This article isn’t directly related to math, but it is an example of “the thing, is the thing.”
http://www.charlottemasoninstitute.org/beyond-dust-particles-an-experiment-in-sunday-school-by-amy-fiedler/
While it’s concerned with Sunday School methods, I wanted to note that the author realized that all the bells and whistles assumed necessary for Sunday School were actually standing in the way of The Word. I think of Jesus saying, “Let the children come to me.”
For math, I see it this way. In the early years, don’t fret over workbooks and texts. (I’ve only had one want a textbook early on…our youngest….most likely because she’s always seen her older siblings using books for math.) I’m not knocking Ray’s, or Right Start, Rod and Staff, or MUS, Singapore, or any other resource. I’m just mentioning that if these aren’t available, disaster is not right around the corner. Every day life offers so many ways to find concrete examples of math.
When our children were tiny, I bathed them in the tub with me. I sang songs to them. “Jesus Loves Me,” nursery rhymes, and we counted. Counting fingers, toes, hands, feet (“one foot, two feet,”) shampoo bottles, tub tiles, toys… As they grew bigger, we counted more things. None of this was tied to written numbers. Outside, swinging time was a very deliberate routine for me once they were big enough to be pushed in a “big kid” swing. I pushed them 100 times every time we went to the swing. Guess what? This “rule” was how I helped them learn to count to 100.
At the same time, we also used living math books and board books that were related to math topics. I remember one math board book being read over and over and over. It only covered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Pointing and counting. Counting and pointing. That connected those numbers with amounts previously understood concretely in the tub. A bit later, bigger numbers, understood on the swing, were discussed with written numbers.
I have my kids cook and bake with me from very young. They count eggs, use timers, measure ingredients, and more. They have almost learned these forms of math completely prior to tackling them with the abstract texts/workbooks. The light is usually already on by the time they study these concepts with formal textbooks.
How does this look on a schedule? Short lessons. Math each day. Choose a topic, decide on a real life activity that can introduce the concept, and practice it off and on for a few weeks, or longer. Then, demonstrate it through the text/workbook. We’ve usually waited until about 3rd-4th grade age before using formal texts. Our youngest began using Rod and Staff at 5…the first grade workbooks were used over a two and a half year period. She’s 7 and will move directly into their 3rd grade text next month. (2nd grade R&S is basically a year of facts practice, but she’s had that as part of her life for quite a while through sing song habit and xtramath.org.)
I’m hoping that this moves from philosophy to practical application. I did not mean to sound confusing. I’ve been so excited about the change our 13yos has seen just through moving it from the practical (which he’d begun to view as mundane) to the spiritual. He’s at an age to make that leap. I am at a place to be able to “see” how I could have approached is much differently for him and for our older children much earlier on. So, I’m hoping to do that with our youngest.
This conversation is helping me to understand so much more. Thank you for starting this thread!
Oh, I can be Becca, or TailorMade. It makes no difference to me. At times, I forget to sign my name, or need to send and get busy with other things. I don’t always remember names if they aren’t part of posts. So, if I direct a reply to a particular person within a conversation, I use their avatar name if I don’t see their name name in the post. ;0)
