I left the public school system (as a teacher) because I started having
kids and wanted to stay at home with them. (I now have 4 kids, 2 of which are
school-aged). I am teaching them at home because of:
The over-interference of the federal government in local education.
Across the board requirements do not work for a very diverse country like
ours. Things that are necessary in the inner city of New York are an
unnecessary burden to the small town school in Iowa.
The character issue.
Bad company currupts good morals, and I want my children to be firmly
established in their identities. I want to build up their self-esteem so that
they are secure as they deal with the selfish and cruel trappings of youth. I
remember one day standing in the hallway and hearing a 9th grader running down
the hall saying "______'s dad is on welfare. _________'s dad is on
welfare."
Socialization
Who do I want teaching my children socialization skills? Their peers or
their parents? In my mind, that is a no-brainer.
There are a lot of parents out there doing a lousy job, and I don't want my
kids to pay the price for it.
The influences of the other kids is a main reason for keeping my kids home.
I had a junior in high school in an analysis class and he was not putting forth
the effort. After many attempts at contacting his mom, I finally got a note
from her, asking me not to contact her again, that she had given up on her son.
This was a bright, clean-cut young man with little motivation, and no parental
involvement. It made me sick.
I can do a better job educating my kids, especially in elementary.
I know them better than anyone and I care about them more than anyone. There is
so much busy work done in the early grades to give the teacher time to see what
all of the kids are doing. When my mom was teaching 2nd grade many years ago
she had about 12 kids in her class and she KNEW their abilities. Today, with 25
kids in a class (over 30 in high school) that is impossible. If the government
would put money into salaries and reduced class sizes, instead of "programs
and beauracracy" the schools would be a lot better off.
Social engineering in the public schools.
I don't want the government teaching my children how to think...about
relationships, about values, about authority, about alternative lifestyles,
about the creation of the world, about history, about tolerance and acceptance,
about bigotry, about racism, about abortion, about freedom of religion, or about
God. That's my job as their parent.
Try and instill an interest and joy in doing math without him even
knowing it! How? Develope some projects for him to do that include math, and
he will see the importance of math and experience the satisfaction of a finished
project. Remember, the more hands on experience, the more he'll remember.
That's one of the reasons why we start with manipulatives when they are young
(the other reason being that young children are very kinesthetic learners until
age 6-9 when other learning styles may begin to take preference.) Examples:
Fractions - Have him cook or bake something. Measuring cups are
great for learning fractions. Try doubling a recipe or cutting it in half
(multiplying by 1/2 or dividing by 2).
Units of measure - Again, take him in the kitchen. Talk about
English verses metric by looking at food labels. Write a mystery recipe for him
to follow that is all in teaspoons and he has to convert (by dividing) to
tablespoons, cups, pints, etc.
Measurement - Have him design (or find at the library) a simple
plan for a wooden birdhouse, napkin holder, coasters, car garage, etc. Then
have him (with adult supervision, of course) make the project, being careful to
measure correctly, and follow a plan of action. (This is problem solving
strategy at it's funnest!) When he is ready to paint his project, take him to
the store and try and buy just enough paint. (The paint can will tell the area
that the paint will cover. Will it be enough? Calculate the area to be painted
on the project and find out if it is enough!)
Multiplication by fractions (and measurement) - Have him take a
tape measure and measure a room (including table tops, dresser tops, beds, etc.
Then have him draw a map of the room by multiplying each dimension by a fraction
(like 1/12) and drawing the scaled down version. (Or he can divide all
measurements by the same number instead)
General math - Take a trip around the engine of the car. There are
lots of different sizes of nuts, bolts, etc in English and metric. Have him
discover which socket wrench to use by asking a question such as "Which is
bigger, the 3/8 " or the 5/16" and have him answer before trying it
out.
All of the above have been tried and true on one of my sons.
My husband and I were both math majors in college and it is hard to hear our
son say "I don't like math!" But I can see a lot of creative gifts in
him that I don't have, and it is wonderful! Accentuate the positive in your son
and build his self-esteem. The math will come.
One of the beauties of homeschooling is that you do NOT have to rush.
Remember, it is the end product that we are interested in........a capable,
independent, well-adjusted adult. My suggestion is to totally back off of the
math (say 2 weeks of no math). Then, when the stress level is a little more
manageable, introduce it again, this time with a timer. Ask your child for 10
minutes (or 20 minutes if older than elementary) a day of hard work on math. It
does not matter how much he gets done (sometimes the amount of stuff we have to
do is too overwhelming that we think we'll never finish so why even try). If he
gives you good effort, he's done in 10 minutes. You can begin to increase the
time as things progress, but don't be in a rush to do that. Your son can get
more done in 10 minutes of concentrated study than an hour of tear-filled
struggles.
I had to answer that question every time I stepped in front of a new
algebra class when I was teaching in a public school. We face math all of our
lives. I know that they do not expect to see x's and y's and quadratics once
they get in the "real world" and for many of them this is true (unless
they go into an area of science, math, physics, or computer science.) But what
algebra does for a student is teach them how to think:
how to look at a problem (or any project) and decide how to
begin
how to work systematically through a plan of attack
how to break a problem into components (parts)
how to test your results
Basically, they are learning how to
think and work through the problems of life. That may not satisfy them but it's
the truth.
First of all, whatever you do with early math, at this age you MUST
use manipulatives. By that I mean that you must use objects that can be touched
and grouped and counted. I remember teaching my first son the odds and evens by
lining up beans and looking for "partners." Make a game of counting
anything! A child must first understand how to count and group objects before
they can look at an actual number. Writing numbers should come after the
understanding of numbers. You can also introduce math concepts like "same",
"more than", and "less than" without having to write or show
any symbols. Your child should be able to show you 5 apples, for example. Once
you are satisfied that they know the amounts, then you can introduce numbers.
And still later (depending on their fine motor skills) have them learn to write
the numbers. Simple games of matching a number written on a card with a card
showing that number of objects will help you determine where their understanding
is.
Continue to work on number recognition, and well as counting. You can
count things that you see every day. (e.g. My 4 and 6-year-olds count all of
the American flags that they can see when we drive somewhere.)
At that age they can begin writing numbers if there is interest. Let him
write them big. His fine motor skills are still developing. Use a white board,
a sand box, or just paper and a crayon or pencil. It would help to be able to
trace the numbers first. You will find that he may tend to write them backwards
if he knows his letters at all. This is because many of the numbers are "backwards"
from the little c motion of so many lower-cased letters. Don't worry about it.
Get a number chart at your local bookstore or school supply store. Put it
up at her eye level so she can touch and point. Simply talk to her about number
concepts and let her make some of her own discoveries (e.g. there is a column of
numbers that all have zeros (talk about the tens)). Our chart is on the kitchen
door and we often refer to it.
Start skip counting (odds and evens). I taught my sons the odd/even
concept using beans. (If there is no parter for a bean, the number is odd.)
Begin teaching her to count by 10's and 5's. After she gets going on that,
it transfers wonderfully to teaching about dimes, nickels, and pennies.
We like to use an abacus. It is a wonderful tool. Whatever you do, make
it kinesthetic. Children need to feel and touch and manipulate to learn math.
For addition, there are basically 3 groups of problems:
Adding 1 and 2 to a number. You either get the next consecutive number
(adding 1) or the next consecutive even or odd(adding 2).
The doubles and their variations. doubles (like 6+6) near doubles (like
6+7 Find the double for 6 and add one more) middle doubles (like 6+8 Simply
double the middle (7) to get the answer)
Tens and near tens
tens (like 4+6)
near tens (like 7+4 You know that 7+3 =10 so since 4 is one more than 3,
then 7+4 must be one more than 10, that is 11)
adding 9's (like 9+6 When adding 9, think of adding 10 and going back one
number. For 9+6, think 10+6 =16 and going back one number is 15)
adding 8's (like 8+4 Add 10 to the 4 and go back 2 numbers. For 8+4 think
of 10+4=14 and then back up 2 numbers to get 12)
There are subtraction strategies as well, but I am under the opinion that
if you know the addition facts, subraction is just asking "what do I add to
get __________" (like for 15-7 ask "what do I need to add to 7 to get
15?). When I do flashcards with my 2nd grader I make him say the strategies
before giving me the answer, because he also struggles with his basic facts. He
either says "adding 1," "adding 2," "double,""near
double,""middle double,""adding 8,""adding 9,"
or "near 10".
Even though for a problem like a + 2 = 4, there is only one answer,
and thus concrete, the problem appears very abstract to the concrete thinker.
To him, a letter is a letter, and a number is a number, and never the two shall
meet (and make sense). However, concrete thinkers often tend toward the math
and sciences because they are generally precise and concrete. (Music can fall in
to this area as well). They stay away from abstract areas like literature
(trying to figure out what someone was saying without really saying it), or
psychology or sociology, where we are dealing with the emotions and intellect of
most complex beings (us!). I am a very concrete thinker, and I know that the
abstractness of higher math always drove me a little nuts (like doing problems
in n-dimensional space), but I learned 2 things about concrete thinking:
It often took a little longer to catch on, but when the light went on, it
was very bright.
I learned to use a concrete idea to make sense of abstract things. For
example, when I did things in n-space, I would try to picture 3-dimensions and
make the jump from there. Or, in your case, using a blank instead of a letter,
or letting the "a" stand for "apples" in a problem like 3a +
2a = 5a.
Just because your son is struggling, don't give up on the
math. Whatever course of study, it is important to have as much math as
possible. It teaches analytical skills that can't be compensated for by quick
arithmetic.
We have 2 preschool classes, and 4 elementary. Our elementary classes
have an average of 5-6 students in each. We have had years when we have combined
classes when numbers weren't large enough. We have 9 1-month teaching blocks
and the moms teach. Some of the classes we have taught are:
science detectives (a curriculum I wrote)
literature-based cooking (using a book called "The Book Cook")
ceramics (got the clay and fired it at a ceramics shop)
first aid (one of the moms is a paramedic)
LINK (missionary teaching using Voice of the Martyrs materials)
sign language
introductory French and German (by moms who speak it)
drama (one of the moms wrote and directed them in a Noah's ark play)
outdoor skills (the class was all boys and they went fishing, went to a
nature preserve, etc)
art
music
transportation
You can get unit studies from educational stores
or Amanda Bennett has written some (you can buy them from any homeschooling
catalog). Another option would be to pick a theme for the year, like "The
Human Body" and have all of the classes revolve around that. We don't do it
that way, but some people do. We have tried to draw upon the strengths of the
moms that we have and let them choose what they would like to teach.
This past year we had 2 preschool classes and 3 elem. Each mom taught
2 months if they had only one child in class, 3-4 if they had 2 in class, and 5
if they had 3 or more kids in class. The months they were not in class they were
in the nursery, and there were 7 days off for each mom during the year (where
they could bring their kids and leave, having no other duties that day).
Our co-op started as a preschool only, but has grown to include
elementary as our children grow. We add a class each year.
