After afternoon reading and rest time (my preferred variety of R&R), I gather the kids around the dining room table to play a game. It’s a fun way to pick up the pace after a snoozy, post-lunch slump. This week we played Clumsy Thief Junior, a cute freebie I got from Timberdoodle in exchange for…
Whether you’re looking for visual processing exercises in disguise or quick, take-along math work for a busy day out, look no further than Extreme Dot to Dot. Need some incognito handwriting help? Quiet-time math worksheets? Place value practice? Extreme Dot to Dot helps with that too! I received the Woodland edition of the Extreme Dot…
Ah multiplication facts. You either learn them easily or you don’t. I think that was a defining moment for me in elementary school; that was when I realized I hated math. My parents worked with me for hours — even bribed me — to get me to memorize them. When I kept blanking on my…
Have you seen the flood of wonderful videos on Youtube the last month coming from Montessori educators needing to teach from home? Even if you have a presentation down pat, it’s still incredibly helpful to see how others present work. Even with a uniform method like Montessori, every guide brings a little bit of his…
Get ’em while they’re hot. My US currency three part card printable is available for free through the rest of January! I also made some easy mixed operation equations for solving problems with money. They’re free right now too. Download them both at our [severely neglected] Teachers Pay Teachers shop: US Currency Three Part Cards…
Math this week has been all about fractions. We talked briefly about the etymology of the word fraction; what does it means when you fracture your arm? It breaks into pieces. We use a line to represent that fracture — I cut up some black strips for the lines and we talked about numerators and…
After this week I’m switching to a new format for these updates — I never want to sit down and write a post because it takes so long to 1) recall what we even did 2) find the pictures 3) write something up that makes sense. Also I have been told more than once that…
All Summer long we worked on reading. Lots of reading — I read tons about systematically teaching reading. The kids practiced phonics. We’ve been making such good progress. I believe when we started last school year Josie was stuck at the end of the red drawers, maybe beginning orange, and Mary was around green. Pic…
Here’s a quick video of basic algebra presented at the elementary level using cards and beads. Pretty cool work. Mary mastered it pretty easily. I wish I’d learned math hands on this way! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51OAJ8R8cAQ&feature=youtu.be
Josie recently was flown out to California (we live in Florida! So whoa!) to participate in a medical study for her genetic syndrome (22q Deletion / Digeorge). She had quite the adventure. We equipped her with a camera and got some really great pictures like the Golden Gate Bridge: She sent me so many pictures…
