Math

This is how we practice our sums of tens.

We grab some of our favorite friends and we give them a card with a number on it. Every body gets

a number 0- 10.

We keep a stack of 0-10 with us. I give Madeline a card with a number on it and she has to find the

right animal with the number that when added to her number will equal ten.

Below we have all of our animals with their number.

This is our guy with our lucky number. We must have had card number 8 because his number is 2.

Madeline introduces herself as number 8 and shakes the lovely dragon's hand.

When we get a card that we cannot answer we pull out our wonderful abacus. She puts in the number she has and what ever is left over is the right answer.

This one is 4+6=10. It always gets her.

We don't use flash cards. The reason being is that flash cards are not a good way to drill in

number facts.

According to our math book...

"The problem with flash cards is the false impression they give that mathematics is a subject that doesn't require thinking, or that is just a tidy collection of "facts" that everyone must memorize. Flash cards are abstract; they require associating a symbol with two other symbols. On the other hand, a child familiar with the abacus thinks about the concrete beads when asked for a fact. "

Who knew? I wish I would have read that before I had went out and bought flash cards. ;-)

I love our math book because a lot of it is visual, hands on, and we play a lot of games that make learning fun.

Madeline has finished her English and Math book for the whole year and it is only February! Don't worry we bought the next year's set, but she is zooming through her school and doing so well. She makes learning look easy. I wish I would have learned things as easily as her.