home-to-where-they-live experience that can make math--or any other subject--come to life for our kids.

So, what's on your plate?

Remember, stay relational!

Diana

PS. We are heading to Virginia and Washington D.C. this weekend to speak to homeschoolers in Colonial Heights, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Manassas, Staunton, and Boling AFB.  If you or your friends are in the area, we would love to meet you!  Mention THM and we will give you an extra 10% discount off our Back to School Encouragement Special!

Hal & Melanie Young

Hal & Melanie Young are authors of Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching, and Appreciating Boys, the 2011 Christian Small Publishers Book of the Year and the parents of six real sons and two real daughters, who've been homeschooled from the beginning. When they aren't traveling the country speaking about raising boys, Biblical family life, and homeschooling, they live in noisy familial bliss in North Carolina. Follow them at www.Facebook.com/raisingrealmen and www.Twitter.com/raisingrealmen. 

~~~

Middle school tends to be one tough time when it comes to boys and school! Math seems to be one of those things that we battle over, too. In fact, one of the advertisements for our Boot Camp 9-12 webinars says, "Is math taking three hours?" If it's so common, it's a meme, how in the world do we get through it?

Competition is a fast and easy way to motivate boys. Our guys found out on their own that it takes about the same amount of time to do a 4th grade Saxon math lesson as to do a 6th grade one or a 7th grade one, for that matter. To make the time pass more quickly, they began racing to see who could finish first. At first, Melanie was concerned they'd do shoddy work or not learn it as well, but she found that they really did just as well doing it quickly as they did dragging it out. So, why drag it out? We've found out they even like to compete against themselves. It's a long-standing rule in our house that if you beat a personal best time that year on a math lesson or factsheet, you can have a prize. They will work awfully hard to win a . . .  gummy bear! Yes, a gummy bear. It's not the prize, you see, it's the winning of it!

Boys are also really motivated by knowing why they are doing a task. Boys hate "just because," and quickly lose interest in something that seems pointless. Boys need purpose. They need to know their work matters. Want to see a boy put his heart into his math? Find out what he wants to do with his life (no matter how silly) and show him how math will help him do it.

"Son, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"I want to design airplanes and missles!"

Ah, an easy one! "Well, son to do that, you're going to have to get a degree in engineering. Let's look at what kind of math you have to learn to do that." So, you head off to your state university's website and discover he's going to need math alright, a lot of it, and first, he'll need to get fractions down pat.

It's different when he knows math matters. And it'll get better as he gets older, too. Boys really come into their own in high school. If you live that long. :)

Hal & Melanie Young

For more on this topic, check out our workshop, Ballistic Homeschooling. 

 

(6 p.m. CDT, 5 p.m. MDT, 4 p.m. PDT)  

with Malia Russell and Molly Green. 

Check out all the details at www.SchoolhouseExpo.com.