Math - More Than Numbers

I am still pretty new to this homeschooling thing.  My oldest is in Kindergarten this year, so we technically have homeschooled for 3 years now, 2 years of preschool and most of this school year.  But I have so much to learn. 

I have said it many times before and I will say it again.  Mother Goose Time has been a huge help to me.  It has given me a great place to start and they have some awesome resources that can help you better understand what it is your child should be learning.  One of these tools is the Developmental Continuum of Skills chart.  This can be purchased through Mother Goose Time and I have mine hung on the wall right next to my computer for quick reference.

Math, which is this months topic for the Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassadors, is one topic I have enjoyed exploring more.  Prior to becoming my sons "official" teacher I thought math was pretty straight forward.  You taught them numbers and math equations.  But my eyes have been opened and now I can see math is all around us.  There are 6 skills that all under the Mathematics and Reasoning category on the Developmental Continuum of Skills chart.  They are numbered 15 through 20 and you can see them in the photo below.

Number Concepts, Shapes, Spatial Awareness, Patterns and Sorting, Measurement & Logic

As we worked through Day 17, which is all about Gravity, I paid special attention to the skills each lesson addressed and I am going to point out a few here.

The first lesson we did called Walking in Space does not technically cover one of the Mathematics and Reasoning skills.  But instead of me putting the cubes together, the boys really wanted to do it themselves.  So I let them.  I thought it was great to watch them work through it and try to figure out how to make that odd shape into a cube.  Definitely lead to a lesson on Shapes and Spacial Awareness. 

The next lesson was the Floating Astronaut Puzzle.  We didn't do it exactly like it instructed.  We were still at the table so I just gave Peter the puzzle pieces and had him put it together.

You can see, right under the title of the lesson, the skills listed.  Shapes 16.2 is a skill that falls into the Mathematics and Reasoning category.  16 being Shapes and the .2 being the subcategory Manipulates parts and wholes.  Out at benchmark D Peter should be able to - Use a guide to put together six to twelve pieces to make a whole object. 

Once we got down from the table we played the game that went along with the cubes we were making earlier.  They rolled their cube and pretended like they were walking on what ever planet it landed on. 

Lachlan's landed on the moon so this is his slow motion moon walk he is acting out. 

Upside-Down Work is the last lesson of the day.  First it asks, how could you run if you were floating in space?  Lachlan promptly got up to show me. 

Here you can see that Spatial Awareness 17.1 is listed as a skill they will touch on in this lesson. 

Spacial Awareness 17.1 says - Flips and rotates objects.  Peter, out at benchmark D should be able to match two similar objects that are turned or positioned in different ways. 

First I took the 3 phonics cards of the letters we learned this month and positioned them in different ways.  Then I had them try to write them in their journals as they see them on the wall.  They were to pretend to be astronauts floating in space when they came across these strange symbols. 

Lachlan did this lesson and wrote his R's upside down, his Ss sideways and his Zs crooked. 

When I first started using Mother Goose Time I rarely glanced at the skills and numbers listed with each lesson.  Slowly I began to dig deeper into the science and research behind every lesson and with that knowledge I have gained a much better understanding of all the key skills they are learning with this curriculum.  I have been able to use this understanding of the skills, specifically Mathematics and Reasoning, by turning everyday moments in our life into teachable moments.  Like when eating spaghetti and they proudly pull out a super long noodle.  We can talk about how long they think it might be (measurement) and compare the length to brothers noodle, is it longer or shorter than his noodle?

After all, math is all around us and comes in many forms.  It's so much more than memorizing numbers.

Using MGT Tools Daily

There are so many amazing tools that come with Mother Goose Time and I wasn't taking full advantage.  I would get them out when we opened that day bag, use them according to the instructions in the Teacher Guide for that day and then put them to the side and kind of forget about them.  I think it's easy to do because you get an awesome new tool everyday with Mother Goose Time.

But as I am developing as a home school Mom I am slowly figuring things out.  I have grown a lot by simply reading the posts from the other Blog Ambassadors.  A few of them would talk about their daily routine with some of the MGT tools and it finally clicked.

So here is our day today as we learned about Pluto.  I will also show you how I work in a routine of using the Mother Goose Time Letter Flowers, the More Math and More Literacy Workbooks, the My Little Journal and the I Can Read books.  

We start at the breakfast table.  I start the discussion on the topic of the day and ask the first discussion question.  Today is also St. Patrick's Day so I actually asked them about that topic.  What do you know about St. Patrick's Day?  My kids didn't know much and either did I.  So I looked it up.  We talked about rainbows, leprechauns and St. Patrick himself. 

Next I moved on to the Pluto topic and we got out the first table based project.  Meaning, something we could do while we were sitting down.  This was the Astronaut Portrait.  I showed the boys the picture and asked them what they thought it was.  They both knew it was an astronaut.  Then I removed the center part and stuck my face in the opening.  Look, I'm and astronaut.  They thought that was great and joined in too.

Next I put a piece of white paper behind this astronaut paper frame and they drew a self portrait.  When they were done I put them up in our art frames on the wall.

After this we all took a break.  They really wanted to play and so did Adam.  I had some work to get done.  So it was perfect. 

Adam fell asleep for his morning nap around 10:30 am and I took advantage of that time to call them back to the table for school.  They aren't allowed any screen time until they finish "school", so that is a big motivation.

First we broke the ice by playing the Logic Game that came in today's day bag.  No pictures sorry about that. And then we wrote our letters to Pluto.

Now done with the majority of the Pluto lessons we got started on the rest of our routine.  This is where my handy dandy checklist comes in.  I got this from Heather at Only Passionate Curiosity and it has been a huge help for us.  But Mother Goose Time does give you a planning journal each month that you could do this same thing with.

At first I made this for Lachlan (kindergarten) and now I realize, because I made it so general, it works just fine for Peter (preschool) too.  So that's why I marked some with an L and P for Lachlan and Peter.

Across the top I labeled it MGT.  This I mark off when we complete the four main lessons and circle time for that day.  I am not belittling MGT by giving it just one box.  I am just that confident in MGT that when I mark off that box I know my children have explored many of the 33 skills they teach through out their curriculum.  Including skills in Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Social Studies, Science and Creative Development.  

The additional items I list below MGT fall into the Mathematics and Reasoning and Language and Literacy categories.  Skills with in those categories are addressed daily with MGT in new, fun and creative ways.  This is how Lachlan and Peter have so easily, with out even knowing it, learned their ABCs and 123s.  But now I would like to continue to push their knowledge.  Lachlan is in kindergarten and needs to advance and Peter is just advanced for his age.  He has done MGT along with Lachlan and I for almost two years now, so I attribute his advanced skills to that.  I was happy to discover that I can easily use the MGT tools in order to continue to challenge my boys.  This is part of the design of Mother Goose Time.  It is a program made to adapt to a wide range of skills.  For my boys, the best way is to practice these skills daily in a similar way.

The top item listed separately from MGT on my checklist is "letter flowers".  I hold the Letter Flowers from MGT up, one at a time and have Lachlan tell me the names of the letters.  It's just a quick flashcard review that is really great for Lachlan.  I do the same thing for Peter.

I am also really working on Lachlan's ability to count to 100, so I have the 100 chart listed.  He loves numbers and was really trying to grasp the difference between small and big numbers.  MGT, since it is primarily intended for preschool, maxes out at 20. 

Today, I called out a number and had Lachlan find it.  Here he found 33, although his finger is a little off the mark in the photo. 

The other three topics I have listed are super general (Math, Spelling, Writing) and sometimes I cross them off as we are working through our MGT lessons. For me it's just a little mental checklist to make sure these skills are used on a routine basis in a similar fashion.  For Lachlan (kindergarten) I add in written math equations, use the Hands-On letters to build words (spell) and spend some time in his My Little Journal practicing his writing skills. 

So here is the chart again.  On the right hand side it has the labels Read and Work.  I have written Bob and Phonics under the read section because I was having Lachlan read a page from the Hooked on Phonics workbook and a Bob book.  But now I am having him read the I Can Read book from Mother Goose Time and then one of the other books he was reading before (A Bob book or Phonics book).

In the I Can Read book we first review the site words on the back of the book and then he reads the book itself. 

I am also having Peter read the I Can Read book with me.  He has just recently picked up on reading and site words and shocks me with how fast he knows each word.   For the second reading task in Peter's day I sit down and read a book to him which is also key to learning how to read. 

Under the work section I added MGT Workbook.  I have the two columns labeled, Math and Literacy.  This is when we go to the More Math & More Literacy workbooks from Mother Goose Time.  There is one page for everyday in each book and I mark it off when they get it done.

 Here is the workbook page for day 10 in the More Math book.

 This is the day 10 page in the More Literacy workbook. 

Peter is a little harder to pin down on some days to get school done and he is only in Preschool, so I try not to push him too hard.  Here he is doing a workbook page from a day 7. 

This is the More Literacy page from day 8.  It is a fill in the blank alphabet page.  He worked through the page all on his own.  He would sing the alphabet song to himself while pointing to the letters to figure out which one came next.

 Pretty proud of himself when he figured out the next letter was I.

I am super excited that we have found a way to incorporate the I Can Read books, the Letter Flowers, the My Little Journal and the More Math & More Literacy workbooks into our daily routine.

My next goal is to incorporate a daily routine for Peter with all the math and number tools we receive in our MGT kits.  I'm thinking I could review and practice his math and counting skills with the Hands-on Numbers or Counting Cards.  Maybe alternate the Hands-On numbers with the awesome collection of Manipulatives and Math Story Cards we have accumulated over the year. Repetition, repetition. 

Here I took a few steps back to get a full shot of our table as we are hard at work.  You can see both the boys are in a T-shirt and underwear.  Yep, underwear.  That's why I try to get pictures of them from the waist up.  They are kind of hard to keep pants on.

But you can see a table full of MGT tools and the Teacher Guide book mixed with a few other odds and ends.  It amazes me that Mother Goose Time really can be used to carry your child through Kindergarten.  Especially if you take full advantage of the MGT tools and use them to dive deeper into the chore subjects by simply finding a way to incorporate them, along with the day to day MGT lessons, into your daily routine. Repetition is key!

Sun & Moon Preschool Lessons with Mother Goose Time

This months theme with Mother Goose Time is Blast Off to Space.  Day 2 we learned about the Sun and Day 3 we learned about the Moon.  I have to say, I learned some things I didn't even know!

I posted this picture on my Facebook page because it sums up everything we learned about the sun.  We learned that the sun is a medium star which is why it is yellow (Large stars are Red and Small stars are Blue.  We learned that on Day 1). We learned that the cooler spots on the sun are orange and called sun spots. We learned that the earth orbits around the sun. We also learned that the word sun starts with the letter S. Oh, and did you know that the sun spins on an axis too and it takes 25 days to make a full rotation.

MGT gave us the idea of having one of the children stand and spin while we counted to 25.  I had Lachlan give it a try and he kept on spinning too fast.  He would make a full rotation by the time I counted to 10.  So we did it over and over again.  I kept having to tell him to slow down.  It was a great way to get across the idea that 25 days is a long time so the sun must spin really slow. 

Day 3 was all about the Moon but of course along the way we learned new numbers, 7 & 17 and did a little math too.

I gave Peter the lead on this activity.  I told him to find a ramp and gave him a hint to look in our hotwheels road bin.  He found the orange piece that I had in mind and brought it out to the living room.  Then we set it up on the foot stool and I placed the number card along with the end of the ramp inside a tray.  Peter rolled "moon rocks" down the ramp and tried to land them on the number counting card.

In the Teacher's Guide under the Moon Grab lesson there are two additional tips.  One to Simplify and one to make the lesson more challenging.  I liked the Challenge option.  First I had Peter roll all the moon rocks down and then we did a little math.  I had him count how many moon rocks landed on the card and then how many were not on the card.  I wrote out the equation 12+5=17. 

As they continued to play I got ready for making Moon Rocks.  MGT provided us with a flour salt mixture to make salt dough.  I put the mixture in a little bowl and added a small cup of water and something to mix it with.

Hey look, I made it on the blog.  See my shadow taking the picture.

 First Peter decided to mix up the flour/salt combo. 

Then he added the water.  I used those little medicine cups.  MGT had told us to do 2 tablespoons of flour/salt to 2 teaspoons of water.  So I put in 4 Tablespoons of the flour/salt mix and 4 teaspoons of water in those little cups. 

It was a little sticky at first and the mini whisks just clumped up and didn't work so well.  We took the dough out and put it on the tray to kneed.  I had to add just a touch of the flour/salt to their dough to make them a little less sticky. 

I had Adam join us at the counter and gave him a tray with the Balancing Moon set we got from Mother Goose Time this month.  I can't believe this came in the box as a manipulative.  Sadly, Adam was too interested in what the brothers were doing and the balancing Moon didn't get much attention, until he decided to throw the whole thing on the floor. 

Lachlan and Peter both decided just to make one moon rock.  They put their moon rock on a tray and I baked them in our little toaster oven. 

Peter, really badly, wanted to just keep adding water to his dough.  I had to talk him out of it.  But when the rocks were done and baking I let him add as much water as he would like to the bowl of left overs.  Lachlan joined in too.  I told them we should leave these trays out over night to see what happens.  I might have them document their observations in their My Little Journals. 

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