Living Math
Posted by Cindy on January 5, 2008
I hated math when I wad a kid. Hated it. It didn’t make much sense to me, I had a hard time memorizing facts, and my teacher’s didn’t spend much time helping me to understand. I used to nearly have anxiety attacks in middle school when the teacher put this sort of problem on the board. “If a train from NY is traveling 60 mph……” You probably didn’t care much for those problems either, did you? 
I remember my poor Dad spending countless hours trying to teach the concept of fractions to me in third grade, only to have every lesson end in tears and me leaving the table saying, “I just don’t get it!” Surprisingly, I made very good grades in spite of the disdain for math. And even though I hated every minute of it, I survived.
Fast forward to my early twenties when I started teaching. What was one of the subjects I had to teach? Math! But, I wasn’t afraid. I could handle elementary math, couldn’t I? Imagine my surprise (and my Dad’s) when math actually became one of my favorite subjects to teach!! You see, I had learned to teach with manipulatives, something my teachers had never given me. What a difference it made! I was finally able to understand fractions AND I was able to teach someone else to understand them! Wow!
So, needless to say, I’m a big believer in teaching math with manipulatives. There’s a connection made in the brain that allows children (and adults) to “see” math and to understand the why’s of math rules. I believe teaching math with manipulatives is a key element to making math a living subject. And just why would math need to be a living subject? The same reason we try to make history or science living subjects – because “living” subjects draw people in. They give a relevance to learning that means more than facts on paper. They make heart and mind connections so that we hopefully love what we’re learning. And they give whole pictures of a topic so the “pieces” fit together better.
Besides manipulatives, what else makes math living? A Charlotte Mason education certainly includes good books, right? Math can include living books, too! There is so much wonderful math literature out there! I’ve started a small library for myself (some of which I pictured below), but most of the books we’ve used have been easy to find at our library. Below are three websites that list many titles you might like to check out.
Penny Gardner’s List of Living Math Literature
Living Math Books Sorted By Mathmatical Concept
Including literature during a math lesson is very easy. I wrote a post not too long ago about using One Grain of Rice for a lesson in doubling numbers. Some other very simple ideas would be…
*Reading The Doorbell Rang then using manipulatives to make fair shares.
*Reading How Big is a Foot and comparing measurments based on your feet and your child’s feet. Then talking about the necessity of a standard unit of measurement.
*Reading Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday then working on a skill like money subtraction with real coins.
The ideas are endless, but well worth the thought because your children will thrive on such exciting activities. The greatest part is that you probably don’t have to really work that hard. Doing a Google search on “(name of book) activities” will most likely place activity ideas right in front of you. Here are some great websites to get you started.
Mathwire Literature Connections
Winter Math Activities – great ideas, with a couple tied to literature
Math and Literature Idea Bank from Math Cats
Finally, another way to make math living for your children is to give them real tasks to do. Let them be part of budgeting, coupons, planning the garden plot, balancing the checkbook, deciding how much grass seed to buy, recipe conversions, bill paying, measuring air in the tires…………..As my children get older, I give them just a bit more responsibilty with real-life tasks in hopes that they will be fully able to do them on their own before leaving my house. They appreciate being included and I reap the benefit of capable helpers!
Am I advocating never opening a math workbook or never working on math drills. Absolutely not. My philosophy is “varied learning makes for well-rounded kids”. I’m simply suggesting that math doesn’t have to be boring and it doesn’t have to come from a workbook. I have friends who worry about skipping lessons in the math workbook, so they might add living lessons to the hour of math the workbook requires. Please promise me that if you plan to try some living math, you’ll tear up that day’s worksheet and pitch it in the garbage. (Gasp – it really is okay to throw workbook pages away. I promise.) Living math won’t be nearly as exciting if it’s on top of “regular” lessons. 
May you and your children find math to be exciting and worthwhile! I would love to hear some of your favorite math books and how you used them in your homeschool!!
