pre-K math JOYS

Joy and Math.  Not usually something that computes normally.

Finding your little guy UNDER the coffee table, in his jammies, head on his stuffed friend along with his dog nearby doing math by choice on his own.  I was so joy filled at the cozy sight that I grabbed my camera snuck up behind the table as quiet as I could to not ruin the moment.  Learning because you love to learn, not because you’re told to – is a life long gift.

Started BamBam off slow and easy last Fall with Math-U-See’s PRIMER.  Added in ipad games and Splash Math Kindergarten.  He fully completed Splash Math K in just 30 days…. so bought the Splash Math Grade 1 pretty quickly.  Still in it now and needs some help but is loving earning his fish and squid.  We’ve gone very very slowly with PRIMER now with just 2 chapters left.  ALPHA waits in the cupboard.

When math is presented in a tangible, hands on, fun way…. kids just really get it. They start counting everything on their own – cereal in their bowl, steps on the stairs, birds in the tree… it’s fun and they have such confidence building up.

I’ve also learned to let go too and see what is in his mind.  This is a boy who loves his video games. LOVES Little Big Planet.  A few days on different occasions he strongly insisted on loading up Little Big Planet during his math. I fought back frustration and said ok – because he wanted to build something in particular.  After gazillion hours of experience in LBP engineering… within about 2 mins flat he constructed an interactive stepping sequence for sack boy to jump on to skip count by 2’s from 0 to 20. Each step would ‘light up’ with a trigger and allow a number to float above WITH sound effects for each step.  COOL !!

Months later, the same scenario unfolded. This time I was excited.  Within moments, he had constructed a triggered math sentence – with answer all activated by sack boy. AWESOME !! He made a bunch, asking for various number combinations and he’d have me close my eyes while he constructed and solved them.

I understand that he loves to construct and engineer – not just understand the concept of math. He wants to create with it, own it.

When it came to learning how to skip count by 5’s I stuck tape on every stair from 1st floor up to 2nd (plus extra tape…) getting from 0 to 100.  They were there for a while…. but with enough stepping backwards and frontwards – he memorized it and had fun doing it.

The other blessing of homeschooling is the natural interaction between brother and sister. Pebbles WANTS to be involved with the teaching and learning process of her little brother. He’s excited to show her what he knows too.  They have even written math questions for each other with chalk on the sidewalk, on scraps of paper I find around the house.  Verbal quizzing to see if he can come up with questions that will stump us.  He begs me to do math late in the evening…. (probably to delay bedtime….)

I know there are tough math times ahead …. so am posting this so I can re-read it later and know it’s all worth it.