Mucho Math

We've been hitting math really hard the last two months.  Will's brain seems really focused on math lately, so we're seeing a lot of growth and mastery of many of our goals!  November math goals are:

He has mastered #2 and #3 and is just about there with telling time!  Two of the tools that we have made to help with telling time are: 

- Clock with flaps that reveal the minute value of each number along with a laminated color coded sheet to write the time shown on the clock:

- This next tool REALLY does the trick when it comes to determining the "Hour Zone", as we call it.  Will was getting tripped up on times like 3:55, when the hour hand is just a hair away from the four, thinking the time was 4:55 instead. This is also laminated so he can label the minute values using dry erase marker if he needs to (and if you know me, I rarely pass up the chance to use my laminator!).

We also love, love, love Interactive Time Telling App on his iPad!

 

 It is customizable to work on hour, half hour, 15 minutes, five minutes, or minutes.  The ability to change clock faces also helps... some have all hours and minutes labeled, some have only hours, some have only 12, 3, 6, and 9, and one is all Roman Numerals.  

A handy tool we used while learning place value was this Number Slider (also laminated... this time for sturdiness, not my laminating obsession):

As far as two-digit addition with regrouping goes, this has been a casual and unhurried lesson over the last six weeks.  He picked it up quickly, especially with tie-ins to basic addition facts that we practiced over and over the first seven or eight weeks of school, but also to place value, which comes easy to him.  I have found that, unlike common  practice in public school classrooms, there is no need to drill him with 30 or 40 problems at a time when he can effortlessly complete six or eight. 

Making monthly goals has helped my homeschooling planning.  I wish I would have done this to begin with, but this journey has as much to do with me learning as it does with Will learning.  So now I am working on re-structuring my lesson plans from January through May this way... listing our goals for each month, then making a list of materials I have on hand for each goal.  Then each day I will just look at my materials list and choose what fits Will's current level of understanding... or better yet, let him pick!