Different Kinds of Maths.

Maths is taking different shapes and sizes, literally, after looking for how I can involve Little Miss August in more school, and do some slightly different work with Little H#3 at the same time to involve them together.

A while ago I downloaded a great number of Scholastic e-books, as they had a dollar sale. One of them was a shapes fun booklet. I thought a little geometry wouldn't do us any harm, and this was perfect for tracing practice for Little Miss August as well as easy but still useful work for Little H#3. 

She really likes tracing and colouring at the moment and I am really pleased with the new dimension this is giving our mornings.

 Finished shapes coloured in and traced, ready for cutting and sticking.

Big brother Little H#1 helping with the cutting and sticking. Helping sometimes takes patience (!) so this was good practice in co-operation too for everyone!

Little H#3 making his shapes bear with little assistance and patiently waiting while we shared one tube of glue around the family. Note to self: we must buy more now that even that one has run out. I think we do a lot of craft. :) That, in itself, amazes me!

This is the usual maths scene. Math-u-See. We use the little DVD player now for those who want to watch their lessons. Was lovely having everyone gather around the PC to watch everyone else's lesson but it just takes too long to get through the work. While the boys were working, Little Misses were using play dough on the toddler table next to the big table. It was their first time with the home made play dough so we got a lot of mileage out of it. Still in use although the novelty's worn off a bit. Have re-invented said play dough to include a maths activity for Littles some time this week.

And now for the unschooling variety. This is child-led Park Maths.

Mr L and his mum came to the park with us for a play date. He was obviously much heavier than Little Miss August. The children decided that this was  a problem that needed fixing.

Nope.Mr L < Little Miss August + Little H#3

 Mr L + Little Miss June > Little Miss August + Little H#2... only just. Keep trying!

Aha!!!! Mr L does in fact = Little H#2 + Little Miss June. 

Socialisation + Children = Happy mums chatting while kids do their own kind of school. 

No two children were exactly the same age.

It didn't seem to matter...

Hotwheels Maths!

I mentioned the hotwheels maths and haven't come back yet to say what we did. So here it is.

I wanted to introduce the idea to LittleH#2 of collecting data, and I was inspired by the boys at play a little while ago with their hotwheels track, complaining that the same lane or car kept winning.

I set them the task (this was possibly the hardest part!) of choosing only 4 cars and we decided which lane they would go on. I wrote them all on the white board (the cars had fantastic names that the boys copied down on the sheet I prepared for them). We did a number of races, and recorded which car won each time.

I then asked them to tally the number of races each car had won, and we recorded the data that way. Next step will be to make a simple bar chart displaying the race data.

It's all quite easy for LittleH#1 but I don't have a problem with that, he can work independently without my help, he can help LittleH#2 and it is revision for him.

Little H#3 was able to join in - we had him as the race starter, and I took photos of them all. Anyway, simple or not, it was a good afternoon's activity for them all together and is one of those (maybe not quite so rare) scholastic bliss moments. A terrible video, but here's one of the races all the same!!

Magnificent Monday...!

I like the sound of that. It's not exactly a MEME I doubt I will be able to have a Magnificent Monday every week, although perhaps I should make it my goal to try.

I had an idea for some slightly different Bible studies this week - recently we have been reading the Bible every morning together once our school day starts, but not really "studying" together.

Today I decided we would study and learn the Apostles' Creed for a while. We began with a nice clean and tidy playroom thanks to last night's clean up before bed. So we sat on the carpet together and I first read them "You are Special" by Max Lucado, which I had thought about this weekend but wasn't sure which book case it was on... one of the boys found it and had it ready to read without me even mentioning it, so that saved a hunt around! Little Miss climbed around on me while I read it, the others listened (thought LittleH#3 was in a climbing mood so wasn't quite so easy a listener!). We discussed what it meant, and we had a few nice moments discussing that and remembering LittleH#3's special scripture "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" Ps 139:14 I think, from memory.

We went from there to the Apostle's Creed, LittleH#2 read it out, then I read it line by line to LittleH#3 and he repeated each one after me (Godparents please note I am keeping my promise and teaching them this prayer!!!!), then LittleH#1 also read it and we said it all together.

Then, amazingly, the older 2 demonstrated just how much of the prayer they could remember. I'd say for LittleH#1 it is about 80% with prompts to get it all right. LittleH#2 isn't far off either.

We discussed the prayer and I told them a bit about it (hadn't got to Luther's small catechism but had got it out ready in case it was needed for us to sit and explain the different aspects of the prayer). LittleH#1 asked me whether it was a prayer to defend us against the enemy. I said that it is a prayer that describes our faith, what we believe. He said that was what he meant - he thought the prayer was like the shield of faith to defend us from fiery arrows (he held his arm as if holding a shield).

Well that amazed me actually. What a good way to look at a prayer that describes what we believe. The enemy does in fact tell us lies - about many things but does try to take away from what we believe. We can equip ourselves by learning prayers such as this - the basics of our faith on which the universal Christian church is agreed. I think teaching the children this summary of our faith now will be an invaluable tool, or weapon in their armoury, later.

As I washed up, I built on my original ideas and I think we can do something good with the Apostle's Creed, Armour of God, Fruit of the Spirit etc. A little H-production perhaps. Bit like the Sunday School one last week, except maybe a bit better organised and they won't be stuck at the back where no-one can see them!!!! ;)

So the copy work for today was writing out the Creed (LittleH#1), writing out the first 2 lines and doing a drawing (LittleH#2) and we are making the full written version of LittleH#1 into a shield display.

Other than that- we have done practical maths - baking - weighing and measuring (they are good, and surprised me with the sums I asked them to do while we did it), and money maths (counting and sorting the coins in the Peter Rabbit money box).

In between times, LittleH#2 has been devouring books today, I love that he can be a bookworm at 5. He's read predominantly Christian books today, actually, so it has been a good start to our week and perhaps a bit of a rededication to the Almighty God who has called us to this work.