Journey to Excellence

For Fun Math this week, we did a riddle out of Arithmetickle written by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz. What is 6+3+4+1+5+7+2+4+12+2+4+10+3+1? The numbers in the problem were the answers to 14 Where's Waldo type questions found in the poem "How Many Coconuts?" on page 21 of the book. Brynne went out to one of our trees and picked a bucket of acorns to use as coconuts. I drew a grid on printer paper to help keep her "coconuts" contained. We read the poem in full, and then read each line separately. Brynne found what it was asking for, i.e. "How many toes on the three-toed sloth?", to get the answer to the question in each line. Then she counted out that number of "coconuts" and put them on the grid. When the poem was over, she had 14 grid squares containing "coconuts". So, she just added them together to get the answer. It was really fun. She wants to do more of these riddles, so I will hang ont...

Last week, Brynne's MEP curriculum focused on different types of measurement. So, on Thursday I printed off a measurement scavenger hunt , handed her a ruler and a pencil, and sent her off. I was impressed with her ability to accurately use just a 12-inch ruler to measure lengths longer than one foot and then add up her measurements, i.e. 12 inches + 12 inches + 6 inches. Once she figured out that 12 + 12 was 24, she could add in her head the rest of the problem. Amazing for a 6 year old. Go open the Math Box for other great hands-on math ideas.

Again, I'm going to start with a book recommendation. The Math Start books by Stuart J. Murphy are an excellent way to get Living Math into your homeschool curriculum! Brynne does "paper math" on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week. But on Thursday I like to bring in a Living Book about the concept we have been practicing all week. And, the Math Start books have something for just about every concept. This week we did lots of subtraction problems. So, I checked out the Math Start book called Elevator Magic by Stuart J. Murphy and illustrated by G. Brian Karas. I printed off a photograph of elevator buttons and while I read the book, Brynne pressed the "floor" that she would be on after she did the subtraction problem in the story. For additional subtraction reinforcement, I printed off some subtraction problems and gave Brynne Do-a-Dot markers to work out the problems. She would mark a dot for the total number of the first integer, then used a pe...

Welcome to Math Monday! Cindy at love2learn2day hosts a math Linky on Mondays, so I thought I would start joining in since Brynne will be having a Living Math day at the end of each week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday each week Brynne does math lessons from MEP (Math Enhancement Programme) . But on Thursdays, I wanted to incorporate a day of Living Math. I plan to just see what types of math lessons we do on the first three days and throw in a book and/or some hands on activities on Thursday to reinforce those lessons. This week we were dabbling in Greater Than and Less Than . Although she mostly "got it", it took me back to my elementary school days when we would draw an alligator mouth with the teeth facing the Greater number. Did you do that?? I searched and found "The Number Eating Alligator" . Click here to listen to it. I also printed off a copy of an alligator stick puppet (found at the bottom of this link). I placed playing cards on the coffee ...