When the cat’s away…

The mice will play!
Superboy was off with his scout troop the other day, so JBug and I were busy, busy, busy following her interests.
It all began with a simple question ( prompted by a veggie tales song).
“Mommy, why do I have a belly button?”
(Hmmm. Have we not discussed this yet? Amazing the things we forget [...]

Bunny math

Just in time for Easter! Here is a fun way to get in the bunny mood, do some math, and get some of the wiggles out.
Draw the numbers 1-10 in a straight line on your sidewalk, driveway, whatever. Ask your child to hop like a bunny from one number to the next to find the [...]

A few more ideas to spice things up

I promised I’d post some more ideas today, so here are a few. I am running a little behind (we have been busy with all this fun stuff!!!) but I’ll have the rest up tomorrow, hopefully.
These are pretty simple today. Just a few ideas I gathered from things I’ve seen around the internets:

This is a [...]

Math: how hard can it be?

I have been spending some time thinking about teaching math. I’ve also been spending time reading other folks’ thoughts about teaching math. So much debate and deliberation about various curricula, scope and sequences, methods, problem solving, drill, etc, etc, etc…
I’ve come to one conclusion:
How hard can it be, really???
Now, I don’t mean to sound [...]

In search of a better math

Along with a lot of  other folks, I’ve been doing a good bit of thinking about math lately.
Let me explain why:
When I pulled Superboy out of school in mid-4th grade, he hated math. Hated it. I made it one of my topmost priorities to re-instill the love of math that he had as a [...]

My big girl!

This was quite a week for JBug! All in the same week (or so) she…

got her first loose tooth
learned to snap her fingers
learned to whistle
learned to do her laundry all by herself
learned to pour hot tea from the teapot
learned to subtract!

Now, except for the loose tooth and the subtraction, these are all things she has [...]

Can I do my math now, please???

That isn’t a phrase we tend to expect to hear coming out of our kids’ mouths. But this morning I heard it from JBug.
Yesterday I presented the addition strips board and she took to it like a duck to water.

After finishing up the “twos” fact card I started her on, she asked me if she [...]

Oh, and that other stuff, too…

 Just so you don’t think we are ALL fun and games around here, a picture of JBug doing her math. Her task is to lay out all of her number cards from 1-9000 in order, and the correct quantity of beads. She pulls out the next card, adds it to the stack, and then adds [...]

A peek at our math centers

Well I have finally had a chance to be home for a bit and start setting up things for school. I’ve decided to combine working areas for JBug and Superboy as much as possible this year.  First on the list was the math centers.
Here is our main math center all set up for the year. [...]

Making a new friend: Euclid!

Superboy made a new friend today.
Thanks to Denise at Let’s Play Math he was introduced to a new friend: Euclid.
The task was to solve the problem of trying to make square corners, using the methods of the ancient Egyptian Surveyors or “rope-stretchers.”
Superboy constructed a right triangle using only a knotted string and pegs by following [...]