We've been at this homeschooling gig for three years now. Each year has varied little in its routine: We start enthusiastically in July with loads of curriculum, a carefully-planned daily schedule and checklists and progress reports; by October, the wheels have fallen off. We're not so enthusiastic. What seemed like excellent, motivating resources become drudgery to complete. No matter how I try to shake things up, we never regain our enthusiasm.
I always remember loving school as a girl, but I can also remember countless days spent in the nurse's office or huddled miserably in a classroom, waiting for the sweet release of the school bus headed homeward. Most of the learning that has stuck with me through the years are subjects I explored on my own with the help of World Book encyclopedias and Childcraft volumes. I cannot recall, except in very brief flashes, any of the many lessons and lectures I sat through. I do remember wandering by myself in the woods, thinking and exploring and questioning.
Child-led learning seems like the most natural thing in the world. After all, Zack learned to walk without walking lessons or walking units or walking lapbooks. He learned to speak English on his own. He even learned to read on his own. He didn't study phonics or sight words. We just left books all over the house and read out loud to him as often as we could. By the time he started preschool, he was reading. So why do I feel this ingrained compulsion to open up his head and pour in all the rote information I can now that we're homeschooling? I'm almost afraid that if I don't drill him on states and capitals and presidents and measurements and geography and life cycles and the principles of economics that he will reach adulthood ignorant and floundering. Never mind that it's been years since anyone asked me the capital of a state and we both had to look it up.
I had a lively discussion with Russ the other night about the wisdom of teaching Roman numerals. My opinion is that it's archaic and useless knowledge in today's environment. Russ feels if his school-going peers are learning it, then Zack should, too. Just in case. Just in case what? Just in case he wants to sit through the credits of a movie and try to figure out what year it was filmed instead of, I don't know, looking it up on IMDB? Just in case he wants to know which Super Bowl is being played? No, it's in case I die and Zack has to return to school. Thanks, hon. Regardless, I'm not a proponent of teaching a concept or subject just because it's always been taught.
So it sounds like unschooling would be philosophically fitting for us, right? Except it scares me to death. He's ten years old. How does he know what he wants to learn? He needs a schedule and guidance! He needs textbooks and worksheets! If I left him to his own devices, he would noodle around on his computer all day! The horror!
But we're trying unschooling for a while. (Just like we tried nighttime homeschooling for a while until I discovered that I fold up mentally and physically at 10:00 p.m.) Russ and Zack were out of town for a week last week and Russ is off work most of this week. We're having work done on the house before the holidays and then we have the holidays themselves to endure...er, I mean, ENJOY. Our homeschooling schedule is going to be up in the air until January, so why not give unschooling a try? If it doesn't work out, a few months won't set him back irrevocably.
Right? Right??!???
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
First Month of Mathletics
Zack
has been using Mathletics for nearly a month now. I wanted to give it a
long trial before I reported back since I know how he typically reacts
to any new curriculum/website/software:
Day One: Oh my gosh, Mom, this is the most fun ever, I love it, it’s perfect!
End of Week One: Well, it’s okay. I kind of miss (whatever program we’d been using before), to be honest.
End of Month One: Ugh, I’m so bored with (new program). Do I have to use it again? Can’t I just skip it this time?
Some people enjoy working with numbers. Some people don’t. Some people understand the brilliant and complex patterns of mathematics while others see abstract numbers that they cannot bend to their wills. I’m not a mathy person, nor is my son. So, I don’t expect the math curriculum we use to be exciting or fun. All I ask from a curriculum is that my son gain a basic understanding of math concepts, that he retain the information, is able to recall it and use it when necessary and it doesn’t make him cry/tear out his hair/shout about how stupid he is in the process.
I won’t fib, the shine has worn off of Mathletics. Math is no longer the first subject he asks to tackle in the morning, which is true to his pattern when using other math programs. But to my surprise, he’s still enjoying Mathletics. He logs in every homeschool day and works for anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. He’s even started asking careful questions about how much Mathletics costs and if we have enough in our homeschool budget to subscribe. (Answers: “$49 for a year of access with a special promo code***,” and “Just barely.”)
He enjoys seeing the progress he’s made each week. He most certainly doesn’t want to lose the gold bars and certificates he's earned to date. However, on the pragmatic end, I'm trying to justify $49 out of our homeschool budget for what largely amounts to a math practice site. (There are lessons on the site, buy my son has found them frustrating and confusing to use.) Mathletics is flashy and engaging but it's not the only practice site out there, even if it is the most widely used. I've not seen such significant progress in my son's math abilities that I'm ready to cough up a little over $4 a month for it, but it's still early days.
When I asked him what he thought about Mathletics, he first mentioned that the “creepy walking robot guy with a smoking butt” bothers him, and he always minimizes that sidebar when working in the program. Then it turned out he had a lot more to say, so I'll let him say it:
"When I was in school, I used the Saxon math program. I had a very low opinion of it – not only was it boring, it was rather long and drawn out. When I first started homeschooling I thought I wasn’t very good at math, but it is getting much better. Math exercises your brain. It’s sort of like doing a brain workout. And the feeling you get when you do well at math? Amazing. Once I’m old enough for a job, I figure math is going to play a big part of it. I try to study hard with math now so I can become good at math for jobs."
"Since we’ve been homeschooling, I can remember most of the math programs we’ve used pretty clearly. ALEKS had the creepy dog, IXL had the lame prizes, Teaching Textbook had the voices. Math Mammoth is my favorite because it really makes me think, and the questions are almost fun. Reflex was my least favorite . At first I enjoyed it. One week later, when I was stuck with the same six or seven games and a slow picture puzzle I was forced to do, it lost all of its appeal."
"At first I was really confused with the interface of Mathletics. I had no idea how to get to the lessons, but once I got that down, I really enjoyed it. It is still a great program now that I’ve been using it a while! I enjoy doing Live Mathletics along with some of the lessons. They’re all challenging and very rewarding when you finish them, and the selection is amazing, although I have to say it has lost a bit of it’s “newness” factor. My favorite part is Live Mathletics. There is nothing like speedily typing in numbers, and trying to beat other kids at their scores."
"As for Live Mathletics, I wish there was more of a variety between the levels. With me, Level 2 is too easy, but Level 3 is almost frustrating. Something like a 2.5 might be good. Mathletics has helped my progress. It gives me incentives, such as if you win enough, work really hard, there’s a chance to earn a trophy, and of course, gold bars and a “perfect” gold bar! Plus, students can check their progress themselves, not just the teachers, so I can see where to improve on."
"I would recommend Mathletics, depending your style of homeschooling. If you prefer to use worksheets, Mathletics isn’t as good for you. If you’re okay with a website, typing numbers and having some fun in between, then Mathletics is the right choice for you."
I just might be able to justify it after all.
***If you're interested in Mathletics, they are offering a year of full access to the site, including the excellent weekly progress reports and the ability to assign work, for $49. Use the promo code Home2012 (the code is case-sensitive, expires at the end of October and cannot be applied retroactively.)
Day One: Oh my gosh, Mom, this is the most fun ever, I love it, it’s perfect!
End of Week One: Well, it’s okay. I kind of miss (whatever program we’d been using before), to be honest.
End of Month One: Ugh, I’m so bored with (new program). Do I have to use it again? Can’t I just skip it this time?
Some people enjoy working with numbers. Some people don’t. Some people understand the brilliant and complex patterns of mathematics while others see abstract numbers that they cannot bend to their wills. I’m not a mathy person, nor is my son. So, I don’t expect the math curriculum we use to be exciting or fun. All I ask from a curriculum is that my son gain a basic understanding of math concepts, that he retain the information, is able to recall it and use it when necessary and it doesn’t make him cry/tear out his hair/shout about how stupid he is in the process.
I won’t fib, the shine has worn off of Mathletics. Math is no longer the first subject he asks to tackle in the morning, which is true to his pattern when using other math programs. But to my surprise, he’s still enjoying Mathletics. He logs in every homeschool day and works for anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. He’s even started asking careful questions about how much Mathletics costs and if we have enough in our homeschool budget to subscribe. (Answers: “$49 for a year of access with a special promo code***,” and “Just barely.”)
He enjoys seeing the progress he’s made each week. He most certainly doesn’t want to lose the gold bars and certificates he's earned to date. However, on the pragmatic end, I'm trying to justify $49 out of our homeschool budget for what largely amounts to a math practice site. (There are lessons on the site, buy my son has found them frustrating and confusing to use.) Mathletics is flashy and engaging but it's not the only practice site out there, even if it is the most widely used. I've not seen such significant progress in my son's math abilities that I'm ready to cough up a little over $4 a month for it, but it's still early days.
When I asked him what he thought about Mathletics, he first mentioned that the “creepy walking robot guy with a smoking butt” bothers him, and he always minimizes that sidebar when working in the program. Then it turned out he had a lot more to say, so I'll let him say it:
"When I was in school, I used the Saxon math program. I had a very low opinion of it – not only was it boring, it was rather long and drawn out. When I first started homeschooling I thought I wasn’t very good at math, but it is getting much better. Math exercises your brain. It’s sort of like doing a brain workout. And the feeling you get when you do well at math? Amazing. Once I’m old enough for a job, I figure math is going to play a big part of it. I try to study hard with math now so I can become good at math for jobs."
"Since we’ve been homeschooling, I can remember most of the math programs we’ve used pretty clearly. ALEKS had the creepy dog, IXL had the lame prizes, Teaching Textbook had the voices. Math Mammoth is my favorite because it really makes me think, and the questions are almost fun. Reflex was my least favorite . At first I enjoyed it. One week later, when I was stuck with the same six or seven games and a slow picture puzzle I was forced to do, it lost all of its appeal."
"At first I was really confused with the interface of Mathletics. I had no idea how to get to the lessons, but once I got that down, I really enjoyed it. It is still a great program now that I’ve been using it a while! I enjoy doing Live Mathletics along with some of the lessons. They’re all challenging and very rewarding when you finish them, and the selection is amazing, although I have to say it has lost a bit of it’s “newness” factor. My favorite part is Live Mathletics. There is nothing like speedily typing in numbers, and trying to beat other kids at their scores."
"As for Live Mathletics, I wish there was more of a variety between the levels. With me, Level 2 is too easy, but Level 3 is almost frustrating. Something like a 2.5 might be good. Mathletics has helped my progress. It gives me incentives, such as if you win enough, work really hard, there’s a chance to earn a trophy, and of course, gold bars and a “perfect” gold bar! Plus, students can check their progress themselves, not just the teachers, so I can see where to improve on."
"I would recommend Mathletics, depending your style of homeschooling. If you prefer to use worksheets, Mathletics isn’t as good for you. If you’re okay with a website, typing numbers and having some fun in between, then Mathletics is the right choice for you."
I just might be able to justify it after all.
***If you're interested in Mathletics, they are offering a year of full access to the site, including the excellent weekly progress reports and the ability to assign work, for $49. Use the promo code Home2012 (the code is case-sensitive, expires at the end of October and cannot be applied retroactively.)
Monday, October 8, 2012
Trying Out Mathletics
When we first decided to homeschool, I did hours of research on learning styles and curriculum resources. I compiled a list of websites with splashy graphics and flash-based games for my weaned-on-a-computer, born-with-a-mouse-in-his-hand, 10-year-old son. To my surprise, after a few weeks of schooling, I heard, “Mom, these websites make home school seem too much like playing and I get distracted. " So away went the websites and out came the worksheets and work texts.
It took me another year to discover that my son responds better to a mastery-based approach to math instead of a spiral approach. Goodbye Teaching Textbooks, hello Math Mammoth. We subscribe to Maria Miller’s website in addition to using her curriculum. When she wrote about an offer from Mathletics, a three-month subscription to try out the program in exchange for three blog posts relaying our experiences, I decided to give it a try. We trust Maria because we love her math curriculum.
Disclaimers up front:
I’d like to think I have a smart kid. He reads at an advanced level, fluently and with excellent comprehension. Reading is one of those skills that came easily to him. He didn't have to struggle over phonics or sight words. He just picked up a book and started reading, some time around the age of 24 months. He also didn't struggle with learning to touch type. He taught himself. Even though his fingers go nowhere near the home row, he can now type 90 wpm.
Hurray for us, right? The problem is, if he can't sit down and have an immediate understanding of a subject, he resists. (“Resists” is my nice term for “digs in his heels and decides he hates the subject, is not good at it, will never be good at it and it will always be hard forever.” So far this extends to all sporting activities and math.)
The dreaded math. He attended a private school for a few years that used Saxon Math in its curriculum. To this day I can't say the word "Saxon" or "manipulatives" without him visibly flinching. In the three years we’ve been homeschooling, we’ve tried nearly every math product offered: Teaching Textbooks, IXL, ALEKS, Reflex Math, Touch Math, MEP, Right-Brained Math, and Singapore.
Reflex helped with fluency but eventually became boring for him. His fluency growth plateaued after a few months. IXL frustrated him because nothing less than 100% mastery of a skill would do. (One day my little perfectionist even hyperventilated himself because he had reached 88% mastery and with one wrong answer, dropped to 71%. After he finished breathing into a paper bag and had a nice lie-down, that was the last day we used IXL.) ALEKS was intriguing for a while but the huge, empty pie charts that filled so slowly discouraged him.
So, he's a tough customer. Not only is he a tough customer, he has a serious mental block when it comes to math fluency. If I ask him to give me the answer to 8 plus 4, he starts barfing out random numbers: "Ten? Thirteen?? EIGHT?" Then I look at him, my calm homeschooling mom demeanor cracking, my voice rising, and ask "How in the world can 8 plus 4 EQUAL 8?" to which he responds, "I don't know."
Then we try to work on "completing the ten," so I say, “How much do you need to add to the 8 in this problem to equal 10?”
This he knows. “Two, of course.” Duh, mom.
“If you take that 2 away from the 4 in our problem, what do you have?”
“You have 2.” Duh again, mom.
“So, instead of 8 plus 4, we’ve turned the question into 10 plus 2. How much are 10 and 2 added together?”
“Twelve.”
“Then 10 plus 2 and 8 plus 4 are really the same question with the same answer, right?"
"Hey, you're right!" he says.
"Now can you tell me what 8 plus 4 equals?”
I sit breathless, waiting for him to say twelve and he shouts out, “Fourteen!”
I am not the only homeschooling parent whose child struggles with math. We all recognize the signs of desperation in each other. When we casually ask, “So, what math program do you use?” the subtext is, “Will my kids use it without arguing/flailing/screaming? Will he/she truly understand the concepts and not barf numbers at me when we’re reviewing fluency and practicing skills?”
Believe me, if Mathletics can help my son, I will be shouting it from the rooftops. I will shake my home schooling friends by the shoulders and insist they try it. I will write posts about it. Heck, if it works for my son, I will even write the Mathletics web address on my forehead in Sharpie and walk around town.
I'm waiting patiently for our log-in information. My son is excited to try another math program, though he did ask, “Mom, Mathletics isn't a sports thing is it?”
I have no idea, my child. Let's hope not, since you wouldn't know a soccer ball from a basketball if it bounced off your head. We’ll find out. It's going to take more than a dancing crab or a creepy dog professor to impress us.
It took me another year to discover that my son responds better to a mastery-based approach to math instead of a spiral approach. Goodbye Teaching Textbooks, hello Math Mammoth. We subscribe to Maria Miller’s website in addition to using her curriculum. When she wrote about an offer from Mathletics, a three-month subscription to try out the program in exchange for three blog posts relaying our experiences, I decided to give it a try. We trust Maria because we love her math curriculum.
Disclaimers up front:
- I'm not a powerful mommy and/or home school blogger.
- I don’t post pictures of my clean and organized homeschooling room and my wonderfully creative lesson plans because those things don’t exist.
- I don’t host giveaways from companies who have sent me their swag.
- I maintain this small website for our homeschool, Rivertown Academy, so I can track my son’s progress and keep the State of Missouri off my back.
I’d like to think I have a smart kid. He reads at an advanced level, fluently and with excellent comprehension. Reading is one of those skills that came easily to him. He didn't have to struggle over phonics or sight words. He just picked up a book and started reading, some time around the age of 24 months. He also didn't struggle with learning to touch type. He taught himself. Even though his fingers go nowhere near the home row, he can now type 90 wpm.
Hurray for us, right? The problem is, if he can't sit down and have an immediate understanding of a subject, he resists. (“Resists” is my nice term for “digs in his heels and decides he hates the subject, is not good at it, will never be good at it and it will always be hard forever.” So far this extends to all sporting activities and math.)
The dreaded math. He attended a private school for a few years that used Saxon Math in its curriculum. To this day I can't say the word "Saxon" or "manipulatives" without him visibly flinching. In the three years we’ve been homeschooling, we’ve tried nearly every math product offered: Teaching Textbooks, IXL, ALEKS, Reflex Math, Touch Math, MEP, Right-Brained Math, and Singapore.
Reflex helped with fluency but eventually became boring for him. His fluency growth plateaued after a few months. IXL frustrated him because nothing less than 100% mastery of a skill would do. (One day my little perfectionist even hyperventilated himself because he had reached 88% mastery and with one wrong answer, dropped to 71%. After he finished breathing into a paper bag and had a nice lie-down, that was the last day we used IXL.) ALEKS was intriguing for a while but the huge, empty pie charts that filled so slowly discouraged him.
So, he's a tough customer. Not only is he a tough customer, he has a serious mental block when it comes to math fluency. If I ask him to give me the answer to 8 plus 4, he starts barfing out random numbers: "Ten? Thirteen?? EIGHT?" Then I look at him, my calm homeschooling mom demeanor cracking, my voice rising, and ask "How in the world can 8 plus 4 EQUAL 8?" to which he responds, "I don't know."
Then we try to work on "completing the ten," so I say, “How much do you need to add to the 8 in this problem to equal 10?”
This he knows. “Two, of course.” Duh, mom.
“If you take that 2 away from the 4 in our problem, what do you have?”
“You have 2.” Duh again, mom.
“So, instead of 8 plus 4, we’ve turned the question into 10 plus 2. How much are 10 and 2 added together?”
“Twelve.”
“Then 10 plus 2 and 8 plus 4 are really the same question with the same answer, right?"
"Hey, you're right!" he says.
"Now can you tell me what 8 plus 4 equals?”
I sit breathless, waiting for him to say twelve and he shouts out, “Fourteen!”
I am not the only homeschooling parent whose child struggles with math. We all recognize the signs of desperation in each other. When we casually ask, “So, what math program do you use?” the subtext is, “Will my kids use it without arguing/flailing/screaming? Will he/she truly understand the concepts and not barf numbers at me when we’re reviewing fluency and practicing skills?”
Believe me, if Mathletics can help my son, I will be shouting it from the rooftops. I will shake my home schooling friends by the shoulders and insist they try it. I will write posts about it. Heck, if it works for my son, I will even write the Mathletics web address on my forehead in Sharpie and walk around town.
I'm waiting patiently for our log-in information. My son is excited to try another math program, though he did ask, “Mom, Mathletics isn't a sports thing is it?”
I have no idea, my child. Let's hope not, since you wouldn't know a soccer ball from a basketball if it bounced off your head. We’ll find out. It's going to take more than a dancing crab or a creepy dog professor to impress us.
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