• Sep. 13, 2008
Right Brain Math
I recently came across this website by Dianne Craft. She has written several articles about being right brained. I believe Taylor is as right-brained as they come although before reading up on it I would have thought that the whole right brain/left brain thing was ridiculous nonsense. Oh boy, have my thoughts changed.
In Mrs. Craft's math article she talks about ways to help right brain children learn the details of math such as the basic math facts. Apparently RB (right brain- my own abbreviation
) kids learn concepts better than they do details. That has certainly played out in Taylor's life. We have been working on memorizing her addition/subtraction tables for almost 4 years now and you could count on 2 hands the ones that she can recall. And we drill math EVERY DAY! I bought the level one Calculadder for her toward the end of 1st grade and she is still just on her plus fours! We haven't even touched memorizing subtraction facts and she is in the 3rd grade.
Mrs. Craft gives a few pointers in this area. She recommends something called touch math which I am not familiar with. She also gives a couple of ideas in regards to using flash cards- like putting the answer on the FRONT of the flash card (in color) so that they can see the 'whole picture'. Or using the triangle flashcards. That way they can picture the numbers together and know when one is missing no matter which one it is. That would help with addition or subtraction.
The biggest help so far has been the idea to make pictures and stories out of the math facts. To me, this would seem a huge waste of time and a real struggle to think of. I knew that I would not be able to come up with different stories for each fact family, so I enlisted my dear little RB daughter's help! Our entire math lesson on Friday consisted of drawing pictures and thinking of stories. She was in heaven! Seriously, I have never seen her so excited about something we've done in school- especially not math.
I explained just a little bit about right brain and left brain. I told her that I was left brained and she was right brained and that was why sometimes we had a really hard time understanding each other. I named off some characteristics of RB learners and asked her if that described her. She was very excited. Probably because she felt like there was somebody out there who understood her. I explained what we were going to do in math and that I would need her help because being LB, I was not nearly as creative as her. She just ate this up. I think for once she felt like she was smart and could do something well.
I did the first one to give her an idea of what I was talking about. Here's a picture of the front of the card.
The story on the back goes, "The 8 year old brother and the 3 year old brother love to play in the yard and climb their 11 trees." Very unimaginative I know considering Taylor is 8 and Isaac is 3 and their favorite past time is climbing trees.
What can I say, I'm left brained!
She took off after this. I gave her the math fact and she came up with the stories. We drew the pictures together. I must admit, even with my mind set on doing this to help HER learn best, I still struggled with wanting her to do things my way. For instance, I wanted all the numbers lined up just so like they were on my card. She had other ideas. Also, her picture with the bats drove me nuts because she insisted that the baby bat had to have a nest and the daddy bat had to be carrying a basket. I'm very proud of myself for not insisting on my own way.
Here are the other cards we did complete with stories.
Batty Seven went off in search of food for his 2 year old baby bat. He found a delicious meal of 9 sweet mosquitoes to bring back and share. Batty 7 ate 7 mosquitoes and baby bat ate 2 mosquitos. 7+2-9
3 thirsty thieves climbed the seven steep stairs to taste the 10 tall smoothies at the top.
Matilda 2 was pregnant with twins when she rode her bike 6 miles to the hospital. The doctor gave her 8 shots and then she went back home.
The little brown monkey 8 4 yummy bananas and had 12 pieces of banana peel left over.
It took us 1 and a half hours to do 5 cards, but there was no tears and she had fun. This was much better than the usual one and a half hours for math filled with tears from both of us. Oh, her Daddy called during math and she actually wanted to tell him what we were doing. She proceeded to let him know that she was a right head brain and Momma was a left head brain so that meant that she was very creative and liked colors. Then she told him about the stories she was writing and all the funny pictures. Ah, sweet success!
Comments
• Sep. 13, 2008
Untitled Comment
Posted by Anonymous
When she gets up to multiplication you will love it. There are 2 books already written using what you did.However, her stories are just great.My son is a lefty, and he can learn about anything if he puts a tune to it.They have songs about Geography, like learning the states. You might want to try that, and see how she does.Her stories are awesome, she did an incredible job. What's more you both enjoyed it. Leena
• Sep. 13, 2008
Untitled Comment
Posted by bethanyrae
Oh my goodness!! Maybe this is what we need. We saw something on the 10 commandments that looked like those cards and he learned it in a snap. He struggles with just about everything else. He's quite dyslexic and is getting tutoring for reading. This is right brained stuff? Hm.
bethanyrae
• Sep. 17, 2008
Untitled Comment
Posted by kimalita
How cute is that?! Terrific way to learn --- that is the beauty of what you are doing with her, teaching her at home. Bravo!!!!
