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Showing posts from July, 2008

Last call for HOTM conference

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You still have time to sign up for Heart of The Matter virtual homeschool conference. It starts next week. The price for this is $29.95. I will be speaking on Sunday the 3rd, on the topic of "Teaching Math in Homeschool". That is a really general title, and so I will be looking at some broad ideals and goals of teaching math in a homeschool setting, such as: What goals should you have when teaching mathematics in a homeschool setting? What about choosing the right homeschool math curriculum? What is important, what is not? After each talk, there's time for questions and answers session. It all happens online using a online conference software. Go here to register for the conference, see the list of speakers, etc. Please mention that I referred you.

A new book for the Blue Series: Math Mammoth Add & Subtract 4

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I have a new book to add to the Blue Series collection of worktexts: Math Mammoth Add & Subtract 4 Math Mammoth Add & Subtract 4 covers the following addition and subtraction related topics which are approximately for the third and fourth grade level: * mental addition and subtraction strategies; * adding and subtracting in columns; * Roman numerals; * the connection between addition and subtraction, missing addend problems, and solving word problems with bar diagrams; * order of operations; * bar graphs, line graphs, and money problems. Price: $5.00 Buy now Samples pages include: Contents and Introduction Addition Review Adding Terminology and Practice More Subtraction Review Subtract in Columns Word Problems and Bar Diagrams Rounding Line Graphs

A Mathematical Trip

Are you perhaps doing any car trips this summer? Do you realize what a great opportunity it is to teach some real-life math to your children? They need to learn how to calculate the cost of a trip, based on the miles driven, the gas mileage of the car, and the price of gasoline. So today I want to highlight something sent to me by a fellow homeschooling mom, visitor to my site. She uses math a lot within real-life situations, and recently made a geography-math worksheet for her daughter about calculating the length and cost of a trip their grandparents were doing. She allowed me to share that worksheet WITH YOU... so here it is (MS Word 7) and here (Word 6). Right-click to save. See also a travel distance calculator to help you figure out distances. I quote: " It's funny, but even with all the resources we currently have on hand, I find that we spend more time on real-life math (such as calculating tip when we eat out). In fact, I just created a "worksheet" (not

A new carnival

Go stop by Carnival of Cool Homeschoolers at Homeschooled twins blog. For example there's a discussion on when can kids use knives. There's a review of family board games and an article on why children need to memorize math facts, art stuff and more!

Rounding worksheets at HomeschoolMath.net

Ta-da-dah! I have finished making a rounding worksheet generator , for whole numbers and decimals. Well, if you're not quite needing it in the midst of the summer heat, perhaps later. Remember to check the page with the list of free worksheet makers when you need some. That's where I list them all, from basic operations to fractions, decimals, factoring, and square roots.

Isn't multiplication repeated addition?

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I just found out an interesting column by Keith Devlin ... he tells elementary teachers to stop telling the students that multiplication is repeated addition. Why? His point is, this idea does not carry through. As soon as the student encounters multiplication of fractions (or of decimals), it won't work. You can't think of 3/4 x 6/11 as repeated addition. He feels it's better to portray multiplication as a scaling process: say 5 x 9 means 9 is scaled by a factor of 5. Then, students can have a true "aha" moment as they discover for themselves that you CAN use addition to find the answer to 5 x 9. But, Devlin says, they should be taught and shown the multiplication idea as a scaling process. Now, I feel that Devlin has a point here... so since I'm constantly in the process of writing math materials for my Math Mammoth series of books, and right now I'm writing lessons on multiplying decimals for 5th grade, I took this idea just yesterday and tried to go wi