Switching Gears

I picked up a Saxon 1 Math kit awhile back and had been following it pretty closely with Mira.  Recently though, it dawned on me that we really just weren’t having fun with it.  Math was becoming our least favorite part of our day.  Mira was still progressing fine with Saxon, but I decided to make a curriculum switch.  I wanted more “oomph” and plenty of “ah-ha!” moments.

Growing up I harbored such an intense fear of mathematics – and I do not want my children picking up a phobia of numbers.  I am determined to make math fun and inviting and not dull and confusing.

So I scoured information on the numerous math curricula out there.  I read books and poked around on forums asking questions and learning from other home schooling families’ experiences.  I read enough conflicting information to make my head split in two. Ultimately I decided to forgo our Saxon approach and try something a bit more hands on.

Our Miquon Math set arrived over a week ago and we’ve been having fun building up an appreciation for the Cuisenaire rods.  The first couple of days I pulled them out it was just a basic free play with the girls building and creating with them.  No mention of math or numbers was made.  It was interesting to note how quickly the girls began sorting them by color and length as their time with the rods increased.

Today for example we started out with one small white block and realized that ten of these make up one orange rod.   Therefore, if the small white rods are one then orange is ten.  From there we were able to assign a number to each rod in a visually concrete and tangible way.  After this brief lesson it was back to more free play.

We’re still just at the stage where we play around with the rods and we haven’t begun our work book yet.  I like how this allows us to incorporate Stella into our math/playtime.  It used to be we would only attempt our Saxon math work during Stella’s naps.

Mira had already made a pretty good dent in the Saxon 1 books and she is comfortable with basic addition and subtraction, and grasps things like whole and halves.  But I really don’t mind taking the time to back up and solidify what we have learned with Miquon’s visual approach.  Math is already making more sense to me because of it!

I’m currently reading First Grade Diary and Lipping Ma’s book on Teaching Elementary Math. I would never have guessed that I would be getting excited at the prospect of teaching math.  But, just like all the other hidden joys of home schooling, I am quickly realizing how lucky I am to be learning anew alongside my favorite people in the world.