Introduction to Mathematics

/ Ms Oh Waily / Leave a comment

We have a little girl with a love of numbers in this house, so it seems perfectly natural that we should add mathematics in to our schooling fairly early on.
By “add-in”, what I really mean is work on numbers in a more formal way.  And by “formal” I really mean in a more thoughtful and structured way.

I have learned, having now reached Lesson 5 in the Classical Education curriculum, that flexibility is what home education is all about.  I knew that, but I had not quite internalised it.  What I have learned in the past couple of weeks is that having a requirement to complete certain aspects of work, when they hold no interest, sucks the enjoyment and learning out of a child.
I knew that too.  I just needed to see it in action for it to stick in my mind a bit better.  So, now I have a more relaxed and cunning approach to learning more formally.  Is that an oxymoron?  Relaxed – Formal?

Anyway, we are moving in to the world of mathematics.  Recently I decided that I liked the idea of using the Singaporean style of teaching mathematics.  They have consistently ranked #1 or close enough, in the world in this area.  That makes me suspect that they might have a good approach.  And they are fairly aspirational for the skills their schoolkids can master after each year.    To that end I used a placement test to see how well Miss Oh Waily was doing, and just where in the grand scheme of things we should be starting.  Turns out that she is doing pretty well in this department.

For those who may be interested in looking at this option, here are some links to click through on.

Chariot Press – Singapore Maths introduction page.  This should give you some idea of what this style of maths teaching is about and, helpfully, the placement tests.  Or, you could go directly to the horse’s mouth and visit the Singaporean Ministry of Education and read their documents.   The primary curriculum, including outcomes can be found here.  And if you want a cut down version, then the American supplier Singaporemath.com have a great scope and sequence document here.

For the last couple of weeks or so we have been working on number bonds, both addition and subtraction.  Haven’t heard about number bonds? (Like me when I started reading.)  This site has a clear description.  And this site has an excellent printable that can save you the time and effort of making your own.  I’ve been using it to good effect so far.
What I have discovered though, is that the novelty wears off and the plain number bond sheets turn in to uninteresting work.  I am now using everyone’s favourite children’s entertainer, Disney, to give maths work a bit of pizazz.

The Pixie Hollow Fairies featuring Tinkerbell, of Peter Pan origins, are now being used to stimulate interest in doing maths again.  I use fairy images to create simple equation sheets, and lately ordinal number practice sheets.  This seems, so far, to be a good way to make the more difficult and less visually attractive number bond sheet palatable.

Oh, and I let Miss Oh draw and colour in parts of the sheets too.  And use her mother’s favourite and special pen.*
So now I ask her, “Do you want to do some Fairy Maths?” and the answer is invariably, “Yes”.

Here is our latest version (I make them up each time using the same document), photographed for your viewing pleasure.  Don’t sue me Mr Disney, I can’t help it if your pretty fairies entice my daughter to do maths equations most days.

Fairy Maths

We have been doing other maths things too.  I have started to work on the place values idea with Miss Oh.  She recognises the numbers up and into the hundreds and often identifies the number correctly, but the concept of the place values hasn’t really sunk in.  But I will keep that for next time, along with any progress I might make on actually sourcing textbooks and workbooks that are used in Singapore for their maths curriculum.  We may not “follow the textbook” at home, should I manage to get a hold of one, but we will certainly be looking at it for inspiration.

What do you do at home to teach mathematics or encourage a love of numbers ?

—
*Please note that this is not my most favourite and most special pen, but the second place getter.  My first place being a Lamy Safari fountain pen which my beloved daughter will not be getting her hands on any time soon.

Art & Craft Supplies Makeover

/ Ms Oh Waily / 1 Comment

Sorry for being absent for so long.  We have been doing things at the Patch, I just haven’t had the time to blog about it yet.

Today we are starting with a before and after of a project that would never have happened if I had not been part of My Organized Chaos.   I can’t believe I’m going to show you some of this stuff, but I think I’m a great example of what is possible when you have some guidance, goals and outside influences in your organisational life.

Let’s start with the before photographs.  The subject of the organisation is the art and craft supplies that we use (mine and the children’s).
First up we have my son’s closet, which has been home to not only toy storage but general art/craft and junk storage.
The Cupboard
Once the boxes and recycling pile were removed and laid out on the dining room floor it turned from a tower of clutter into a large flat, and scary amount of clutter, as you can plainly see.
Art craft & recycling
Attractive isn’t it?

Then I got stuck about the recycling pile first.  Who needs that many bits of random cardboard?  Or bubble envelopes?  Or egg cartons? Seriously?
Not quite enough to be classified in the “little old lady with 100 cats” category, but heading down that slippery slope none the less.
I felt immensely lightened by the simple act of chucking out cardboard, paper, useless magazines and then laying everything out so I could see exactly what we had and how best to store it going forward.  It took all of an hour one evening.  Then the next morning, yes I slept on it, I spent about thirty minutes repacking everything and the result is below.
Finished storageThe box on the left has the art or craft stuff, the middle box contains the tools to do art or crafts and the box on the right is my recycled materials for crafting with the kids.  After this photograph was taken I also labelled up the two plastic tubs so that there would be no mistake about where things should be put back.

So, I’m a very happy camper.  This is the bulk storage of our art and craft supplies and it is finally back to some semblance of tidy and organised.  Thanks Jo for the inspiration to get on top of this.  At some point in the future I will show you where the “in use” art and craft supplies are, and how we store them.  They were not quite in the same miserable condition.  🙂

If you feel inspired, Jo is giving away two spots on her October course.  Here are the two ways to enter her competitions.

pin it to win it

 

 

Not So Organised Chaos

/ Ms Oh Waily / 3 Comments

My Organized ChaosThat would be a fair description of life in the Oh Waily household on many a day.  So what better than getting some excellent pointers, and reminders, of what family life can look like.

That’s what Jo from A Bit Of This and A Bit Of That is offering to do for you.  You may recognise Jo from the Neighbourhood Walk series.  (Another of her brilliant ideas.)
I’ve been a follower of her blog for a long time now, having come to it through my interest in things Montessori.  So when the opportunity to tap into her vast store of ideas came along, I took it with both hands.

She has created an online e-course to help you sort your kids, and your home, out.  I’ve been doing it now for a few weeks, and it has been great.  I needed the prod and the guidance to actively put into practice concepts and ideas that I know will enhance our family life.  I’m loving the community support and help with generating ideas that will work in our home.  Best of all, everyone is a normal person so any before and after shots of changes are realistic, not a Better Homes and Garden feature that you know you’ll never maintain.

If you think you could do with some help getting things sorted, I’d highly recommend clicking across and taking a look at what Jo can offer you.  I’m sure you will get as much out of it as I have and I haven’t even finished up everything yet.

I will be putting together a short series of posts on some of the changes we’ve made around our home as a result of doing My Organized Chaos.  It won’t be everything we’ve done, naturally.  Can’t give away all of Jo’s secrets, after all.  But it may help you decide if you want to join a course.  I hope you do.

Just a note, I’ve chosen to join Jo’s affiliate scheme.  If you click through on the links in this post, or my sidebar, and sign up for a course I will earn a fee.  However, I’d like to be clear that I wouldn’t be recommending it if I didn’t think it was good value.  After all, I wouldn’t want you to be mad with me for getting you to spend your money needlessly.  🙂

TV Free

/ Ms Oh Waily / 2 Comments

Thought bubbleAfter nearly a week away from home visiting family, and the obligatory use of television baby-sitting as an aid to adult conversation, I decided this morning to try something a little radical.

No TV.

All day.

Do you know what?  My world did not fall apart.  My children did not go feral.  I did not feel like I needed to resort to it in order to do things.  Instead we had a really, truly, focused day today.  Focused on doing fun things, together.

Now, lest this sound like I have the television on 24/7, this could not be further from the truth.  Normally the kids get to watch some TV in the morning and then once again in the late afternoon.  But I have found it to be an attention stripper and a brain-sucker.  I would really like to keep us a TV Free zone, but the adult male in the household may find that a bit hard to deal with.  We will see how it goes when he returns from his trip away.

In the meantime, I am going to try it again tomorrow.  Just to see.  You know.  In case today was a fluke.  Keep your fingers crossed for fine weather and well rested children, and we may survive another TV Free day together.

Are you TV Free, or do you have watching rules?

Welcome to Egypt

/ Ms Oh Waily / Leave a comment

All Gizah PyramidsWe have been taking a trip into the world of Ancient Egypt.

We are following the reading suggestion in the pre-made classical curriculum and read through the excellent, short, story book in no time flat.

I am now officially in love with the Magic Tree House series, and I’ve only read the one book, Mummies in the Morning.  It has two characters, Jack and Annie, who are brother and sister.  They visit a treehouse in which there are many books on different subjects.  Opening a book and wishing to be taken to the scene inside magically transports them and the treehouse there.  In our case, to ancient Egypt.

The nice thing about this series of books is that they are accompanied by a non-fiction book on the same topic, Mummies and Pyramids.  Using the same characters, we are able to learn a range of bite-sized snippets of information about Egypt and it’s culture in a non-fiction form.  Both books have some drawings and photographs, so that helps with keeping up the interest and aids in understanding.

I have also been directed to Activity Village’s Ancient Egypt theme section where we printed off many, many copies of images for colouring in.  We revisited the Creation Myth book that we had been using for earlier reading, and read about Ra and Apophis.

We have been reading about making mummies, sarcophagi, the pyramids, the Black Land and the Red Land, the Sphinx and the Nile.  So far it seems to be interesting enough to have Miss Oh Waily ask me to read about Egypt to her while she is having her lunch.

Here are some of the things she has done so far.

Egyptian Narration & Art

Using the creation myth book from previous entries, we read about Ra and Apophis with Miss Oh Waily doing a drawing of them fighting it out. Then I printed a few different colouring-in sheets for her to do (and her brother had to have some too). Can you tell that she is a bit in love with the gold and silver Artline pens? Perfect for those gilded and bright masks and sarcophagi.

Home made Pyramid

Then I cut out (they were a bit fiddly) the shape of a pyramid and let her colour it in. Together we used sellotape to make the final 3D item.  I’m not sure what the Pharoahs would have thought of the aesthetics, but hey a five year old had fun designing it.

Home made Cartouche

And finally, we collaborated on creating a cartouche.  Miss Oh helped a bit with the rolling out of the base and the making of the sausage that created the edge.  Then once it was dry* she set to it with her paints.  I’m contemplating whether to create the hieroglyphics to spell out her name and seeing if she wants to add them to it later.  I’ll see how it goes.

And that has been our first foray into the world of ancient Egypt.  No doubt we will now move on for a while, but I hope to come back for a visit soon.

SOME WEBSITES ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT

—
* it’s made of DAS modeling clay, so she had to wait.  A great lesson in patience alone.

Pancake Day interrupted

/ Ms Oh Waily / 4 Comments

For those who have followed us over at Oh Waily prior to the establishment of The Pukeko Patch, you will know that amongst our family traditions we choose to have a special breakfast on Sunday mornings.  This is known as Pancake Day.

Last Pancake Day we had a bit of an in-house drama first thing in the morning.  Young Master Oh Waily and his sister were playing in the living room when a shriek was sent up and I whipped through from the dining room.  I found the lad sitting on the floor screaming the place down.  My first thought was “what’s happened?”  My second thought, when I got close enough to see his face clearly, was “MR OH WAILY, I NEED A HAND!”.  After which I dashed to the cupboard and grabbed a face cloth, hurriedly wet it and rushed back to the living room.  The two Oh Waily men were facing each other, one tending to the other.  Face cloth was duly applied to forehead and I headed off in search of the medical kit.

Blood flow staunched.  Temporary bandage and wrapping applied to small person.  My but doesn’t the head produce an awful lot of blood when cut?
Next step was to figure out – hospital A&E or after hours medical.  A quick phone call and we’re all getting dressed to head out to the medical centre.  Master Oh Waily insisted on getting out of his blood soaked pyjamas, so as it turned out we looked fairly respectable while waiting our turn to be seen.

Eventually we were taken to the “fix ’em up” room, our temporary bandage removed and a liberal dose of superglue applied to the boy’s forehead.  Naturally the stinging of the wipe and glue was not taken to kindly, but once it settled down and he had his steristrips & cover on, he was slightly subdued but fine.

On the way home, by way of compensation and treat, we purchased our pancakes from the Golden Arches.  Well, it was a treat for the kids and the parents didn’t have to think about the usual pancake production line after such an exciting* morning.

On the trip home we were finally able to get a reasonably coherent version of what had happened.  Apparently Master Oh was jumping up and down saying “Ha ha ha, you can’t catch me”, or variant, to his sister.  We’re not completely sure if as part of this he just jumped in such a way that brought his head into contact with his vicious assailant, or whether he stumbled or tripped as part of the jumping.

Either way, here is the end result of taunting your sister in a completely empty (apart from all the usual furnishings) room.  Ouchie?  Much!
Bumpy boy

His father took this a couple of moments before the doctor cleaned it up and applied the superglue.  One for the album, I think.  I just hope he doesn’t make a habit of doing this sort of thing to himself, I don’t think my heart can take it.

And, as for the vicious assailant.  Here it is, in all it’s glory.  As we understand it, Master Oh’s forehead must have connected with either one of the top two shelves of the TV stand.  As you can see, he worked wonders with very little exposed area to play with.

The offending object

—
* that would be a euphemism for stressful.

History in a nutshell: Volume 1

/ Ms Oh Waily / 6 Comments

So it will come as no surprise to those who know me that I’m a bit of a history geek.  And when I decided to try out the classical education ready-made curriculum that I’ve been talking about lately, I was introduced to a series of potted histories of the world designed for children.  I figured I might as well go the whole hog if I was going to give this a fair chance, so after rummaging around the local library systems and coming up blank I headed off to my beloved Book Depository and placed my order.

It arrived today.  And I think I might just be a little bitty bit in love with a book.

As you can see from the title this is Volume 1: Ancient Times.  It will be introducing history and cultures to my children that I did not get to know in any great way until I was in my late teens/early twenties.

I get to tell them about Hammurabi and that I’ve seen his stele in the flesh, so to speak.  We get to chat about Sargon, the Mycenaeans (been there too, got the photographs to prove it), Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and Confucius.  A snippet by snippet introduction to our earliest history and some of the legacies of those times and people.  A great way to put your alphabet and writing into a context while you are practicing using it.

I can see myself using a relaxed version of Classical Education, no stress, no long hours of study, or copy work, just gentle reading and scene setting with some arts and crafts thrown in for good measure.

Look out for my post about our current reading and learning adventures in Ancient Egypt, that’s coming up next week.

So, what do your kids know about the history of the world?  Do you think it’s important or irrelevant to your child’s education?  Leave a comment, I’d love to know what you think and what you do.