This book is hilarious! I would link to amazon here so you can see it, but I can't get it to work right now.
The book is called "Math Curse" by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. The narrator is a student whose teacher puts a "math curse" on him/her with this statement, "You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem." So, of course, the narrator proceeds to have a full day of being driven crazy by thinking of everything as a math problem.
The part that cracked us up so much we had to take a break is from the the page where the narrator is describing how each non-math subject is turned into a math problem:
"English is a word problem: if mail + box = mailbox:
1. Does lipstick - stick + lip?
2. Does tunafish + tunafish + fournafish?"
Fournafish...I'm even chuckling as I type this. There are a few real problems in the first few pages, but more importantly to me, this book shows that math can be fun (or funny...whichever way you want to look at it). We've been struggling with this a little because school sent home a bridge/review math workbook that needs to be turned in to his second grade teacher when school starts.
And on a totally unrelated note, Samuel and I have been team playing Family Feud on Facebook (my account). A few days ago, one of the Fast Money questions was "What do people call the smartest kid in school?" Samuel blurted out "awesome". I love that his school has a culture where the smartest kids are admired and not called names, like nerd, which happened to be the #1 answer.
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Friday, September 25, 2009
Another Fun Living Math Book
This fun living math book was too advanced for Samuel, but this one does offer a lot that he can do without my help and some that he can understand with my help.
Zookeeper for a Day plays into Samuel's love of animals as well as his love of math. The premise is that the child gets to walk in the steps of a zookeeper for a day and see how they use math in their jobs. Some is mental math and some needs a pencil, paper, and sometimes ruler. It's part of a Math Adventures series so I will have to see if we can find additional books.
So that's my share of the day! Hope you find it useful.
Zookeeper for a Day plays into Samuel's love of animals as well as his love of math. The premise is that the child gets to walk in the steps of a zookeeper for a day and see how they use math in their jobs. Some is mental math and some needs a pencil, paper, and sometimes ruler. It's part of a Math Adventures series so I will have to see if we can find additional books.
So that's my share of the day! Hope you find it useful.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Fun Living Math Book
I'm not sure if this find was discovered because I saw it on someone's blog (if so, let me know and I'll give you credit and a link) or if I did some weird search on my library's web site, but this book came in for us and I LOVE it! The math is a little too much for my first grader, but I could see him being able to do some of the problems over the next few years.
The book is called Arithme-tickle by J. Patrick Lewis. There are 19 rhyming riddles that ask you to solve a problem. Here is and example using on of the short (and one of the easiest) riddles:
Dr. Nast said, :I'll give you three shots
to get rid of those hideous spots.
One shot every half hour." Goodness sake!
How long did those nasty Nast shots take?
The answer key is at the bottom of each page, but you need a mirror to read it!
When I see something cool, I like to share it, mostly because I [steal] get so many good ideas from reading other blogs. It's my "pay it forward".
The book is called Arithme-tickle by J. Patrick Lewis. There are 19 rhyming riddles that ask you to solve a problem. Here is and example using on of the short (and one of the easiest) riddles:
Dr. Nast said, :I'll give you three shots
to get rid of those hideous spots.
One shot every half hour." Goodness sake!
How long did those nasty Nast shots take?
The answer key is at the bottom of each page, but you need a mirror to read it!
When I see something cool, I like to share it, mostly because I [steal] get so many good ideas from reading other blogs. It's my "pay it forward".
Friday, June 5, 2009
Kids Wealth Program
Summer has always been a time for us to learn new things. Potty training and learning how to put on his own clothes were big ones. This summer we are beginning is Kids Wealth. Samuel turns 6 in July and it would probably be the time we start an allowance. This is different from an allowance. He got his first Kids Pay on Monday and is now learning the painful lesson of choices. It's awesome. Here are the basics:
Parents:
Parents:
- Determine how much you spend on your child's wants each month. I did not include college funding or birthday and Christmas gifts. I did include souveniers when we go on vacation, his weekly treat from the grocery store, the money he puts in the missionary globe at church, fast food when he is the only one who wants it, fun books, movies, etc.
- Divide that amount by half and make that the "Kid's Pay" which is paid out monthly. You still get some discretionary "treat your kid" money.
- Stop saying "no" all the time and let your child make their own decisions and learn consequences of those decisions.
The Kid's Pay is divided into different "accounts", each one having it's own color-coded wallet. The wallets are 30% to Wealth, 20% to Plan, 20% to Learn, 20% to Fun, and 10% to Angel. This next part is a description of each account.
WEALTH - The Wealth Account is your child's long-term investment account. The program talks about "paying yourself first" but because I believe you pay God first, I just altered this aspect. When enough money has accumulated, you open a savings account and eventually an investment account. They don't touch this money ever, just watch it grow.
PLAN - The Plan Account teaches your child how to set a goal and develop a plan to achieve it. This allows them to plan for more expensive items using their own money.
LEARN - The Learn Account reinforces that learning is a lifelong precess worth investing in. This money is for books, software, museums and any other educational activites. This should be spent each month.
FUN - The Fun Account is your child's monthly fun money to buy things they want. Kids learn to make wise spending decisions as they learn to live within a budget. This has already come into play a couple of times this week when Samuel asks for something. So far he has not spent his money because each time I tell him how much something costs, he decides it is not worth it! This money should be spent each month.
ANGEL - The Angel Account should be spent each month helping others, giving to church, charities, benefits, or other worthwhile causes.
I had signed up for their e-mail list long before I purchased the kit. It sometimes goes on sale, which is when I purchased it.
Monday, April 27, 2009
April Afterschool Report
Well, this month has two holidays that we spend quite a bit of time on. I already blogged about Easter and Earth Day, but we also did quite a bit that was not tied to a holiday.
Math - Mostly we are just practicing addition within 7 and subtraction within 5. I have also had him practicing counting nickels, dimes, and quarters. My find of the month is Sudoku puzzles. Here is a website that has some sample puzzles for kids. There are 6 altogether that are 4x4 in size. The first two I walked him through, asking him for the answers after leading him there. By the third puzzle he was leading me through the "logic". Then I printed out the second sample page of three puzzles and he did the first two all on his own, asking for one hint on the third one. I'm going to see if I can find more 4x4 puzzles before moving on to 6x6.
Music - We spent some time earlier in the month on Sergei Prokofiev and "Peter and the Wolf". Our library has a book with CD and a DVD of a ballet. We had fun trying to pick out the instruments and move like the animals.
Art - Because the first Saturday in May is the Kentucky Derby, which is like a two-week holiday where we live, I chose Degas for his "Racing Horses" painting. We also read "What Makes a Degas a Degas?" by Richard Muhlberger.
Also, I found this wonderful blog called ART PROJECTS FOR KIDS. It's awesome. Samuel did this project, except his chameleon had stripes and polka dots and his background color was orange. It was his first time doing a watercolor resist and he was so amazed at how his crayon marks showed through the paint. We put it in a frame and put it on his art gallery wall in his room (it's just three dollar store frames in a row on the short wall next to his window).
Reading - I've moved into some challenging books for his reading aloud time, mostly level 2 and 3. He's doing very well. I always have a fairly large choice, but he gets to choose which ones he reads. For his "fun" reading time he usually chooses easy picture books, which is good too. Just recently we started a reading journal, where he records the books he reads and draws a picture from the story. I'll blog about that more later, after we've had a chance to develop it more. Here are the challenging books he has read for me:
"Dolores and the Big Fire: A True Story" by Andrew Clements
"The Berenstain Bears and the Tic-Tac-Toe Mystery"
"The Case of the Puzzling Possum" by Cynthia Rylant
Literature/Poetry - We are reading Charlotte's Web" by EB White and poems from "The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry". We'll probably finish up both of these in May. A la Charlotte Mason, I usually only read one chapter from the 2 or 3 books we have going at any given time each day or two, plus one or two poems each day, in order to "savor" them. We also have two chapter books going that fall in the Nature Study category.
Geography - We are listening to "Paddle to the Sea" by Holling C. Holling once a week in the car (although we usually listen to 2 to 4 chapters at a time). I also checked out the book and we look at the pictures and use our US placemat map (I really need to get a bigger map!) to see where he is. A really fun thing we've been doing geography-wise is singing "The Fifty States That Rhyme" song. There are several versions on Youtube and I wrote down the words to the one we like and we listen and sing along. It's very hard. I don't think he's learning anything from this, but it's just showing how learning can be fun. Here's the version we like:
Nature Study - This is one of our bigger areas of study just because it's so much fun. We finished up Thornton Burgess' "The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse" and began "The Adventures of Grandfather Frog". We have also been reading from "The Tarantula in My Purse" by naturalist Jean Craighead George. Strangely enough, we haven't heard one word about a tarantula! We also visited the Louisville Science Center and spent a whole afternoon exploring, learning, and having fun. Of course, the weather has been nicer and we've spent countless hours outdoors, exploring the effects of our winter ice storm on our little patch of trees we watch. We lost our tree that was home to a pair of mourning doves, but we have still seen them around.
Math - Mostly we are just practicing addition within 7 and subtraction within 5. I have also had him practicing counting nickels, dimes, and quarters. My find of the month is Sudoku puzzles. Here is a website that has some sample puzzles for kids. There are 6 altogether that are 4x4 in size. The first two I walked him through, asking him for the answers after leading him there. By the third puzzle he was leading me through the "logic". Then I printed out the second sample page of three puzzles and he did the first two all on his own, asking for one hint on the third one. I'm going to see if I can find more 4x4 puzzles before moving on to 6x6.
Music - We spent some time earlier in the month on Sergei Prokofiev and "Peter and the Wolf". Our library has a book with CD and a DVD of a ballet. We had fun trying to pick out the instruments and move like the animals.
Art - Because the first Saturday in May is the Kentucky Derby, which is like a two-week holiday where we live, I chose Degas for his "Racing Horses" painting. We also read "What Makes a Degas a Degas?" by Richard Muhlberger.
Also, I found this wonderful blog called ART PROJECTS FOR KIDS. It's awesome. Samuel did this project, except his chameleon had stripes and polka dots and his background color was orange. It was his first time doing a watercolor resist and he was so amazed at how his crayon marks showed through the paint. We put it in a frame and put it on his art gallery wall in his room (it's just three dollar store frames in a row on the short wall next to his window).
Reading - I've moved into some challenging books for his reading aloud time, mostly level 2 and 3. He's doing very well. I always have a fairly large choice, but he gets to choose which ones he reads. For his "fun" reading time he usually chooses easy picture books, which is good too. Just recently we started a reading journal, where he records the books he reads and draws a picture from the story. I'll blog about that more later, after we've had a chance to develop it more. Here are the challenging books he has read for me:
"Dolores and the Big Fire: A True Story" by Andrew Clements
"The Berenstain Bears and the Tic-Tac-Toe Mystery"
"The Case of the Puzzling Possum" by Cynthia Rylant
Literature/Poetry - We are reading Charlotte's Web" by EB White and poems from "The Bill Martin Jr Big Book of Poetry". We'll probably finish up both of these in May. A la Charlotte Mason, I usually only read one chapter from the 2 or 3 books we have going at any given time each day or two, plus one or two poems each day, in order to "savor" them. We also have two chapter books going that fall in the Nature Study category.
Geography - We are listening to "Paddle to the Sea" by Holling C. Holling once a week in the car (although we usually listen to 2 to 4 chapters at a time). I also checked out the book and we look at the pictures and use our US placemat map (I really need to get a bigger map!) to see where he is. A really fun thing we've been doing geography-wise is singing "The Fifty States That Rhyme" song. There are several versions on Youtube and I wrote down the words to the one we like and we listen and sing along. It's very hard. I don't think he's learning anything from this, but it's just showing how learning can be fun. Here's the version we like:
Nature Study - This is one of our bigger areas of study just because it's so much fun. We finished up Thornton Burgess' "The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse" and began "The Adventures of Grandfather Frog". We have also been reading from "The Tarantula in My Purse" by naturalist Jean Craighead George. Strangely enough, we haven't heard one word about a tarantula! We also visited the Louisville Science Center and spent a whole afternoon exploring, learning, and having fun. Of course, the weather has been nicer and we've spent countless hours outdoors, exploring the effects of our winter ice storm on our little patch of trees we watch. We lost our tree that was home to a pair of mourning doves, but we have still seen them around.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Math Living Book Reviews
I really want to make math interesting in a real way to my son. I include him in most of the math I do to get through the day. He likes doing math worksheets now and enjoys his addition flash cards every once in while.
I love introducing new math topics by way of a story. We have read most of the Stuart J. Murphy Level 1 books more than once, and some of th Level 2 books. We even check out a Level 3 or 4 (can't remember now) book each spring called "Earth Day Hooray" which teaches recycling AND place value, even though he is just now starting to understand the idea of place value.
Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert is another book that I recently discovered. A granddaughter is playing with tangram puzzles with her grandfather and begs him to tell a story using the tangrams. The story he weaves is full of animals and they use their tangrams to make the animals in the story. The story itself is a story about friendship.
I know some people own sets of math manipulatives and probably own plastic or magnet tangram puzzles, but there is a page at the back that you can copy and cut out to have your own set. I enlarged my copy.
Samuel is 5 1/2 and this was a good introduction to using shapes. It was not easy for him and I had to help quite a bit, even though we had a pattern to follow, but he really enjoyed both the puzzles and the story.
The other book, Mathematicians Are People Too, is a great way to introduce math history. Each chapter tells of a different mathematician in history. The stories read like fiction and it really is interesting. My son enjoyed the first story about Thales; however, the next two chapters, while interesting to me, were just a little above him. I plan to check this out again in another 6 - 12 months and see how it goes over then.
I love introducing new math topics by way of a story. We have read most of the Stuart J. Murphy Level 1 books more than once, and some of th Level 2 books. We even check out a Level 3 or 4 (can't remember now) book each spring called "Earth Day Hooray" which teaches recycling AND place value, even though he is just now starting to understand the idea of place value.
Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert is another book that I recently discovered. A granddaughter is playing with tangram puzzles with her grandfather and begs him to tell a story using the tangrams. The story he weaves is full of animals and they use their tangrams to make the animals in the story. The story itself is a story about friendship.
I know some people own sets of math manipulatives and probably own plastic or magnet tangram puzzles, but there is a page at the back that you can copy and cut out to have your own set. I enlarged my copy.
Samuel is 5 1/2 and this was a good introduction to using shapes. It was not easy for him and I had to help quite a bit, even though we had a pattern to follow, but he really enjoyed both the puzzles and the story.
The other book, Mathematicians Are People Too, is a great way to introduce math history. Each chapter tells of a different mathematician in history. The stories read like fiction and it really is interesting. My son enjoyed the first story about Thales; however, the next two chapters, while interesting to me, were just a little above him. I plan to check this out again in another 6 - 12 months and see how it goes over then.
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