Only a homeschool mom could be  excited over a math curriuclum.  It's a bit scary for me that I have such excitement over this very same thing.   Two years ago, when Mia was having such difficulties with math,  I started reading all that I could about the various ways of teaching this subject.  I came across the term  "living math.'   This term stuck with me.  The idea of doing math by reading books,  playing games and doing hands on activities interested me.   I knew that Mia, my book and activity loving girl, would love attacking math in this way.   I was right.  She refers to the living math part of our day as 'fun math.'   She has become quite comfortable in doing math sans curriculum.

     When I was reading all about math,  i came upon theliving math website.  If you have never visited there before, put your mouse on the above link and click away.  This site is an amazing collection of living math ideas,  books and games.  This site is essential to anyone attempting a living math lifestyle.

     Julie, the owner of the site,  is an amazing woman.  If it is possible to have an online mentor, then that is what she is for me.  She doesn't know me from Adam, but she has helped me in innumerable ways in math and homeschooling in general.  Her relaxed, classical homeschool style is what I try to emulate in our own family.  She gives so much of her time to help others with math and homeschooling in general.

     When I first found the living math site, I discovered that Julie had math history lesson plans for all ages that incorporated living math.   I found this very interesting.   I kept coming back to it, reading all that I could but I kept passing it by because I didn't think it would work for us.  Over the past two years, though,  these lesson plans kept seeping into my brain lettng me know that they were still there if I ever had the desire to snatch them up.  The desire finally hit  this past week.

     I have decided to use these plans for the summer as well as next year.  I am so excited!  Julie has combined history, science and math into these plans.  We will learn about  Thales,  Pythagorus,  Archimedes and Galileo just to name a few.  Math activities are woven in amongst the history and science reading.  The amazing thing about these lesson plans is the book list.  It is amazing!  The big thing for me was to see if our library had these book titles.  I spent all day last Saturday and Sunday checking our ILL.  Lo and behold,  we have most of these books in our library system.  This is when the excitement really bubbled over.  After waiting for two years,  we were actually going to get to do this.  The other great thing about waiting this long is that now all of my kids can take part in this adventure.  There are three levels in which you can buy the plans: primary, intermediate and advanced.  Technically, Mia should be doing the Intermediate level but I think that she will do just as well doing the primary level with her siblings.  I think this might just inspire confidence in Mia that she so badly needs in the area of math.

     I have contacted Julie about purchasing these plans and we are a go.  As soon as she receives my payment,  she will download the plans to me.   Did I say already that I am so excited?   I think that this will be the icing on the cake for our math time.  Finally, it is all coming together. 

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