Homeschool Math Blog

I received this story in an email and thought it was very encouraging and heart-warming! True story. I asked Scott for his permission to post it online. In the beginning he is referencing this article of mine (I sent it to my list last year): http://www.mathmammoth.com/lessons/value_of_mistakes.php Enjoy... and SHARE . :) Hello Maria, I am just NOW ... today reading this email from about one year ago. I know terrible, but late than never, right. Anyway, I wanted to write you and tell you that like Cameron, I had more than half of my brain removed in 1978. I had brain surgery for an AVM, arterial venus malformation. I had three surgeries total and nearly died. The doctors told my parents that if I lived I would be a vegetable. However, I defied them. I made it to the cover of the Children's Hospital of Sand Diego's December/January 1978/1979​ magazine. They called me the "Miracle Boy". Anyhow, I just thought I'd share. I ha...

This is one of the entries to the Great Math Moment(s) contest I ran in January 2014 -- a story of a girl who used to hate math but that all changed! I am homeschooling my kids.  The kid I'm writing about is my oldest--a unique, amazing, beautiful, extremely bright 8-year-old.  She has light red hair and a giant smile that shows all of her teeth and gums.  She's outstanding. I know that everyone says that about their child, but really, she's outstanding. She is the best big sister I could have ever have hoped for, she's loyal, she's funny... and she's smart.  She caught onto reading very, very  early, and is well advanced at that subject for her age. But she hated math. Oh, how she hated math.  Her smile and loyalty would vanish at the mere sight of her math book. She'd snap at her precious little brother and the tears would freely flow.  Our days would turn from joyous to sad on a dime.   And since we are a no-tears-in-school-when-they're-li...

Here is the story of one of the Math Moments contest winners. I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I did -- an inspiring story of GROWTH in the face of difficulties! It is amazing how much IS possible! There is nothing more rewarding as a parent to see your child accomplish something that they have been working really hard on. For my husband and I that was doubly rewarding as we really felt our daughter would never really be able to do much in terms of math or reading. We knew that she was on the autistic spectrum from a very young age. For YEARS we would try to teach her to count. For most kids counting to 5 is easy, and something they can at least do by 4 if not younger, and abc's as well. But our precious dd just could not. I would cry at night wondering how she was going to make it in the world without even being able to count to 5 or spell her name or well... anything. My husband told me that as we were home educating it was really ok for me just to let it go. Stop wor...

I came across an interesting blog post by Murray Borne titled H1N1 and the Logistic Equation . It explains how a logistic function can be used to model the spread of a virus or a disease in a given population. Now, maybe you don't know what is logistic function or equation. It is shown in the blogpost; it uses the exponential function as a part of it. Basically, it is like an exponential growth function but it is limited after a certain point so that the growth tapers off, and approaches a certain (upper) limit. Murray shows the graph, and then shows a real-life example about the spread of swine flu in Mexico last spring . It's a great, yet fairly simple, example of how mathematics is used for modeling real-life situations. You could definitely use it as such an example with your students, even if you don't understand a THING about logistic equations. You see, seeing how math is used is definitely inspiring and motivating to a lot of students - especially when it ties...

I have recently had the pleasure to add Make It Real Learning workbooks to my site. These books contain real-life math activities with real-life data, companies, and situations. They are written by Frank Wilson. Arithmetic I Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I Linear Functions I Calculus I Periodic and Piecewise Functions I Some examples of the topics included in these activities are: cell phone plans, autism, population growth, cooking, borrowing money, credit cards, life spans, population growth, and music downloads. But there are many more, more than I can list here. As students work through the problems, they can use the math skills and concepts they have learned in their math curriculum (such as the concept of average or graphing), and apply those to a situation from real life. Each activity-lesson in the book contains several questions about the situation, starting with basics and going into more in-depth evaluations, and should be adequate for one-two complete class periods. W...

We all know that youngsters often have this question in mind when they go on in their math studies: where or when will I ever need all this? It's pretty easy and simple to find applications and real-life examples for the usage of the simple, elementary math, such as multiplication tables or decimals and percents. But when we go on to algebra and beyond, this question may be harder to answer. Here are a few answers you can give as to why study algebra: You need it in any occupational field that requires higher education , such as computer science, electronics, engineering, medicine (doctors), trade and commerce analysts, ALL scientists, etc. In short, if someone is even considering higher education, they should study algebra. You need algebra to take your SAT test or GED. Algebra also lets you develop logical thinking and problem solving skills . It can increase your intelligence! Actually, studying any math topic can do that (even elementary math), if the mathematics is pres...

I delved into this fascinating website just this past week, and I heartily recommend you visit it, too! Most math teachers have faced the age-old question, "When will I ever need this?", especially when kids get into algebra and more. Well, FuturesChannel.com has the answer - in the form of short movies, lesson guides, and worksheets. The topics are just fascinating, from skyscrapers, roller coasters, endangered animals, to inventing, the subway, bakery, bicycle design, etc. For each movie, there is a worksheet or several for the student that concentrates on some math topic that is needed in the field shown in the movie. Some samplings: 100,000 computers a day A rare and fascinating look inside the world's largest computer manufacturer, Dell Inc., where thousands of computers are custom-built and shipped around the world every day. From the call center to the inventory system to the assembly line and beyond, one thing is certain: The whole operation relies on a variety ...

Here's a handy math tool for those who know Latex (university folks and such). You type in a n mathematica expression using Latex language, and it makes an image. It even gives you a readily copyable code you can paste to a webpage. Texify.com . Here's an example of one such image; it's hotlinked from their server.

I found Integer Jim's website two days ago, and I had to browse thru his whole website because it was quite interesting. Here we have a math teacher who is very enthusiastic and excited about what he is teaching (you can sense that by reading his website). Now, that is, I feel, one ingredient in what makes a good teacher: being enthused about your subject matter. I realize not every homeschooler feels that way about math; but don't despair if you feel teaching math is a drudgery. All that CAN change... Head for the Living Math website for starters. But back to Integer Jim. Besides being a math teacher, he's also an artist and has made some interesting projects with his students that tie art and math together. I wanted to highlight one: The Math Journal project . Jim says, The Math Journal is a comprehensive and in depth project. It requires a lot of time and effort on the part of the students. For that reason, I use it as the centerpiece of my curriculum; the textbook t...

I want to blog again on Julie's great Living Math website. You can really get help there if you're one of those who don't care for math, or even hate math, but want to get rid of that feeling. She has suggestions on how to start teaching "living math" - teaching math in a way that makes connections to real life, takes away the dryness of it, takes away the 'kill' from "drill and kill" (note that drill in itself doesn't have to be always bad - drill is a tool amongst many), etc. On this page , Julie has book suggestions to many different situations... Consider finding one or a few (from library or bookstore). Reading a math book that's not a school book can do SO much good! For your kids too! As you probably know, I wish everyone would get to know some of the interesting, fascinating, fun, curious aspects of mathematics. Or, get to know a bit of math history. You don't get those in school books. Or, finally learn why things work. Thes...

I felt very inspired by the story I posted last time, about the 12 kids who wanted to have a class to study arithmetic, and then finished 6 years worth of school math in 20 weeks - meaning they had 20 contact hours with the teacher, and who knows how many hours spent on homework. They studied the four basic operations, fractions, decimals, percent, and square root. I figure they didn't go into algebra - just arithmetic. Like it said in the article, the material itself is not incredibly difficult, once your mind has developed to handle these concepts. The story shows how much motivation (and subsequent hard work) can do. So how could we increase our students' motivation to study math? I feel it is important to PREVENT the student's feeling of, "I hate math" or "I don't like math" that the traditional math instruction seems to produce. Little kids usually like learning about different things. Somehow we must keep that enthusiasm going strong. For exa...

Just found this... decided that it's good reading for all. When you have lots of motivation, like these kids did, you can learn and will learn - math or anything else. It may not be easy at all times, but the motivation will make you persistent so you will eventually learn. A certain arithmetic class at Sudbury Valley School QUOTE "Because everyone knows," he answered, "that the subject matter itself isn't that hard. What's hard, virtually impossible, is beating it into the heads of youngsters who hate every step. The only way we have a ghost of a chance is to hammer away at the stuff bit by bit every day for years. Even then it does not work. Most of the sixth graders are mathematical illiterates. Give me a kid who wants to learn the stuff -- well, twenty hours or so makes sense."

Have you ever felt like your child needed something different for math than whatever you were currently doing? Like your math program didn't work anymore: your child didn't learn, or was bored? What to do? Here a little while back I received a question along those lines. We exchanged a few emails and I got permission to post her situation here on this blog. I think it is a good example of what many times happens in home school. "We have 4 children; boy-12, girl-8, girl-5 and boy-3. With oldest we have used the gamut of curricula for math and eventually settled out with Abeka for the past 3 years. However, the material seemed to not sufficiently explain new material, but run old material in the ground until the grinding sensation was numbing. That in itself seems to be contradictory, but my son was really not getting much better at the basics, mainly I think because he was bored with the repetition. I narrowed his assignments down to every other one and if I found he misse...