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For the multitude of mess ups that I’ve had in my life, one would think that I would remember that after a mess up is usually a time of great progress. This last week is no exception.
After possibly pushing too hard on Sara the other night (and getting over the idea of throwing in the towel on this project) I decided to do very small, informal lessons to get back on track. My first lesson was showing Sara an “art project” that I did (until the wee hours of the morning) – it’s the picture on this blog post, not sure the name but I call it a 10 square. We counted the pinks and greens and that was it.
I made the thing because I found it on some Montessori math sites and it looked pretty cool. Afterward I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure what to teach with it. After fiddling a little while I decided that she needs to recite every column – 0+10 =10, 1+9=10, 2+8=10, etc. I suppose a few nights of that will help with memorization of those combinations.
Next lesson I learned a cool technique from my business partner on math memorization. Take 3 or 4 flash cards and put them in a “daily” folder. Do these flash cards every day, multiple times. After a week, put them in the “weekly” folder and put new flash cards in the daily folder. Once a week review the old flash cards – then after a month of that, put the original set in the “monthly” folder.
What an amazing technique so far. I started with a couple basic and a couple problems that she was having to figure every time she saw them..3+4 and 6+4. After 3 days (2-3 times a day), she just remembers them – bam….memorization 101.
So Sara is back on track but she hasn’t earned her build-a-bear back yet. She needs to do some extra help with math for that to happen. That’s were my biggest joy to date has been.
The extra work is helping Sophia (3 years old), with her math. We are learning numbers, shapes, colors and basic addition. I had Sara help me with a lesson on Friday, I showed her what we were going to teach and let her go. I coached her along the way making sure she gave lots of positive reinforcement and wasn’t too much of a perfectionist on some of the lessons.
Sara was so proud of herself and excited about being the teacher. Tonight after her lesson she asked what Sophia’s lesson was going to be tonight so she could prepare for it.
I know that I quoted this scripture in the last entry but, as with many scriptures, it’s meaning changes with perspective, today we rejoice in hope;
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation and be constant in prayer (Romans 12:12)
This blog series is one daddy’s efforts to teach his 7 year old 1st and 2nd grade math; the victories and defeats, trials and tribulations, success and failures. It’s not easy to share the fails but we have to keep it real.
I’d been traveling for business for a couple days and came home late last night. At 2 am Melissa woke me up to say that she had to take Sara to the emergency room because of an asthma issue. They got home around 4.
Tonight after work I figured we better get back on track with math so we were going to do a few minute lesson. Well, Sara wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Sara is particularly sensitive and emotional and when she doesn’t want anything to do with something, hell or high water won’t make her do it.
So what do I do? I could let her slide and start again or remind her of our contract and she isn’t to fuss about lessons. This is something I struggle with constantly – when do you reach the point of no return on enforcement? If I ask Sara to do something and she pushes back, at what point is it ok to say it’s not worth battling (not past the point of no return) and to engage and make sure that she respects what I ask her to do?
Well today I thought that asking Sara a couple times to do a math lesson was past the point of no return, so I engaged. I didn’t get angry or physical with her, I reminded her of our contract and that she agreed to do lessons every day without a fuss. I gave her multiple times to compose herself then she got the count down from 3…2….1. Ok, you broke the contract and now you don’t get your build-a-bear.
You can imagine the drama that followed.
Trying to teach is a humbling experience. You want them to learn new things but not nuke them with too much, enforce rules but don’t cause harm. You want them to love learning – but how/where does discipline fit in?
Did I cause harm? I’m not sure. Am I trying to teach too much with contracts (and breach thereof) and other big lessons for little people? Again, I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that we are both learning during this summer experiment and hopefully we will both be wiser when it’s over.
So now we tenkan (pivot and turn) and go in a new direction.
I’ve spent the evening researching teaching methods, praying and making new, more artsy math toys for tomorrow. For tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation and be constant in prayer (Romans 12:12)
In my last post I talked about beginning to plant seeds of big concepts in little minds. Hopefully the concepts will help mold the little one’s perspective as they grow. With contracts the concept is that when you agree on something with someone and put it in writing (or verbal) that you need to live up to your end of the deal (Proverbs 15:4).
The next major concept I’m working on is being the lender and not the borrower (Proverbs 22:7 “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”). Sara gets a weekly allowance of $3. To help her understand allocation of assets we gave her 3 envelopes; one for charity, one for savings, one for spending. Each week $1 goes into each envelope.
Over time and through birthdays and Christmas she has accumulated quite a bit of money in her spending envelope. As any kid would do she’s thinking about what she wants to buy with all of that cash.
Meanwhile, I set up an investment account for the girls that we put a little bit of money in for them and buy various stocks and mutual funds. I’ve particularly focused on the ones that pay dividends monthly so the girls can see activity in their accounts every month.
So as Sara is day dreaming about how to spend her money, we also talk about what happens when we let people borrow our money. If we let someone borrow $10 for a little while they have to pay back $10 plus a little extra, so we may get back $10 and $.10 – then we have more to spend or to lend to someone else. Then I show her the investment account where we “loaned” money to companies and they pay us a few dollars every month.
I don’t believe that we drill these big concepts in too hard but every once in a while when the opportunity presents itself, we go over the concepts. Hopefully, when Sara gets older and earns a fist full of dollars, she will consider that there is more that she can do with the cash than simply spend it or stash it under her mattress. If she understands Proverbs 22:7, she will have more freedom in her life than most of her friends.
Life is a continual learning experience. As I try to see life and learning from my children’s eyes I see that they are bombarded with a tremendous amount of new information, most they have no context for so it just bounces off. I suppose this carries on to adulthood as well – if we weren’t selective on what we engage in we would go insane from information overload.
There are concepts that I want to teach which are way beyond where Sara is in her learning capacity. But I also believe that with the right exposure to these concepts, her future point of view will grow around the lessons.
Today was the first day that Sara really didn’t want to do her math lessons. The last thing I want to do is make math something she dreads even more than she does now. So we can either make it really fun or we can bribe her. Ok, so I’m going to try a little of both. On the bribe side I took a technique from the movie Coach Carter, where Samuel L. Jackson (aka Coach Carter) had the team sign a contract – they do well in school, they can play basketball, if they don’t they won’t play basketball. I figure those kids had about the same education level as Sara, so I taught her the basic components of a contract: two people agree on something and want to put it in writing – it says what both people are going to do. In this case, Sara is going to do math lessons twice per day without fussing and help Sophia with her lessons, in exchange at the end of the summer I will buy her a build-a-bear… fully accessorized. Contract signed by both parties.
We also talked about the concepts in Psalms 15:4 – “Who swears to his own hurt, but does not change.” When you give your word that you are going to do something, you need to do it, even if it hurts.
My hope for teaching contracts to Sara at this young age is that when she says she will do something, that not doing it isn’t an option. Somethings kids will learn in school, others like strength of character and honor are best taught by their parents.
I own a business and work at it M-F from 8-6 (or so) so I don’t have the luxury of being able to spend all day making math toys and teaching my topics. So to make this work, it has to be efficient. My theory is that working on math for a few minutes a couple times a day, every day is more effective than a long, drawn-out session every once in a while.
My schedule right now is to do a lesson for 10-12 minutes before I leave for work and 10-12 minutes after dinner. In that span of time I seem to be able to review the past lesson and hit two topics pretty easily. Every lesson has addition/subtraction plus one other topic. There’s definitely a trend to the equations that Sara struggles with, so we’ll be sure to hit those every lesson until she has them cold.
This weekend, I spent most of my Saturday planning, buying and building math tools. I was able to get materials for seven projects and get a good start on some of them. As tempting as it is for me to show Sara all of my cool new toys, I’m really trying to only show her as we use them to keep the lessons fresh and new.
Sara’s first grade teacher gave her a 1st and 2nd grade math workbook to work on this summer. So while I’m working on the tools, we are using the workbook. Knowing we only have two and a half months of summer home schooling, perfection and utopia curriculum gets thrown out the window; we are fast and furious.
As with any major project (and this is a major project) we need to know what the end result should be so we can make a plan our days to drive toward those goals. And, if we want to over-do-it we can measure our success (or failure) at the end of the summer. There are many sites that have what a first and second grader needs to know in math – I’ve compiled the list that we are going to shoot for this summer with Sara
- Addition / subtraction up to 20.
- Extra credit – 8’s seem to be the hardest numbers to add/subtract, so have 8’s memorized and recited quickly at any time of day
- Fractions (1/2, 1/3, 1/4,)
- Even/odd numbers
- Time – 1/4 hr
- Money
- Tally marks
- Measurement; distance (1″, 1/2″, 1/4″), volume (cup, 1/2 c, 1/4 c), weight (hopefully my diminishing weight this summer)
- <, >, Min/max
- Ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) up to 50th
- Cardinal numbers (1,2,3,4)
- Spell numbers to 20
- Be able to name a number up to 100 million
- Skip counting; Primary 2, 5, 10 up to 100
- Secondary; 3 up to 18, 4 up to 24, 15 up to 45 (for time prep)
Since Sara is “teaching” Sophia we also need goals for her:
- Recognize numbers up to 20
- Know basic shapes (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, pentagon,etc)
- Know basic colors
- Ordinals up to 4th
One of the things I did like about Sara’s school this year is that they had her keep a journal of all activities, math included. So as we work through our math problems, Sara will keep a journal to help solidify what we learn.
How do we get a 7 year old, self proclaimed math-hater to do summer school math? The mere mention of math sends a shriek of terror through the house.
“Hey Sara, let’s play a game.” When she sees numbers, she knows what I’m up to – no dice! Force certainly doesn’t work either – math is supposed to be fun, not pain.
One day it hit me, she loves art and she doesn’t want to feel like she’s the one who is under the gun to learn. What if Sara and I teach Sophia (now 3) how to do basic numbers and math? Sara can be the “teacher” and at the same time we can go back to kindergarten-level math and re-establish some of the fundamentals for Sara for part of the time, the rest of the time we can work on “really advanced” first/second grade math while Sophia does her work. Brilliant (if I do say so myself)!
From being a professional sales person, I’ve learned that you always ask a prospect for “help” – “would you mind helping me with this issue…?” It’s a way to motivate people because I believe that deep down, we all want to help our fellow man. So I asked Sara if she would mind helping me teach Sophia her math this summer – and we’ll do it using art projects. She got so excited about teaching and art that I could hardly contain her.
Step 1: Motivation – check!
Sara just finished first grade. As most recently graduated first graders, she was very excited to be out of school. But Sara, in her usual dramatic fashion, took it to a new level..saying she hated school and never wanted to go back. As my wife and I looked into why that was we believe that one (of the multiple) reasons that she hated school is because math was especially difficult for her.
We figured that putting a kid who hates school into summer school would probably be counter productive. My wife, the english major, feels more comfortable with reading, writing and art, so I get the job of summer math teacher. As a modern-man, I went on Google to figure out how to teach 1st and 2nd grade math. While the subject is easy for me to do, I’m learning that it’s surprisingly difficult to communicate and teach these principles and concepts. I went from very excited and gung-ho for the project to completely terrified…what if I confuse her more than help her? There are so many methods, which one do I pick? Can I see this project through?
I’ve found some amazing resources on the internet and believe that Montessori has probably the best methods for teaching an abstract concept like math with concrete tools…because what is 11, 8 or 7 anyway? Unfortunately, I’m not going to spend a zillion dollars on their beautifully designed, solid wood math games. And, being a man, I can not only make them myself but I can make them better!
So, to help solidify my teaching method and to remember to learn from my mistakes, I’m going to share my summer school math program with the world…or at least my 2 followers (hi mom!). Suggestions and constructive comments are always welcome.
…here we go, summer school 2013
When Melissa and I were first married we bought a nice little home in Boulder, CO. The home was ours, built on dreams of what our new life together would be.
When we had Sara we decided that Melissa would stay at home and raise our children. While it was financially challenging at times, we felt that the benefit to our children was well worth the sacrifice. Before Sophia was born we moved out of our marital house into a larger home. After the move, I had to work and Melissa was busy with Sara and setting up the new house.
After some time, I noticed that weekends were becoming increasingly difficult for me. I was starting to feel like an outsider in my own house. How could that be that I am feeling like this? How could I feel so separated from my family and from my house?
This issue was difficult to recognize and even more difficult to articulate to Melissa. So in common fashion I didn’t say anything until I was angry and upset about it; that’s when it all came together for me. What I realized at that moment is that during the day when I was at work they had routines, experiences, trials/tribulations and friends together and that they were creating their own family subculture. When I come home from work, I am entering a culture which I had very little influence in creating.
This has to be a common occurrence because of the huge number of TV shows where the dopy dad comes home and can’t do anything right; effectively he is anti-social in the family subculture. It’s funny on TV, not so funny when it’s in your own house.
As I tried to put this into perspective, I remembered before we had children, Melissa would help me in the office with some administrative tasks. She didn’t know where the supplies were, she didn’t know anything about finding data our network and didn’t have a good knowledge about what needed to be done. Essentially she was a visitor into my daytime work culture.
While the circumstances are quite different between my work culture and my family’s home subculture, the parallel was drawn of being a visitor into an unfamiliar culture. Without recognizing what was happening, it would have been very easy for me to withdraw and become elusive from my family; but that’s just not acceptable to me.
To this day, I’m constantly working to walk the fine line between respecting and understanding the subculture that Melissa and the girls have built and weighing in on what my beliefs and ideals are for my family. I will not be the dopy, anti-social father from TV, but I will also not be a tyrannical visitor to my family’s subculture. A balancing act between respect for others and self-respect is the righteous path.
Daddy's Daze 
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