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I’ve noticed that Sara has a hard time focusing on math. She solves one problem, gets goofy, talks, fidgets, etc. for a while then regroups and does another one only to then un-focus again. For a while I was doing math drills – how many problems can she do in 1 minute. That seemed to do the trick nicely but has lost some of it’s effectiveness; Sara needs new ways to keep her interested and focused.
Over the last couple days I’ve been baffled. We usually start our lesson with flash cards and Sara can plow through them effortlessly. Yet when we move to the workbooks that have the same equations in them, she flounders. How could that be?
This morning I had a revelation; the problem is distraction. Flash cards don’t have any other equations on them, only the one that she is supposed to solve; the workbook page has 20 other equations. My theory is that if we cover up the other equations, she can focus on the one equation at a time and not be distracted by the others. So this morning, with my trusty pocket knife I carved a prototype of the “equation focus tool.” Sara loved it and confirmed my theory that it was easier to focus on when we cover up the rest of the equations.
“it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter.” (Proverbs 25:2)
At the mid-term we began our subtraction intensive study hoping that would only take a couple of weeks to be refreshed on the concepts. I was then hoping to spend the last portion of the summer with story problems and mid-level second grade math.
Unfortunately, when we began the subtraction focus, it became evident that subtraction was a little further behind than I had expected. It’s no wonder that Sara hated school so much, when you’re trying to figure something out and the class keeps moving forward, it’s frustrating and scary. In math, if you don’t get basic addition and subtraction, you’re going to struggle with anything else math-based.
So, we start at the beginning; first grade, subtraction day 1.
I’m going to try a different approach with subtraction. We’ll start out working subtraction by numbers of 1 through 5 using points. So 10 – 3 is figured by counting down 10, 9, 8,7 using three points on the 3 to count backward (like the picture to this post). With 6-9 we’ll use a counting down method. I’m thinking that we get really good with a couple methods and have Sara practice them for speed (and accuracy) and we should be in good shape pretty quickly.
Sara is getting really comfortable with addition so I’m also trying to work number combinations like 5, 7, 12 (5+7=12, 12-5=7, 12-7-5) so she can use addition to compute her subtraction. So far, not so good but we’ll keep working on a few key combinations.
While it may seem like we are behind, I’m encouraged by Sara’s skip counting (preparing for multiplication). So far we have:
– 2’s up to 100 (goal achieved)
– 3’s up to 24 (goal achieved)
– 4’s up to 20 (goal is 32)
– 5’s up to 100 (goal achieved)
– 6’s nothing yet (goal is 42)
We can spell our numbers to fourteen (20 is the summer goal).
We had a new lesson that falls under Big Concepts for Little People; partnerships. Sara wanted a set of walkie-talkies and didn’t have enough money and I kind of wanted a pair for my up coming hunting trip. So we worked together to determine what features we wanted then went to Amazon and researched which models met our requirements and finally read customer reviews on our candidates. The one we wanted was $60 but Sara only had $6 to spend. She had an idea, a product and a little money (skin in the game) but needed a money guy to back it…aka me. So we agreed on the terms and cost-split and the partnership was formed for the walkie-talkies.
I know it seems like a lot more trouble than just saying “no” to the walkie talkies or saying that we will just buy them, but I think it’s worth it as I was able to teach a concept of a partnership (and to some extent joint-tenancy) and how to research (and sell to investors) a product. I’m sure we’ll go over this concept many times as the girls grow – cell phones, bicycles, car, etc.
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