Posted by Cindy on April 25, 2011
What do you get when you put living math, artist study and history lessons together into a workbook of ready-to-go lessons? Time-Travel Math by Amy Bernstein! Caleb and I have had so much fun with this new living geometry adventure book for 4th and 5th graders which we received for review from Prufrock Press.
With stories along the vein of The Magic Tree House books, you and the characters, Harriet and Thomas, are whisked back in time to figure out wonderfully in-depth geometry mysteries. Meet Leonardo Da Vinci, M.C. Escher and Ancient Egyptian architect, Imhotep, through three very exciting and unique stories/math units.
At the beginning of each unit, you are introduced to the characters and their probing questions through an original story that is provided for you right inside the workbook. (In other words, you don’t have to check out anything from the library!) By the end of the day’s reading, there is an activity to complete using reproducible work pages. Each of the three units includes 6-8 lessons, meaning everyday you learn a little more through the story and complete a new math activity. The lessons took us about 30-45 minutes per day, including reading.
- In the first unit, Harriet and Thomas (and you) meet Leonardo Da Vinci and help him learn how to draw proportionately accurate drawings. Throughout the lessons, your student will measure, compare ratios, complete charts, find averages, complete models and draw proportions.
- In the second unit, meet M.C. Esher as you (and Harriet and Thomas) help him figure out the concept of tessellations. Your child will have the opportunity to discover symmetry, draw and measure angles, learn about plane figures and polygons, and create a variety of tessellations.
- The third unit takes you to Ancient Egypt where you help Imhotep, an architect of pyramids, work through his building frustrations. Lessons topics include making perfect squares, angles, directions, circumference, using grids, finding the area of rectangles, triangles and 3-D shapes.
Besides work pages, each lesson also includes abstract questions to take your little math whizzes deeper if you like. Additionally – and one of my favorite parts – a very hands-on extension project is suggested at the end of each unit to culminate the learning into “real” final products. Your child will be challenged to create a to-scale map, sew a simple quilt and design a balanced mobile of 3-D shapes.
I can’t explain clearly enough how unique and intriguing these lessons are. Even though there is math work to do within the lessons, it’s well integrated to go along with the story and teaches serious geometry in a mostly painless way. (Math is never completely painless for Caleb!) The suggested age level is 4th-5th grade, but I think many 6th and 7th grade students would get a lot from the lessons, too.
Learn more and view a preview of the book here.
Posted by Cindy on March 25, 2011
Looking back on my posts recently, it seems as if all we do around here anymore is preschool. Not so! I just haven’t been very good at keeping up with pictures or posts for the big kids. Sorry. I’m making a concerted effort to post more about things other than preschool. Today, I thought I’d share two VERY easy hands-on activities to use for understanding area and volume.
Rectangular Area = length x width (A=l x w) That can be a hard concept for kids to understand until they physically make rectangular arrays and practice counting and multiplying the length and width. My 5th grader has a good grasp of finding area, but before giving him this worksheet to find unusual areas, I thought it would be a good idea to review how to find the area of a rectangle using physical arrays. Then, rather than counting every single dot in the figures to find the area, all he had to do was think about each individual rectangular array making up the figures.
If you don’t own plastic tiles like those in the photo, you could use square crackers, ceramic tiles, or construction paper cut-outs. It’s pretty important to use the shape of a square to help your children see that area covers the entire surface.
Rectangular Volume=length x width x height (V=l x w x h) Finding the volume of a 3-dimensional object from a 2-dimensional drawing can be pretty abstract. To warm Caleb up for figuring volume on this worksheet, I let him physically make some 3-D figures to remind him what volume represents.
Again, if you don’t own linking cubes, use something like square blocks or sugar cubes instead.
Easy!
Posted by Cindy on January 25, 2011
Introducing…
A new book that strays from the topic of nature…
A new book you’re sure to love…
A new book that will give you all the information, confidence and ideas you need to step into the wonderful world of living math!
Click on the graphic to learn more about our latest project at Shining Dawn Books. We’re really excited about this!!
Posted by Cindy on April 1, 2010
I continue to be impressed by the materials Prufrock Press sends me for review. Believe me, if I didn’t like something, I wouldn’t post about it! And if I don’t actually use it in my homeschool, I won’t post about it either!
Hands-On Geometry is a book we used in our school once a week for the last seven weeks as part of our out-of-the-textbook learning time. It was awesome for the 5th grader, 7th grader and ME!
Using only a compass and a straight edge, the seven chapters of this book take your children through geometric 2-dimensional constructions. They learn how to correctly create perpendiculars, parallels, kites, triangles, quadrilaterals and more. And all I had to do was copy the worksheets!
Each chapter consists of four to seven worksheets that include step-by-step directions for completing one of the 2-D constructions. The directions were so clear that it didn’t matter that I never remembered doing this even in high school geometry. Man, if only geometry HAD been this “hands-on” in high school, I might have enjoyed it more! But this isn’t even intended for high schoolers! It’s written for upper elementary and middle school children.
I’ve been asked many times where I find living/fun/logical/hands-on math to do on “the other two days” of the week when we step away from our Saxon textbooks. Here’s a perfect example!
If you’re interested in learning more about our living math days, you might read this post. Also, under the “Categories” section in the right sidebar, click on “Living Math” to find several related posts.
Posted by Cindy on January 1, 2010
Last month at The Curriculum Choice, I wrote about logic/critical thinking resources from Prufrock Press. They’re a fairly new company to me, but I’m becoming more and more impressed!
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.
