Spring Math Work

Hello, thanks for stopping to visit our little neck of the woods.  We have been busy enjoying spring and our unseasonably warm weather.  Here is a look at a bit of what all the children have been working on during math lessons

This is the Montessori Peg Board.  E and A were working on factoring numbers up to 30.  This picture is of A but I had really pulled this work out for E but when he saw the board A wanted in on the action.

K is working with the small bead frame making numbers, adding and subtracting.

Here K is working on her money counting skills using a file folder game.  She can do this folder completely by herself, I so underestimated her abilities.

Here A is practicing measuring skills using a ruler as he follows directions to build a house. This activity is from the book Shoebox Math.  This simple activity based book I have returned to over and over again for each of the children.

Quadrilateral sort for geometry.

B is working on counting from 1-10.  On this day we were using number tiles from the game Rummikub and old marker caps.



 We have faithfully stuck with our math rotation this school year and I am so happy with our progress.  We had 3 focus areas for math: geometry, fractions and operations.  I picked a focus area each month rotating between the 3 subjects and it has worked wonderfully.  We are currently working on geometry focusing on lines, triangles and circles.  Study Jams has been so great to add some video learning to our lessons when  
introducing or reviewing a concept.

I came across these funsheet books on Teachers Pay Teachers that may be helpful for fall or summer review.
Mastering Math Facts: Multiplication and Division
Polygon Explorations
Geometry: Exploring Basics

It is Montessori Monday and I am Linking up.

More Fractions

Sticking with my plan to rotate between, fractions, geometry and operations studies in math means an update is in order.  Deciding where to go in our fraction studies has been frustrating and it is one time that after pulling all of me resources I wished I had a more concise program to follow, every program seems to teach fraction in a different sequence. So, excuse the mish mash but here is what we studied in our last rotation, I hope it helps.

We used our Fractions of a Pizza game to review our previous fraction identification work.  A bit to easy for the bigger children but still fun for the younger.

I cannot say enough about the usefulness of our fraction circles.  We used them to review addition and subtraction of fractions and then moved on to finding equivalents and reducing fractions.

I love this picture, my boy is so handsome plus this is what homeschooling a boy is like, he has to have a monkey  on his back, a shirt over his head, sounds coming out of his mouth and feet rocking something.

finding equivalents

reducing fractions with a homemade booklet

making fractions

We also used our Fraction Contraption game to find equivalents.

I quickly realized when we moved on to multiplying and dividing fractions that K was not going to keep up so I provided her with a few activities of her own like this fraction match up activity:

We also used videos from Kahn Academy and Study Jams to introduce or review concepts as needed.

We are currently in our operations rotation using the peg board, stamp game and small bead frame, I'll share about that soon.

Go check out Living Montessori Now to see what other Montessori Inspired homeschoolers are teaching their children.

Have a happy week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Games for Learning and Fun

I don't know about you, but do your children always want lessons to be fun?  Mine do, just even this morning E prayed that school would be fun.  I remember a high school teacher who taught geography and economics, going off one day about children expecting learning to be fun and entertaining.  "Fun" is a pet peeve of mine.  Yes, I want my children to be excited about their learning and engaged with each topic, but "fun" is not always possible or beneficial.  Since the beginning of time we were placed on this Earth to work.  Remember after all, God gave Adam a garden to tend.  I have read many books, blogs and articles in an effort to bring interest and fun to our learning but never the less, boredom (there has even been boredom to tears), disinterest and negative attitudes sometimes prevail.  I have given up, sometimes learning is not fun and just has to be done.  "Boring" lessons is where character training begins and for me that is the hardest thing about homeschooling.  The character training never goes away, whether in the home, out of the home, during lessons or not during lessons, these people, myself included, need to be trained to persevere even when they have a job that is not fun.

All that being said, here is a look a some of my attempts to bringing "fun" to our learning.

Math Games

Money Exchange game from The Education of Ours.

Pizza Fraction Game from Lakeshore Learning.  A great game to practice recognizing fractions.

Fraction Contraption  from Lakeshore Learning (sorry, I couldn't find the link).  This game teaches fraction equivalents.

Geography Games

A fun U.S. Geography game from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.  This is my favorite blog for free game printables and ideas.

I would love to add Sequence Stated and Capitals to our game collection.

So dust off the games and try bringing some "fun" to your home learning day.  Our fun for the day--watching Drive Thru History: Greece and the World and maybe a bit of file folder games.

I'm linking up with Montessori Monday.

Geometry--Angles

Here at the Middle of Somewhere we have just finished another month of geometry study. We started out with a review of our previous work and then moved on to angles. For our angle work we used a combination of booklets, sorting cards, videos and worksheets. The spine of our study was Montessori Print Shop's Study of Angles Book. We would go over the booklet terms and then watch videos to elaborate on the concepts.  Our 2 favorite places for videos were Kahn Academy and Study Jams.

Once the children understood the difference between right, acute and obtuse angles they completed an angle sort printed for free from Cultivating Dharma.

Then we moved on to worksheets.  Below A is doing a fun angle snowflake search from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational..  Superteacher worksheets also has some good angle pages for free.  We do not have a membership to this site nor do we use a lot of worksheets but this is a great resource that could really help me in planning future lessons, so we may have to subscribe.

When we  return to geometry in the spring we will be ready to move onto lines and triangles.  I had really hoped to move through all of our geometry materials this season but I don't think we will make it.  I remind myself,  isn't that why we homeschool, so we can move at our own pace?

I'm linking up with Montessori Monday, go take a look and be inspired.

Also just wanted to let you know that I am posting a lot of fitness/heatlth information on my facebook page and instagram if you would like to follow along. And of course there is Pinterest.

Fractions

Well, this was our first week back to official lessons and it has been tough.  I don't know why, after 5 years of homeschooling, the transition back to an education focused routine always takes me my surprise in regards to mine and the children's attitudes.  For our lessons we are using Beautiful Feet"s Learning Character Through Literature, the Montessori Grammar Farm, Arctic and Antarctica calendar cards and revisiting geometry.  The children also have their own copywork, math practice books and phonics/spelling lessons.  E has additional history reading and a states notebook she is working on.  For our read aloud we read Stone Fox over the break and started Jack London's Call of the Wild.

I wanted to share with you a look at our fraction work because I know there were some moms working with their children in this area as well.  We move slow in our school because mastery is important to me so a lot of our fraction work was review with a bit of new games and materials mixed in.

 We used our fraction circles to build fractions, add fractions and subtract fractions. The fraction labels are from here and our fraction circles are from the Montessori Outlet.

Then we started recording everything in our math journals, the children really liked this part because of the tracing and coloring.  I think there were even several fraction pictures that were drawn into some other creation.  Does anyone else seem to have that creativity problem during journal time?

We played a lot of fraction games like Roll a Fraction from the book Shoe Box Math.

.We also played another easy game from Lakeshore Learning called Fraction of the Pizza Game and practiced building fractions with Lakeshore's Building Fractions Activity Center.

We also used these free 3 part cards to understand numerator and denominator.

When we return to fractions in February we will be reviewing and working on equivalent fractions and multiplying fractions.


We will be using the Lakeshore game Fraction Contraption and other games from the book 25 Super Cool Math Board Games.  I will also be printing out a lot of free materials from Sparkle Box.  If you haven't checked them out, you may want to, not only for fractions but for other subjects as well.  But I'm warning you, you may get lost there for awhile.

If you are looking for more fraction ideas check out our Pin board for elementary math.

Have a great weekend!

I'm linking to Montessori Monday.

Geometry

Hi everyone, thank-you for stopping by to see what is happening here at the Middle of Somewhere.  In my last math update I said I wanted to share more about geometry and fraction work and that I shall do starting with geometry.  Our children had an introduction to geometry last year so we started out with a review of the geometric solids.

E is matching solids and 3 part cards.

K is matching solid pictures and word cards. I read the word cards and she did the matching.

A is sorting pictures of objects that are in different geometric solid shapes.

I set up a lot of the review in center type activities that the children rotated through and they seemed to really enjoy this way of practicing the work.  It gave the children choice of what order they completed the work but allowed me to facilitate what I wanted them to work on.

Here is a great post at Living Montessori Now for DIY geometric solids and solid activity ideas.  Our solids are a combination of items I found amongst the children's toys and a basic wood set I purchased off Ebay.  Our three part cards are from Montessori Print Shop. Also from Montessori Print shop are our solid sorting cards.

After our review we moved onto Polygon work. We started with this free set of lessons that used both objects from home and the geometry sticks. I loved the lessons, they were simple and well laid out and the sticks were such an interest catcher for our children. I purchased the sticks from Kid Advance Montessori and cork board squares from either Target of Walmart.  We just worked our way through the lessons and I added in other activities when appropriate.  We also went through this little booklet about polygons from Montessori Print Shop. When we pick up geometry again in January we will continue to work our way through the other booklets that Montessori Print Shop has to offer on triangles, angels, circles and lines.

E matching up geometric pictures to the number of sides they have and their names.

K is using the geoboards to make geometric shapes.

 

 

 

 

 

K using geometry sticks to make a triangle.

A using the geometry sticks to make the polygon of his choice.

As you can see I have used both a combination of free and purchased materials.  Here are some links to free downloadable materials that may be helpful as you put together your own lessons:


Montessori Materials

Wikisori--scroll down to the geometry section

Cultivating Dharma

The biggest help I had in planning our lessons was this post from Making Montessori Ours.

Today is Montessori Monday and I am linking up, go visit and check out what others are doing at home to make the Montessori style of education attainable to all.

First Grade Math

Math, Writing and Reading have been my over all goals for this term of lessons.  So in my next few Montessori posts I hope to fill you all in on how we have been progressing in geometry, fractions and operations.  It has been a fun time to watch the children learn with so many wonderful Montessori and other manipulatives, it has really kept our studies fresh and interesting.  However for now, here is a look at some of what K, our 1st grader has been working on in her individual work time:

K is working in her math book, she loves this little book and would complete page after page, if I let her..  I printed this book our for each of my children from here. The books are free and they are a great tool for daily math practice. 

Practicing place value with our version of the "golden beads"  If I did not already have the rods I probably would have gone with a base ten set as an affordable "golden beads" option.

More place value practice with the large number cards.

Learning to use a number line for addition using a addition equation booklet and white board to right her answeres

Working on money sense with the money exchange game, we play to .50 cents now but I think she is ready to move onto 1.00 dollar.  Here are the directions.

As we head into December all of the children will be working on operations.  K will be starting with the subtraction strip board, A will be reviewing multi-digit multiplication and moving onto the division board and E will be advancing in division.

For more inspiring lesson ideas visit Montessori Monday.

Blessings for your week!

Learning with Centers and File Folder Games

I have been a long time fan of File Folder Games and Take It To Your Seat Centers and over the years I have made and collected quite a number of books, folder sets and websites.  Yet, I found myself not being able to fit them into our schedule but this year I decided to dedicate one morning a week to these great learning tools.  I think Centers and Folders are great tools for learning both new material and reviewing old lessons.

The children know that Wednesday mornings are folder and center mornings.  Each child has their own box full of appropriate materials to work on.  The children are required to pick one folder or center from each of these subject areas: Language Arts, Math, Geography and Science.  They are to complete their selections and call me over to check them before they clean-up.  At this point, all the children have to do is complete the folders but in our winter term I am going to ask them to also record in their learning journals what they have worked on.  For Example, in this picture E is working on a Science Layers of the Earth Folder and I would ask her to make a  notebook page for her journal.

I also think having a folders and centers morning breaks up our week, so we don't get bored or run down in our daily lesson routine.  The folders and centers also meets my goal for providing as many hands on learning experiences as possible and cultivates independent learning.

Here are a couple Math examples of folders:

Martian Multiplication

Turkey Feather Addition with an added number line. (It has been so long but I think both this folder and the one above are from File Folder Fun, a site full of free folder games.)

And a couple of Geography Examples:

World Continents from Take it To your Seat Geography Centers.

Land Forms--also from Take It To You Seat Geography Centers.

Here are a few of the Take it to Your Seat Centers we use:

Take it to Your Seat Phonics Centers
Take it to Your Seat Science Centers
Take it to Your Seat Geography Centers
Take it to Your Seat Math Centers
Take it to Your Seat Writing Centers

The Take it to Your Seats come in many grade levels so I did not include them all so be sure to look for the level that is appropriate for you child.

We also use a variety of folder games from Lakeshore Learning:


Science File Folder Fun
Fractions, Decimals and Percents Elementary Folder Games
Puzzle Fun Math Cards

Again, a lot of these folder kits come in a variety of age and subject areas, so be sure to take some time and see if what you are looking for is available.

It is Monday so I am linking up with Montessori Monday.

Have a great week!

Elementary Wrap Up--Sort Of

Here is a look at what E and A worked on to complete their 4th and 2nd grade years.

Language Arts:We made it through all eight parts of speech and still love our grammar symbols.  The symbols are such a wonderful hands on way to teach such an inherently dry topic.  Now this is a bit backward in the Montessori method, but we tend to follow our own course of study, we will be working with the grammar farm throughout the summer to keep what we have learned fresh.  So call us remedial, backward or slow if you want but it is what works for us.

E using our movable alphabet to spell and copy her weekly words.

We have also pulled out our phonics stamps from Lakeshore Learning.

A working with abbreviation cards

A doing a bit of prefix review.

Geography:  We finished our geography studies with a look at North America. We really focused in on Canada. Next year E will be doing a state by state study of the U.S. and creating a notebook as she works. For our study of Canada we read the book Lost in the Barrens and used a study guide from Queen Homeschool Supply( I tried to find the guide on line but couldn't).  We have really enjoyed all of the Queen studies.  The studies are very simple in presentation but a treasure trove of ideas.  The children actually stated to me that they really have liked our studies based on living books.  They compared this Canada study with our notebook study of the human body.  They said they liked the anatomy study but really, really enjoy these Queen studies.  During this study I read Lost in the Barrens aloud while they made books of Canada's wildlife.  They also completed a few notebook drawings to illustrate the different types of river terms found in the story.

A cutting out pictures of wildlife for his book.

A and E working together on a puzzle of North America.

Math:We are leaving off in math with A needing to work on his multiplication facts and E needing to work on her division facts.  Both E and A will be using copywork over the summer to continue the memorization of their facts.  I am excited about next years study of geometry and fractions.

A working on our equation and product cards.  He has completed the whole set, so now it is time to combine families for  more of a challenge.

Life Skills: E has been working in the kitchen to prepare lunch for her siblings.  It is always my intention to include the children in as much food preparation as possible but a lot of times they are busy playing and I don't want to disturb the peace of it all or I am to burnt out and just want to get the meal made and not instruct.  Either way I would like to assign E a weekly meal to fix with as little help from me as possible.  Here is a look at what she has done so far.  Strange how both meals included cheese.

E put together this lovely plate of Macaroni and Cheese.  This is our quick mac made with macaroni pasta, fresh cheddar cheese, salt and butter--no boxes here.

E making grilled cheese, she even added some leftover ham to the sandwiches.

I feel like this post is a bit choppie but the fact is it is hard to blog when children are running around and wanting my attention.  So thanks for visiting and leave us a comment to let us know you were here.  I am off to clean up breakfast and sew a skirt for our 5 year old (no I don't sew but we got a different machine and I said I would give it a crack once again).

Enjoy your week--hubs and I are off to the Beach Body Coaches Summit this week and Grandma is coming to stay with the children.  I bit of a break for us and some date time.

I linking up with Montessori Monday. Deb is talking about music appreciation, check it out.