School For Us: math

Showing posts with label math. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

The Cost of the 12 Days of Christmas

Will True Love cost more in 2010 than in previous years?

I found a cute online pop-up book that shows you what the cost of giving the presents in the 12 Days of Christmas would be in 2010. Evidentally, PNC has been doing this for quite a few years. They go through each day and tell you if the price went up or down since last year and then give you a total cost for the gifts. What makes this even more fun, though, is that you actually get to use your mouse to make the pop-up activities work! There are also lesson plans and some games, but I think we'll be sticking to the pop-up book this year.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Mental Math and "Around the World"

First of all, Blogger notified me yesterday that I've reached my limit on photos! 1 GB! But, I was able to buy more space (20 GB) for $5 a year. I'm just waiting for it to get 'approved.'

I was searching for some Mental Math worksheets that I've used at a co-op before... and I found them here! They have daily sheets for 1st through 8th grade. Here are some samples from 5th grade:

100 X 10 = ?
How many feet in a mile?
1/3 of 30 = ?
1/4 of 28 = ?
70 X 80 = ?

In our co-op, I will use these to play Around the World. To play around the world, you have 2 students stand up. You ask one of the questions, and whoever gets it wrong sits down. The winner moves and stands next to another student who then stands up. You ask another question and the 'loser' sits down while the 'winner' moves on. The winner must win against every other student in the class! I know my last co-op class enjoyed this game, and I hope this one does, too!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

How Much Change Will I Get?

Today we did some math using Family Math. The chapter we worked on was called "How Much Change Will I Get?" I had an inspiration to use the white board and make sales tags and draw the money. As we went along, Alex started adding pictures to go with these word problems.

Here's a Level 2 problem. (There are 5 levels.) In this problem, an item costs $7.12. You have a $10 bill and a pocket full of change. What coins would you give the clerk?

Alex loved drawing the items. I know this activity kept her interest a lot longer than it normally would have because she was enjoying the pictures. This is a drawing of a pencil and eraser.

Here's another problem which I think is a Level 1. An item costs $13.40 and you give the clerk a $20 bill. How much change will you receive?

And another problem - a Level 3, I think. An item costs $8.47 and you give the clerk a $10 bill and 2 pennies. How much change will you get?

And, another of Alex's drawings. I hope to add more drawing and story problems to our math as this seemed to be a hit in our house today!

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Life of Fred: Part 2 (a little more information)

I was pleasantly surprised with the number of comments I got on my Life of Fred post in just 24 hours. And, I wanted to add an update.

As I mentioned, we finished school TODAY(!) and I was only "requiring" Alex to do chapters 1-5 and the "bridge" which is like a unit test. Well, she completed 11 chapters... because she was having so much fun! And, that was in 2 DAYS!

Since quite a few of you said you weren't familiar with the Life of Fred books, I thought I'd tell you a little more about it.

After every unit (about every 5 chapters) there is a "bridge." The bridge is kind of like a unit test. There are 5 "tries" to pass the test and the author recommends you have the student get 9 out of 10 questions correct before they move on to the next chapter. (He also suggests a few other options.) So, they take the "first try" bridge. If they get 9 or 10 correct, they can move on to the next chapter. If not, they take the "second try."

Another neat thing about Life of Fred is that it teaches a lot of other tidbits besides math. These are usually found in the footnotes. For example, there is a funny footnote about "onomatopoetic words" on page 20. And on page 31, there is a footnote about "hyperbole." Here's that footnote which also shows you how humorous this book is:

Hyperbole (high PURR bow lee). Exaggeration. Mothers use it when they say, "I've told you a million times to clean up your room!" Darlene would be using a hyperbole if she tells Joe (this is from the story), "It takes you forever to write your class notes."

I hope Alex decides to continue with this book during the summer... since the story is just too good to put down! But, if she doesn't, we'll start it up again in the fall.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Life of Fred: Fractions

We only have two "official" days of school left! Woohoo! (Alex is taking two online classes which will both continue for an additional two weeks.) So, today I told her what she needed to do to be finished for the year. In math, we started a new book, Life of Fred: Fractions. I just wanted her to finish the first unit, which is 5 chapters and a quiz. She finished chapter 6 tonight!

As you can probably tell, she is really enjoying Life of Fred. Tonight in bed, she created a list of important facts she's learned about Fred so far:

Fred is 5 1/2 years old
Fred is 3 feet tall
Fred wants a bike
Fred teaches college
Fred is at KITTEN University
Fred has a friend named Betty
Fred's last name is Gauss (rhymes with house)

(Alex's drawing of Fred)

In case you aren't famliar with the Life of Fred books, let me explain a little about them. Each book tells a story about Fred's life. We are reading the first book, "Fractions", which covers one day in his life. Each chapter tells a little more of the story and then has a "Your Turn to Play" page where you do the math. These problems are great "thinking" problems and very unlike a traditional textbook.

Here's an example of a problem from chapter 6. Fred wants to buy a bike and the store owner, Coalback, keeps doubling the price of the bike as he realizes that Fred is very interested in buying the bike. The problem states: "The price of the bike is now $1,600. If Coalback doubles it again, it will be $3,200. How many times will Coalback have to double the price before it is over a million dollars?"

We officially take the summer off from school, though we do continue to do plenty of educational activities. So, it is up to Alex if we continue with Fred or take a break. Either way, I think we'll start next year's math off with a few Fred books!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Gallons, Quarts, Pints, and Cups... and Bug Juice!

We've been having fun working on English equivalents and conversions this week.

I found this neat problem at Learning Resources. You start with the recipe for Bug Juice and calculate how many gallons of Bug Juice you will make. You can also make your own recipe using whatever theme you'd like. For example, you could make Chocolate Chip or Flower Juice instead.

This was a neat activity I found at Beacon Learning Center. This activity has 2 steps. First, they give you a recipe for Creepy Crawly Punch and tell you how much of each ingredient you have on hand. Then they ask, do you have enough of each ingredient? If not, you need to create a shopping list for what you need to buy. Alex ended up making her own Grape Kool-Aid Punch for me to solve.

Two and a half years ago (time flies!) we made this Mrs. Gallon (usually called Mr. Gallon) which Alex remembered fondly, though she didn't remember all of the pieces.

This week, I came across this clever way to remember the gallons, quarts, pints & cups - something I have trouble remembering. Basically, you write a large G for Gallon, fill it with 4 Q's for Quarts, each Q gets to P's for Pints, and each P gets 2 C's for cups. This has really helped me! I can actually 'see' the P with 2 C's and remember a pint is equal to 2 cups. We'll see if I can remember it a year from now, though! Alex says she prefers to visualize Mrs. Gallon.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Pi Day and Einstein's Birthday

We had fun celebrating Pi Day last year, March 14th (3/14). March 14th is also Einstein's birthday!This year, Pi Day falls on Sunday. We're going to be on the road for part of the day, so I'm not sure how much we'll get to do. But, I have some ideas!

watch BrainPop video about Pi (it is currently featured, so it is free!)
watch BrainPop videos about Einstein and relativity
make your own round pizza, cookies or pie
check out the history of Pi and activites & links listed at Exploratorium
make Kandinsky-like circle art like over at "Blog, She Wrote"
read Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander

Those are just a few ideas. And, I'll leave you with some Einstein quotes I've posted before:

I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.

Love is a better teacher than duty.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

Information is not knowledge.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist.

They are wrong: it is character.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Zero as an Exponent

Today we were discussing exponents in math. One of the problems had "0" as an exponent, and the book didn't explain why the answer was "1." After thinking about it, I realized I didn't know "why" it was "1", either. I just knew that was a rule! So, I started looking for an explanation on the internet.

I came across Maria Miller's video on her Homeschool Math Blog. She used patterns to explain why any number with 0 as an exponent is 1. (I like how she said that many books just "announce" that fact with no explanation. She calls it "announced mathematics.")

Basically, you can understand why a number with zero as an exponent is 1 by looking at the pattern. If you look at the pattern, you see you are dividing by 10 for each step. So, when you get to the last step, you get an answer of 1. So, 10 to the 0 power is 10 divided by 10, or 1. I think the photo explains it better than my explanation. Anyway, you can try it with any number as a base and you always would find that any number with an exponent of 0 is equal to 1.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Divisibility War

Last week, Alex was working on divisibility rules. Here are the rules we were working on:

2's - if it ends in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8, it is divisible by 2
3's - add the digits and if they are divisible by 3, the whole number is divisible by 3
4's - if the last 2 digits of a number are divisible by 4, the whole number is divisible by 4
5's - if it ends in 0 or 5, it is divisible by 5
6's - if it is divisible by both 2 & 3, it is divisible by 6
9's - add the digits and if they are divisible by 9, the whole number is divisible by 9
10's - if it ends in 0, it is divisible by 10

I went online and found this Divisibility War game. Basically, I wrote down some of the numbers from their list and dealt us each out 6 cards. We took turns going through the cards and deciding if they were divisible by each of the following: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, & 10. For every number that it WAS divisible by, we put a marker on the card. At the end of the game we saw who had the most markers.

After we'd played it a couple of times, I changed the rules a bit. Now, if Alex makes a mistake (or I do!), I will challenge her and "get" her point. This makes sure she is really paying attention (and that I am, too).

She has really liked this game and keeps asking to play it. It is a great way to reinforce divisibility rules!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Learning Multiplication Facts... by Playing Online Games!

We have another website that we've discovered in the past few weeks that we are LOVING. It is called Multiplication.com. Alex LOVES playing on this site.

There are quite a few different games. Two of our favorite games are: Patty's Paints, where you get to "paint" your own car after every round, and Math Models, where you "earn" clothes for your models. At the end of Patty's Paints, you get to race a car around a track! And, at the end of Math Models, you get to use the clothes you've earned to dress your model.

One thing I really appreciate about multiplication.com is that you can choose what facts you are working on. For example, Alex has been working on just her 9 facts for the past week. And, she is getting much faster!!!

There are other things on this site. There are timed quizes so you can compare your 'before' and 'after' times. There are videos. There are games you can play in a classroom or with other kids. And, I know there are things I haven't even discovered.

The novelty might wear off with this program, but there are lots of games to choose from. And I am so happy that Alex is having fun and improving her math fact skills!

If your child is struggling with learning there multiplication facts, you might look at Jimmie's post. She has some great ideas, and the comments are a valuable resource, too!

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land

Alex saw this movie at a class recently and we watched part 1 of 3 today. It's entertaining and educational! You can find part 2 & 3 on YouTube.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Recent School For Us

I've kind of been blogging sporadically lately. And, I decided not to keep a separate blog for nature, so I just imported those posts onto this blog. Which, by the way, was really easy to do! We're now in our 5th week of school and things are going pretty smoothly.

We used some of Jimmie's ideas for math and worked on prime numbers by making a Sieve of Eratosthenes.

We are also currently using a new math curriculum that is online. I just print it out! I enjoyed this exercise. Using these numbers, 4, 3, 2, 0, 0, & 0, Alex was supposed to make 2 different numbers that met certain criteria. For example, she was to make two 6-digit numbers that were divisible by 100. Or, two 6-digit numbers that were divisible by 10 but NOT 100. I love how this program is really making Alex think!

Here is another activity we did in math today. The exercise was about plotting on a Cartesian coordinate, which Alex is actually pretty good at. But, the exercise had students in their desks stand up if they were seated in (1, 3) for example. Well, we set up a BUNCH of WebKinz and then Alex had to tell me which animal was at a certain location. She made up a 2nd game where we threw a WebKinz and at the "class" and had to tell what location that WebKinz was at. If we got it right, that WebKinz went in our pile. We had a lot of fun.

Here's a few more items we added to our Mystery of History timeline.

Here's a project Alex did for one of her "outside" classes. They are using Story of the World 1. They were to use heiroglyphics or cuneiform and remove some words from a famous saying and replace them with one of these forms of writing. I like the quote Alex used: "They are able because they think they are able" by Virgil.

And, here's a little science Body Bingo game we printed out from Ellen J McHenry's Basement Workshop. She has some GREAT free products to download. And, she has some great looking products for sale, too!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Stock Market Game

Enrollment is coming soon for The Stock Market Game. Has anyone participated before? Thanks!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Soma Cubes

We had a museum class today about shapes. One of the main activities we did was to "play" with Soma Cubes. I didn't recognize the name, but I had seen these cubes before. Basically, there are 27 individual cubes which are connected into 7 puzzle pieces. You then put the blocks together to form different shapes.

Since the class wasn't full, the moms got to get involved and I WAS THRILLED to complete the cube! I've never been able to do this before! (And, I didn't have any hints... we just started with simpler puzzles and I figured it out. I really felt as excited as a kid to figure this out!)

I also completed some other neat puzzles - I think this was called the chair.

The snake.

The bed.

And the crystal palace.

You can either make your own puzzle pieces using small wooden blocks, or you can buy a set. There are lots of sites online where you can find photos of puzzles to put together, like at this site. So, now I'm planning on making a set... or finding a set so we can play at home.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Pi Day

Yesterday, we celebrated Pi Day (March 14th or 3.14). Alexandra had lots of fun preparing a surprise "Pi" meal with her Nana.

For dinner, they made pizza pie with pepperoni (arranged as a happy face). They also made a fruit salad with all circular fruits. And, we had slices of cucumber and round chips with dip. For dessert, they made a giant chocolate chip cookie and she decorated it with the symbol for pi. (I forgot to take a photo of the finished cookie!)

Nana also had the neatest idea to make everyone round placemats out of old wrapping paper! They traced a large bowl and cut out individual placemats. They also made little round name tags that doubled as coasters. I thought they turned out great! And, they will last through several meals.

And, since we are visiting family, I had to share this cute photo of my little nephew. He just turned 10 months old and what a cutie!

Monday, March 09, 2009

Preparing for Pi Day

As I mentioned earlier, Saturday is Pi Day (since 3.14 is March 14th). Here are some of our plans.

To start with, we will read Sir Comference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander and Wayne Geehan. (We love this whole series of books!) Then, we will "discover pi" using this site. We'll also watch the BrainPop video about pi.

We will also be doing some circle art using compasses and this post by ArtSmart4Kids about artist Frank Stella.

We'll be on Spring Break (yeah!!) or I would probably do more. But, we will also possibly have pizza and make a giant cookie "cake" for dessert. (Alexandra doesn't care for pies.)

Hope you have fun on Pi Day! Oh, and remember it is Einstein's birthday, too!

Monday, March 02, 2009

Pi Day Plans

The 21st annual Pi Day (3/14 or 3.14) is coming up next Saturday and I've been searching for some fun things to do. Last year was the first time I'd heard of it and I didn't have much time to plan since I found out on 3/13.

So, first of all, I was letting everyone know so they can plan! But, I'm also wondering if you have some fun Pi plans that you could share with me.

Also, I've seen several versions (some on YouTube) of the American Pi song, but I enjoyed these lyrics. Here's part of it (sang to the tune "Bye, bye, miss American Pie...")

Find, find the value of pi
3 point 1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5 3 5 8 9...
A good ol’ fraction you might hope to define
But the decimal never dies, the decimal never dies.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Gingerbread House - Excel Style

After seeing a classroom doing something similar, I decided Alexandra could use a lesson in Excel - and make a pretty Christmas picture. So, I found a gingerbread house at Math Wire and broke it down into more squares to make my project work.

Then, I started with the Excel basics. I taught Alexandra how to open Excel and then explained about cells, columns and rows and how they are named. Then, I taught her about the "fill" button and how to select cells to be colored in. After that, we made our own pictures. I also taught her how to name & save her file and how to name her tab and move between pages.

Next, came our step by step lesson.

Select the entire page to format (click on button by "A" & "1")
Click Format > Row > Height > 20
Click Format > Column > Width > 4
Go to "borders" and add the border that looks like a window - this will outline each cell so it is easier to fill in. (At this point, the page should be filled with squares. We'll be working with columns A - S, or A - T if you change the margins).
Fill in row 1 & 2 with background color (A-S)
Fill in J & K on Rows 3, 4, & 5 with chimney color and the rest of those rows with background color.
Continue giving directions row by row. (Actually, Alexandra decided she wanted to decide where her windows were, so I helped her get the general outline of the house and she finished it on her own.)
Select the entire page and go back to "borders" and remove all borders. Then, you can put the borders back on the windows or any other place you'd like them.

That's pretty much it! Below is my house after I removed the highlights around each cell.

Below is Alexandra's gingerbread house. I like that she used different colors than I did, a welcome mat, and even added a window box under the upstairs window!

Also, she taught me something! (Yes, that always seems to happen!) When you are using the "color fill" or "border" buttons, you can actually drag and drop them closer to your picture so you don't have to keep going up to the toolbar! In the above photo, you can see her "border" menu on top of her house. On my 1st photo, you can see the "color fill" menu by my house.
I've also created a snowman we might work on tomorrow. And, I'm busy searching for and creating other lessons for both Word and Excel. If you know of any or have posted any, please let me know! Thanks!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

ALEKS review

I've talked about ALEKS, the online math program, several times over the past few years. Someone on one of my yahoo groups just asked about it and I wrote a somewhat lengthy reply and thought I'd share it.

I thought I'd chime in with our experiences with ALEKS, too. We've used ALEKS several times over the past year and my daughter has used it for 3rd - 5th grade math.

While she loved ALEKS and could "fly" through their program (she just turned 8 and was in 5th grade math last year as a 7 year old), I have found some problems with it, too.

Whenever a child learns a new concept, they only have to get 3 problems right for the program to say they have mastered it. As a parent, you can have the child do the "extra" problems, which brings it up to 5 total problems before a concept is considered "mastered."

Although they say they program is supposed to be using artificial intelligence to figure out what concepts your child needs extra work on, I have found them to be very biased towards certain types of problems. For example, when you print out a worksheet for them to practice on, they will usually give you 21 problems. I have found that for several grades they almost always gave my daughter a Venn diagram - which she has no problem with. But, they rarely gave her multiplication problems - which she could use review with.

Also, even when she missed a problem after "mastering it", as long as she could figure out the right answer, they returned it to her "mastered list."

I think ALEKS would be a wonderful supplement. My daughter had "hated" math until trying ALEKS and loved all the new and exciting problems it gave. She loved that the 21 problems on a worksheet were each of a different kind (i.e. NOT 21 addition problems). And, she would actually spend several hours doing math some days.

But, I also feel it led to a false sense of what she knew. And, even though she "catches on" to math concepts quickly, she needed more practice than just a few problems - especially when it comes to the "biggies" like multiplication and division.

Hope this helps!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Fall Lapbooks!!!

I was actually looking for some fun math activities for this fall season when I came across this free Pumpkin Lapbook from Melissa Telling at Lilliput Station. I'm tempted to use it even though it's probably too young for Alex. But, if you have some young elementary kids, this looks like a great fall project!

I think we'll be using the homeschoolshare's Stellaluna Unit instead. We'll also be doing lots of fun math games, etc, from mathwire.

Have fun learning!

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