March's books

• Spirits in the Wires, by Charles de Lint
• The Big Necessity, by Rose George
• Suddenly Frugal, by Leah Ingram
• The Second Brain, by Michael D. Gershon, M.D.
• The Next Thing on my List, by Jill Smolinski
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (books 1-5), by Rick Riordan
• Ranger's Apprentice, book 7, by John Flanagan

Grown up games for older kids

You might have some idea that games can be educational. After all there are word games like Scrabble, Boggle, and Huggermugger. There are quiz games like Trivial Pursuit and "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". Hey, quizzes must be educational since they happen in school right? ;-)

Well, let me tell you, there's something even better out there. If the last game you remember playing was something like Monopoly or Sorry, you've been missing out on some great stuff.

All the games listed here are within reach of my 8 year old, yet enjoyed by this 40 something.


Settlers of Catan - a resource building game that started many folks on Euro games.

Carcassonne - build a medieval world in this tile laying game.

San Juan - We played this card game last summer when we were on the sailboat for 2 weeks. I never got tired of it.

Dominion - another card game I don't get tired of.

Alhambra - build a castle using tiles purchases with cards, way more fun than I make it sound.


There are many more Euro style games out there, these few are just some of the ones that my family have enjoyed.

New Find

I usually have more to say, but tonight I just want you to notice I listed a new blog on my blog roll. This gal is just cool beyond words!

MathMamaWrites

Check it out!

Math struggles

A friend on a list posted something like this:

"My 7yo struggles with math every single day. It takes us at least an hour and a half every day with her crying and we're still getting nowhere. I struggled the same way as a kid, and I'm not enjoying this."


Here's my response:

The great thing about homeschooling is that if what you're doing isn't working, you can do something else! Here are some of my thoughts. This is a subject I really care about. Math is really lots of fun! So if I get too passionate, forgive me. Take anything that works, and toss the rest. You know your family best.

I get that you're expecting a baby soon, and that keeping up with everything is starting to get overwhelming. Honestly, it's ok to just take a break, or at least relax your approach, until the baby is older and you're starting to come out of the baby fog. You could call it "extended spring break" or "unschooling" if you need to explain it to anyone (yourself included!)

7 is so young! I promise, you have plenty of time for her to learn what she'll need as an adult.

There's a fair bit of research that shows that emotional content affects learning. If what you're doing is hard on both of you, you're probably suffering needlessly. Things that have a positive emotional context tend to be remembered, with the positive emotions reinforcing the material. Negative emotions tend to be remembered too, associated with the material, and the material itself isn't remembered.

You say you struggled with math and still don't like it. I bet she picks up on this. She's a smart one. I think finding something you both enjoy, at least a little bit, could really help.

I have a B.S. in Engineering and a minor in mathematics. I loved math after about age 10. Before age 10/11 I was considered "remedial" but after I was "gifted". Both of these labels are wrong, made up to describe a child who doesn't meet the expectation of "average". Honestly, some kids just take longer to grow into themselves, and that is perfectly normal. She just might not be ready. Sometimes we get into our heads that we are "bad" at something, when really we just didn't meet another's arbitrary expectations. Unfortunately we can grow up believing someone else's inaccurate judgment of us.

So with all that in mind here are a few quick ideas to consider:

Set your curriculum aside for a bit. Take a break or try something else.

Play store, use play money to pay and make change. (My kids made up a game on their own where they cut pictures out of catalogs and then "sell" them to each other from their individual "store" and set up their own "house" or "town" using what they've purchased. )

Pennies are great manipulatives. Get some paper change rolls and roll the coins in your change jar. Give them to your favorite charity or use for a family treat.

Check out some books with math puzzles or math games from the library. We have math because it's useful and fun, work together to find out how it's useful and fun in your life.

Games - most games have an element of math in them, just play them! Have some fun! Try anything that uses dice, adds up points, has shapes, etc... Yatzee and Scrabble both use math. Legos, tiles, blocks, etc... all have innate mathematical relationships that help build math intuition.

Take a look at the book "Family Math" it has lots of games at different levels.

Check out Living Math for more ideas of how to "do" math, w/o boring work sheets.
http://www.livingmath.net/

There are so many ways to approach math, don't get stuck in something that isn't working for you.

Common struggles

On two entirely separate lists a similar topic came up. They went something like this (paraphrasing):

"My son is currently 6yo and in the 1st grade. He fights doing his school work. He's much more interested in playing with his LEGOs. He really hates writing, but I'm afraid to not make him do it. I am so stressed out."

or this

"My 7yo struggles with math every single day. It takes us at least an hour and a half every day with her crying and we're still getting nowhere. I struggled the same way as a kid, and I'm not enjoying this."

I posted about "language arts" earlier, and posted my response to the math here.

I hear the very real pain in these parent's voices. When both the parent and the child are struggling with homeschooling, it's time to change something.

When I write back (sympathetically I hope) I have to start with "They're still so little!" This is an age when they should still be playing. Play is a child's work. Play is how they learn. If you feel the need to guide their learning, then play with them! Don't make the learning process painful for either of you.

What's the Heinlein quote? "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It frustrates you and irritates the pig."

Unlike the pig, your child will learn, I promise. They might not learn the way you want or expect them too. By forcing something in a way that is contrary to their learning style, or too early, you run the very real risk of turning them away from something that presented differently, or just a little later, would be very natural and satisfying to them.

Folks, don't irritate the pig.