Most of you know we only do Saxon math three days a week.  The other two days of math time are spent doing living math, logic, critical thinking activities and/or math games.  Over nine weeks of last semester, one day a week was spent with Mahayla (7th grade) doing the lessons from a Prufrock Press book called Moving Through Dimensions.  It a very hands-on, out of the text book approach to teaching 3-dimensional geometry concepts.  Take a look at some of the fun we had together.

For a homeschooling family, it’s kind of expensive at nearly $40.00.  (I got it free for review.)  But Mahayla (and I) learned a lot – and both of us loved the hands-on, critical thinking approach.  One of the neatest things we learned was how to transfer 3-dimensional objects into 2-dimensional drawings and vice-versa.  I was also amazed at how simple very in-depth concepts became after the explanations and activities.  Hey, even I understand polycubes and Sierpinski Triangles now!  Even though the learning was from a text of sorts, I still consider the lessons to be living math.  We were learning skills and doing projects that will easily translate into real world tasks.

We spent much of the afternoon preparing for a special dinner of -

Heart Pizza

Lemon-Strawberry Slushies

and Heart-shaped Ice Cream Cookies

We finished off the night by watching the Charlie Brown Valentine special from earlier in the week.  I’m not a huge Charlie Brown fan, but the kids loved it!

At church Sunday, the Jr. Church lessons focused on, of course, LOVE.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this:  Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these.  Mark 12:30-31

We played some fun games after the lesson, too.

Pinky Linky

Candy Heart Relay

Blindfolded Coloring

Candy Heart Memory Circle

And, we kept on celebrating Monday at co-op with the annual Valentine’s parties.

There was so much love shared that I think we’re all caught up for awhile!  LOL  Hope your V-Day was special!

Taking several sized lids, I asked the kiddos to trace five different lids on a piece of plain legal-sized paper.  Using a centimeter tape measure, I asked them to measure the circumference and diameter of each lid and jot that down on their papers beside the appropriate drawing.

Using their measurements, I held my fingers on the tape measure to show the circumference and diameter of each lid.  I asked them to think about what they noticed that was similar about each of the measurements.   (The diameter is always about 1/3 of the circumference.  You can show this by folding the tape measure in thirds each time.)

Once they saw this “almost 1/3″ measurement concretely, I told them there was a way to figure out the circumference accurately every single time.  All they need to know is the diameter of the circle.  I secretly held a calculator and asked them to give me the diameter of several of their lids.  I would multiply the diameter by Pi (3.1416) and get their circumference measurement every time.

This, piqued their interest of course, and they couldn’t wait to find out the magic trick.  So, I showed them the formula C = (Pi)d (I don’t know how to make the Pi sign on the computer!) and allowed them to use the calculator to find several circumferences around the house.

They were so excited to tell their Dad that they will be able to help him decide what size tire he needs to buy the next time a giant tractor tire needs to be bought. 

I hope you aren’t getting bored with all the fun math we’ve been doing from Hardhatting in a Geo-World.  I just can’t help sharing what has been a GREAT math & science unit!  If you are getting bored, you’ll be glad to know this is the last post!    The other posts can be found here and here.

We did one last lesson on bridges.  This demonstrated the importance of strong anchors for a suspension bridge to be strong.  (Yes, that’s our art table.  We needed to place thumbtacks somewhere and the art table did the job.  Yes, those are baby feet standing on the art table.  He wants to be part of every activity we do!)

We also did a couple of thought-provoking activities concerning geometric shapes.  Do you know if you’re a square, tall rectangle or short rectangle?  We do!  Just measure your height and arm span to find out.  Equal measurements mean you are a square.  Longer height than arm span makes you a tall rectangle, while shorter height than arm span makes you a short rectangle.

And this activity involved predicting shapes when circles were attached and cut in various ways.

As of January 5th, we’re back on our regular math schedule – three days per week of textbook, two days of living math/problem solving/logic.  I’ll continue to share living math ideas, but they won’t come quite as frequently.  Until then, happy math lessons!

After completing the activity and filling in the chart provided, I had the kiddos show their findings with homemade graphs.

The book talked a little about why some bridges were stronger than others, but we wanted to know more.  I found this very cool site linked from THINK’s blog.

We also decided to complete her Bridge Challenge.

Caleb’s first attempt (not so strong.)

Caleb’s second attempt (much stronger.)

Mahayla’s bridge.

Tomorrow – we’re off to do some Christmas problem solving!  You can find some links here.  Happy Christmas learning!

We are having SO much fun with this book!  A little break from the regular math schedule has turned out to include such exciting math and science that my kids are actually asking to do more. 

Here are some photos from one of this week’s investigations….

Cylinder structures – Using various sized cardboard tubes and homemade paper cylinders, the kids had to estimate and find out how many books each cylinder would hold.  Their estimations and actual results were kept on a data sheet provided in the book.  We then went on to talk about why cylinders are so strong, why certain heights might be better than others and where in creation and the man-made world we find the use of cylinders.

I’ve also recently discovered a wonderful blog called Think! that offers weekly math/science/art related challenges for children.  To go along with the math investigations, I gave the kids this challenge.  Using only 12 straws, 12″ of tape and a pair of scissors, they had to create a structure that would hold an egg at least 1″ off the ground.  No tape was allowed to adhere the structure to the surface or the egg to the structure.  Fun!

Caleb’s structure.

Mahayla’s structure.

Today, math was in the form of a cookie baking day in preparation for our annual cookie baking and exchange party at my mom’s house tomorrow.  I’ll probably post pictures and few recipes soon.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Whether you have extra M&M’s, Skittles, Smarties, Runts, or just a big bunch of assorted candy bars, take a few minutes to turn those sweets into more than cavities.  Even little bitty ones can sort candy, place the pieces on a blank grid, then color a bar graph.  As the kiddos get bigger, all the more fun they can have graphing their candy.  Here’s a post from last year about how we used M&M’s to do all sorts of graphs.  This year, we did some candy graphing, but not quite as in depth as last year.

And don’t forget all those autumn leaves!  Make a nature walk even more productive by collecting a sack of leaves to sort and graph.

Literal or concrete graphs are not only fun, but help younger ones understand better what a graph on paper represents.

After making the concrete graphs, my children jotted the information and used centimeter grid paper to design their own graphs.

Happy graphing!

We started with a review discussion about the purpose of leaves and why they change colors.  After a bit of struggle getting everyone to pay attention during the discussion, I announced there would be a test later in the day.  (Yep, that meant I had to come up with some sort of test on leaves!  In all that spare time I have, you know.  Lucky for me, I was able to find this quiz online.)  I don’t do tests very often, but it was just the thing needed today to turn their attention back toward our discussion.

Math was next on the list.  Using a few of the leaves each, the kids had to find the perimeter of the leaves in inches and centimeters.  Then had to find the area in square inches, square centimeters and an unknown square unit.  Yarn and a measuring tape made finding the perimeter easy.

The area in square inches was found using one-inch tiles.  A one-inch grid could be used as well.

We used cemtimeter grid paper for finding the area in square centimeters.  (Simply trace the leaf and count the full squares inside the leaf.  We estimated the half and quarter filled squares to add more area.  For instance, if there were two halves, we would count them as one.  If there was a square about 3/4 full and another 1/4 full, we combined them as one.)

Graph paper was used to find an unknown square unit.  We talked about smaller units making for more accurate measurments.

Finally, we used Melissa’s idea of creating leaf bursts for an art activity to add to the nature notebooks.

Scarecrow Measurement Man

Candy Corn Triangular Number Pattern

Insect and Spider Problem Solving

And these are on our to-do list….

~Area and Perimeter of Leaves  (I’m thinking of tying this into a nature study day??)

~Coordinate Graph Jack-o-lantern

Go have some fun with math this month!

Kids and Money – Teaching Biblical Stewardship and Allowances

This topic can go so many different ways based on the preferences of the parents, so I’ve tried to give just a brief overview of what we do.

God tells us to give – to Him and to others.  Biblical stewardship can come in the form of money, things and time.  That’s something we try to teach our children.  When they were little, we bought the tithing bank.  They would put their little bits of money in the tithe, save and spend sections and it gave them a good picture of one Biblically sound way to organize their money.  We would transfer the same idea over to time, for instance, too.  “Make sure your time is being spent on God, others and yourself – not necessarily in the same percentages as the money bank, though.”

As time has gone on, chores and allowance have been added to the mix.    We, personally, use allowance as “pay” for chores.  The amount is set.  Chores aren’t an option, so they get paid the full amount each week.  The older you are, the more you make.  (You also do a few more chores.)  Our children are expected to tithe and save part of their allowance.  They are responsible for purchasing all their “wants”.  Of course “wants” can be placed on a birthday or Christmas list, but the rest of the year, the “wants” are their responsibility.  No money may be removed from tithing or savings to purchase a “want”.

We do not give loans.  Brother or sister may choose to make a loan to the other, but nothing else can be purchased by the borrower until the original loan has been paid off.  A fair interest on the loan is acceptable if the loaner wants to charge the borrower. 

If a big-ticket item is on the “want” list, our children may offer to do extra big-time chores and negotiate a fair wage for the chores.  They are also free to offer house cleaning, baking, pet-sitting, etc. to grandparents and neighbors if they’d like to try to earn even more money.

That’s our plan.  I’d love to hear what you do!

Here are some resources that were mentioned in co-op:

Allowance Game

Financial Parenting

Stewardship Street

Here are some fun and helpful websites:

CBD Money Resources

Dave Ramsey’s Kid’s Kit

US Government’s Online Money Games for Kids

Practical Money Skills for Life Online Games

Money Matters For Kids