Two Fun Days of Math

Yesterday and today we had fun with math.

Yesterday instead of getting out our Singapore book, or working on fractions from our Painless Fractions book, we grabbed our library books.

We sat in our big chair in the living room and read some books.

First was Millions to Measure by David M. Schwartz. This was a fun book that explained how measurement was and came to be today. Second, we read On Beyond a Million, an Amazing Math Journey. This was a fun book that taught my son the meaning of googol and googolplex. Finally, we started G is for Googol, a Math Alphabet Book. Together, we didn't make it past B because mom got carried away doing binary numbers. I was also tired of reading, so DS took over and made it J on his own. He loved this book and we will finish soon.

It was a fun break from computational math.

Today we read a few chapters from This Book is About Time by Marilyn Burns. This was fun, but I skipped a lot as I was reading. We didn't make it too far, but DS now has an understanding of the time zones. He knew what they were before, but the history behind them was fun to learn (think railroads!) and he has a much better grasp. We then went to our big world map and played what time is it where when it's X time here.

That wasn't enough for our math today, so I grabbed my book of handouts that I made and taught DS Roman Numerals. These have not been covered in Singapore, but something he needed to know. I made a chart for him, and he got the letters down fast. I had printed many worksheets off the net and he did three in about ten minutes. He had a lot of fun. Tomorrow we'll review concepts and read some more of the Time book.

I got all my ideas from Rebecca Rupp's book Home Learning Year by Year. These were all mentioned in the 4th grade section. Well, G is for Googol is mentioned in the 5th grade section. I think these books could be read at a much younger age, too, yet weren't too babyish for a 10-year-old -- which was my biggest worry.

We're stalling right now in math. We have decided to ditch Singapore Math altogether and do something totally crazy. Tonight I ordered Lial's Basic College Math. We are going to start working in that book and using the Key to books as supplements easing him into concepts.

I was really surprised when I read the Table of Contents of BCM. I think it will be very doable for my bright boy. My husband, the engineer, asked me why I hadn't done this a long time ago. He mentioned that he was going to suggest it, but that I spent so much time researching curriculum that he thought I had already decided against a basic math book. I had never even thought of such a book until some friends were discussing it. In fact, I didn't know such an elementary college math book existed. Shows what I know!

Hoping it all works out!