Archive for February, 2008

Recipe for Block Cake

The MUS reps in Washington posted this on their blog and I just had to post it here as well :-)

Kelly’s granddaughter, Hailey is 4 yo and her favorite math activity is making a cake.

While she isn’t officially in Primer she is well on her way. As you will see when you read her cake recipe, she already as some math mastery just from playing and talking to granny about it.I asked her for the recipe.


First you make the cake by stacking ALL the red ones on top of each other.

There are different ways to make the frosting and this is the method used for the design in the picture:

First you put as many blues (5’s) as possible around the outer edge. There will not be enough room to finish the edge in blue so you will need to fill in with pink. Put the remaining blues on the inside top.

On the inside edge add 2 of the 2’s followed by 8 greens

At this point fill in with the rest of the pink because it is important to use as many pink as possible before running out of room because a princess always uses pink.

There was a spot just right for a yellow. When asked what size would fit in there Hailey immediately said “Four”

!!! Who hoo good job Hailey you have mastery! When you get to the lesson on solving for the unknown it will be a piece of cake for you!

Add 3 more 2’s and finish it off with 1 green.

Serves as 1 math lesson and a whole lot of fun.

 

Read the full post, leave a comment for Hailey and check out their blog by clicking here.

Around the world - really

A few days ago I posted about Steve’s trip to Singapore and the Philippines. The title was “Around the world - sort of“ but it turns out he really did fly all the way around the world. 

 

Here are a few pictures from the trip.

 

Math blocks transcend cultures

   

Families crowd the curriculum booths a the home education conference in Singapore a few days ago.


Steve talking to the group

 

Our Math-U-See reps in Singapore, Noel and Jenny Tan

 

MamaBliss has a nice report and some pictures up of the conference over at her blog MamaBliss.blogspot.com

 

If you want to see Steve’s full travel report, check his blog out at TheFamilyThatStaysTogether.com/Blog   

 

 

Thank You Mr. Demme

“Thank you Mr. Demme”   :-)

   

 

p.s. Steve arrived safely back from Singapore/Philippines last night so look for a trip report and pictures next week :-) 

Around the World, sort of

Steve is currently traveling and will be speaking at three homeschool conferences overseas.

Two in the Philipines and one in Singapore. The blog Homeschooling EZ has more info regarding the Singapore conference.

 AN ANNOUNCEMENT ON BEHALF OF SINGAPORE HOMESCHOOLING GROUP

 

If you want to know what Homeschooling is or if you wish to improve the way you teach your child or your typical homeschool day, come and join the “Singapore Homeschooling Fair 2008″

 

Date :17th Feb 2008 (Sunday AFTER Chinese New Year weekend)Time: 2-6pmVenue: Young Musicians’

Society Auditorium (YMS Auditorium) at 54 Waterloo StreetAdmission Fee: $15/adult (free admission for children)

 

 Click here to read the full post. 

 I’ll be posting up a trip report and pictures when he gets back. Until then here is one from last year.

 

 To see Steve’s 2008 speaking schedule click here.

Blogosphere Roundup

It must be the time of year when everyone, in order to escape the winter doldrums, blogs about their favorite homeschool curriculum :-)

So I’m starting a new feature called the “Blogosphere Roundup” in which I post mentions of Math-U-See that I’ve read on other blogs. 

 

Lady Why of  Where the Kudzu Grows blogs, 

I tend to get bored very quickly with the repetitive twenty-five problems a day (especially when only three or four of those are covering a new concept… the rest continual review… ugh!) There are a few things I have learned that make math more meaningful and really make the concepts ’stick’. My favorite math program is Math-U-See! It is far and away the front runner in its methods of teaching math concepts. Math-U-Seeis very ‘Charlotte Mason friendly’ in the sense that the learning is meaningful and real. It uses manipulatives for every concept at every level. I never fully understood algebraic equations until I saw them built with manipulatives! It is amazing! In traditional math books you learn the steps to get to the right answer but you never learn why it is the right answer. Math-U-See teaches you why the answer is what it is. We love it!

 Read the full post here.

 

Ruby at Freehold2 wrote an excellent review of the Math-U-See program

This is an extraordinarily popular program among homeschoolers. It uses videos to teach, and so it is a boon to parents who feel unsure of their own abilities to teach math. The web site is really well laid out and informative. At a glance (or a few quick clicks) you can figure out placement, manipulatives required, scope and sequence, etc. for any given level. 

[...] 

Math-U-See is well thought out & provides a level of support that you won’t find in other programs. Unlike some others, it will carry you from pre-school right up to college level. It is creative, but its emphasis is definitely on teaching mastery. It is suitable for all types of learners due to its multi-sensory approach, and offers opportunities for both enrichment and remediation or review. It definitely deserves a look!

Read full post here.

Jenny at Home is where you start from wrote,

 We are currently using Math U See, and we are pleased with it…and yet I was a little worried the girls would forget facts learned in previous years.

 Read full post here 

 [note] if you want more drill and/or worksheets we have them for available for FREE! Both a worksheet generator and a drill page.

 

Dovey at Dovey’s Deliberations has a great post about using Math-U-See with her son.

 Math-U-See uses manipulatives to teach the concepts. The manipulatives are colored rods for each number 1-10 and they have blocks for the hundreds. The rods can also be used as building blocks (Legos idea) and my children have enjoyed that aspect as well! As with any curriculum, you can modify exactly how you use it. I found that the manipulatives greatly added to understanding what was being taught. In fact, today, as I was making out some subtraction flashcards, I asked him what 9-1 was. He hesitated and then said 8. Then he said, “I remembered how I built it, Mommy.”

Read full post here

 

Homegrown at Homegrown Homeschool writes that Math-U-See gets here stamp of approval…. AGAIN :-)

 Once again I am super pleased with Math U See! I have been struggling trying to figure out which book Alex should use next. I started him lower than his grade level when we first started using Math U See, because I wanted him to get a strong foundation. He flew through the first book Alpha and is now ready to move on. When I looked at the scope of Beta online he already knew 99% of it. He had already learned these concepts before we started Math U See, but after seeing how MUS works in Alpha, everything else that he had learned finally “clicked”.   

 Read full post here

As Cozy as Spring Wrote

We have many counting games and he practices counting. I recently began working with him using the Math-U-See blocks as he might as well get used to them early on. 

Read full post here. 


That’s it for the roundup, have a great weekend :-)

Math-U-See show and tell

Another great Math-U-See testimony complete with pictures!

 

************************************************  

Jessica, student number 4 in our household, is enjoying MUS. We just

started last week with Decimal street. This is the first time I have the

chart for this. In the past, we’ve just drawn our own, but never a whole

castle! This sure is fun and Jessica loves it.

We took some photos to explain the method to her Grandma and Grandpa.

Wendy 

Just showing the blocks. Units, tens, and hundreds.

 

Showing how the blocks interlock and stack.

 

A unit comes to visit the units house. 

 

 

Lining up the units to move over to the tens house.

 

 Ten units are now lined up.

 

The ten moves to the tens house.

 

Five tens come to visit the tens house.

Lining up the tens to move over to the hundreds castle

 

“Built” the number 544.  

 

 

Thanks Wendy and if anyone else would like to “show and tell” email me ethan@mathusee.com 

Blog Review

Christy over at “Training Hearts At Home“ just posted up a review of Math-U-See 

Here are a few highlights,  

There are no cute, colorful illustrations with MUS like some other curriculums, but for us that isn’t even an issue. Sure that might be more ‘pretty’ to look at, but in my opinion there’s nothing to distract my children’s attention away from the task at hand. And for the quality of learning they’re getting, who CARES whether their paper has cute little bunnies on it or not?

*mental note, never add bunnies to Math-U-See no matter how cute they are :-)

Overall our experience has been wonderful with Math-U-See. Never have we gone looking for something different and hopefully we will never have a need to. This is our 6th year with MUS and all of our children have a strong foundation in math that continues to build each and every year we use Math-U-See

Click here  to read the full postÂ