Highlighting Links by Subject for Schooling- (Ray’s) Mathematics

Each week there will be a post {or two or three} highlighting some links that have been collected and compiled on the Links by Subject for Schooling page on my blog. At this point, I plan to go alphabetically through the subjects because that’s how I am but the websites most likely won’t be alphabetized…sorry for any confusion!

Mathematics

This week it is specifically Ray’s Mathematics.

Ray's Primary Arithmetic
Ray's New Primary Arithmetic
Ray's Intellectual
Ray's New Intellectual Arithmetic revised
Ray's New Elementary Algebra revised edition of Rudiments
Ray's Practical Arithmetic, by Induction and Analysis
Ray's New Practical Arithmetic revised
Ray's Arithmetical Key to the Third Book use with some of Intellectual and all of Practical
Ray's Algebra, Part First
Ray's Algebra, Part Second
Ray's Key to Algebra Part First and Second
Ray's New Test Examples
Key to Ray's New Higher Arithmetic

Those are some of the links for Math (Ray’s) that have been collected. Stay tuned for more link ‘highlights’ every so often.

A World Without Math?

Math…the dreaded four letter word. Some parents and their children do quite well with this subject; they require no extra help to tackle it and get it right. But there are plenty of others who do not get along so well with math. It is an important subject to be able to understand and master. Every part of our lives in some way involves math- buying groceries, purchasing a gift for someone else, planning a birthday party, or more extensively for those who work with cash or measurement on a regular basis.

Math is a foundational subject; the base must be understood and mastered before the next tier or layer can be attempted. Often there is a gap or lack of understanding of those base concepts. This prevents students from moving onto subsequent concepts, leading to frustration, low self esteem and/or limited opportunities.

According to a study done by Harvard University, only a small proportion of students (4.5%) in California’s Silicon Valley are doing as well as the country of Portugal. Massachusetts is the state with the highest percentage of advanced math students. So you can move to Massachusetts…or a more realistic solution would be an elementary math intervention program.

In first grade, I had a horrid time with understanding math. For some reason it just did not click. My teacher would sit inside with me at recess to try to help me. I cried over how hard it was. In middle and high school I didn’t have the same problem and I didn’t say the words, “When will I ever use this?” because I actually enjoyed math to a point.  But now that I have kids, I have heard those words. It would be so easy to say that they can just leave the math behind. But they really cannot. It would be extremely unfair and almost downright cruel to let them skip math.

Can you imagine a world without math? It would have no computers, no televisions, telephones, or any electronics. It wouldn’t have medicine or machines to build. We would never have enough food to go around and we would never be able to plan a party! Obviously it’s important. It’s important enough to get a hold early on and an elementary math intervention program may be just what is needed for some.

This post sponsored by Dreambox Learning. See Disclosure/Policies.

TOS REVIEW: I See Cards {Fractazmic}

Do you your kids have trouble with fractions? Do you your kids find it sometimes difficult to quickly convert 5ths (say, 1/5) to 10ths (say, 2/10) or 4ths (like 1/4) to 16ths (like 4/16)? Do you and your kids like card games?

Well I fit well into all those categories up there! My kids fit into at least two When it comes to card games, I’ll play any kind (uh, well, maybe not Old Maid –again) so when I saw this up for review from I See Cards, I was excited. My kids…well, they don’t share my card playing enthusiasm. But I’m persistent, you see…eventually they will be little card playing maniacs like me! Until then, well, we use these to work on our fractions because that is a category we all fit into.

I’ve always been ‘okay’ at math and my kids have also. But those fractions get us every time. It would be an understatement to say that fractions are not a favorite at our house. We have even been known to use a larger, well-known measurement in place of smaller measures (such as making a full batch of something when we only need half a batch so we don’t have to figure out what the ‘half’ of it is- with cookies that’s great! with beans, it’s not so great , or so they tell me).

But we love this game!

When we received it- haha! the kids didn’t know it was a card math game!- they wanted to rip it open and play right then. [when I say ‘rip’ I mean gently and sweetly open the package of course] And so we did. The first hand took us f.o.r.e.v.e.r! The reason simply is because we are all not so great at fractions.

We had to pull out pads of paper, dry erase boards and make cheat sheets for ourselves. By now we’ve played many many hands and we are much better at fractions. We only played it like rummy- we’re still getting our skills honed.

Basically, if you have 3 players you pass out 5 cards to each player. Then the remaining cards are placed in the middle so that it can be a draw pile and a card is turned face up next to it for the discard pile. Each turn players must draw a card and discard a card. In order to lay down a set from your hand, you have to make ‘1’; any combination of like fractions to make 1 whole. The images on the cards are very helpful with this! The player with the most sets equaling 1 when a player runs out of cards, wins.

The cards are color coded into blue, red and green. They also have clues around the edges of each card to help figure out the conversions. By that I mean they say “Twelfths Suit”, “Sixteenths Suit”, and “Tenths Suit”. The blue cards are eggs (1 dozen); red cards are a ruler (1 inch); green cards are a water bottle (1 liter). These are broken down into fractions. For example the egg cards have 1/12, 1/2, 1/6, 1/4, 5/12, and 1/3- all multiples of 12 (for a dozen). The ruler cards have multiples of 16 (for an inch): 7/16, 1/2, 1/8, 5/16, 3/16, 3/8, 1/4, 1/16. The water cards have multiples of 10: 1/2, 1/10, 2/5, 1/5, 3/10.

For me personally the eggs and water were the easiest because of the images on the cards. The ruler was most difficult but not because the images weren’t good (these have grasshoppers and ants AND a magnifying glass to help with visualizing) rather because there are so many different fractions for that one!

There is also a ‘speed’ game online you can play. Beat the highest score for the month and you can win a free deck Score! I See Cards also offers PyraMath (which was reviewed last year by the Crew), I See Cards for language arts/math and Prime Bomb for learning prime numbers.

What the kids think:

Fox (12 yo): it’s fun! It really helps with fractions.
Lee (15 yo): it’s super fun you definitely work your mind. The pictures help a lot. It’s a nice twist on the game Rummy. I like Rummy; Rummy’s fun.

Bottomline:
We like this game. It has helped quite a bit with fractions. And at $6.95 (plus $.35 for Florida residents; plus shipping and handling) a deck, this is a great idea for an educational game to give as a gift or just because.

I am recommending this game to others!

See what others thought of this game at the TOS Homeschool Crew blog.

***Disclaimer: I received a free Fractazmic deck from I See Cards via the TOS Homeschool Review Crew in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are mine or those in my family. See Disclosure/Policies.

Math Moves U

Math Moves U

Great fun math site!! I am definitely putting this on my Links by Subject for Schooling!

I was made aware of this awesome site through Freely Educate blog. There are some awesome resources on this site. If you are looking for anything, look there first!

My kids are busy at the moment or I would have had them try this out. Instead I tried it myself :) I love checking out new websites. I think that I would love to do that for a job...oh, getting sidetracked! About the website:

Awesome

So I made my character a girl with light brown hair, a read shirt/dress, and pale pale skin. On the next screen you choose who you are: Parent, Teacher, Student and fill in the other options.

For the this step I chose to not register, just to check out the site. On the next page you are given the directions to use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move along. Somehow, at first, I missed that little bit of information and was trying to use my mouse. Going to the right takes you to this spot:

Going left takes you to this spot:

This is all with the settings I chose at first (Teacher, 7th grade, Woman). I'm not sure yet if it looks different with other options. When you go to the right and are at the "Sum of All Thrills", you can 'build' a rollercoaster (ahem, I mean a jet-bobsled) by learning things having to do with math, and solving a few problems.

I haven't yet entered "Math Moves University". I think this site is very fun however and it's going on the list of sites that my kids can visit to have fun with math.

*Disclosure: I have not been paid or compensated in any way for this 'review'. Math Moves U is a free math enrichment website, the views presented are mine alone. See more about my Disclosure/Policies.

Mastery vs Spiral - Math the CM way

No, I don't know the answer to the question of which math programs are Mastery or Spiral programs...yet. I really really want to be able to enter the discussion about this (math programs in general and also mastery vs spiral learning). Unfortunately, I just don't know enough yet! I have been following Silvia's thoughts on MEP working with CM schooling. Is it mastery or spiral learning? CM talks about mastery in teaching. We just started Life of Fred books here but I have no basis on which to say they are Mastery...or Spiral.

Read more about Charlotte Mason here. Or here. Or Google it and you will find plenty of reading material. To learn more about MEP go here. Or here is an introduction video.

I am still learning :) It's a good thing I love to learn.

The point of the post is to direct others to the those who are more knowledgeable about such things. Specifically about using MEP for math. That was the start of the discussion, I believe, which you can find a post about here. But I really think, by reading through this, that a lot can be learned in general about these methods. The second part to Silvia's post is here. You can also go to Jeanne's post here, which I read after reading Silvia's first post but see is linked in the second :)

Enjoy reading...I will be.

Life of Fred Math and First Form Latin

I have been thinking about math...for the kids...lately. Fox hates math (not doing math, because he is good at it, but the workbooks that we have been using) and it turns into such an ordeal to make him do it. Lee isn't having a problem with doing it although she does agree with him that the workbooks are, ahem, retarded. I have heard a lot of good things about Life of Fred books. Today I ventured to the site to check them out...again. You can find out about LoF books at Polka Dot Publishing and can purchase them from Z-Twist Books. I decided to order two of the books (Decimals & Percents and PreAlgebra 1 with Biology). There are no shipping charges unless you want your books faster than the free shipping will get it to you. I am excited to get them.

I also was looking at Latin for them. We are working on Spanish (German & Japanese on the side a bit also but not too strenuously) for this year and will continue with it because I personally feel it is very important. We wanted to do French but honestly, I just do not see that happening. They would need to take an outside class for that! I have tried to learn French myself and I found it very difficult. However, being that Latin is the root of our language- and others- I felt it would be good to pursue that course. I hadn't bookmarked any of the great sites that others have recommended that they have used...and now I wish I had. I went on a search for forums and such that had posted recommendations and came across Prima Latina from Memoria Press. I have heard many good things about this particular course/publisher so I did some comparing. My dc are both going to be in middle school next year (oh my! where has the time gone!) and I felt that starting at the very lowest level may not be the best. I want them to be challenged but at the same time not too much. I checked Latina Christiana but decided to go with First Form instead because it specifies that it is for grades 5 and up.

So that has been my day. I was pouring over these things for hours, trying to decide. I also have saved Ray's Arithmetic books (can find these in the links page, under Math) that I would like to use.