Posted in Charlotte Mason - general

I am reading Elizabeth Foss's book entitled Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home. First of all, I am LOVING this book! I am finding that I agree with almost everything she says about education. She has implemented a lot of Charlotte Mason ideas with her children (8 now, I think.) and has written a lot of practical help in this book for fleshing out these ideas.  I am all about a book with practical ideas!

Here is what Elizabeth says about math in the beginning of her chapter on math:

"Math cannot be confined to a written page. It needs to be touched. Your child should play with it, experiment with it, internalize it.  He should encounter the "aha!" over and over again during the years he learns at home."

I agree with this completely! So much so that we are "ditching" our workbook curriculum from last year and venturing out into the unknown.  By unknown I just mean that for a  season (not saying how long this will be...could be a few months, maybe a year, maybe more...) we are not going to use a "boxed curriculum" guide for our math. I am going to use a lot of Ruth Beechick's ideas in her little booklet entitled, An Early Start in Arithmetic. Hands on, manipulatives, 100s chart, dominoes, cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks, counting, reading living math books -- that I found here:

http://www.pennygardner.com/mathclassics.html

I am excited and nervous at the same time! I want my children to have a good foundation in math, their daddy is VERY math oriented, he became an accountant.  But, I don't think Hannah was "getting it" by writing in numbers on a workbook page this past year. I think she did great at writing down numbers and filling in the blanks, but I don't think she really GOT addition, subtraction, etc. So, I'm going to go back and allow her to see and work these things with her hands and eyes. I'm hoping this will help me feel like she is grasping it a little better. (Don't get me wrong, I"m not saying a child can't do wonderfully with a math workbook...just for now I think we need something different.)

So, there are the math woes in our household! I'm excited about what we are doing...I have always felt that young children need manipulatives, manipulatives, manipulatives...I'm not 100% sure why I moved away from that this year, but it feels right to be moving back that direction! And I was especially encouraged as I read Elizabeth's chapter this morning on math.