Math in Fact

I don't know why I didn't think of this a million  years ago. If we do our math speed drill last, Samuel has plenty of motivation to move rapidly through the problems so he's done with school for the day!

We have pages of simple additional, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems. The idea is to get the student to where he doesn't have to stop and remember each math fact -- it comes to mind naturally and rapidly. "Rote" learning is not popular these days in education circles, but for math, it is important.

This proved itself recently for our second oldest daughter. Esther had an accounting exam in a college class, and she forgot her calculator. Taking the test later was not an option. So she sat there and did all the calculations by hand taking advantage of the speed and accuracy she'd gained doing speed drills all those years ago!

Math, No Problem!

After a rather difficult start to our homeschooling day (every question was answered with "squamwich!") we moved on to an exciting math lesson on the abacus.

First, a word of background. Working with Samuel's older brother Isaac, I found it helpful to introduce the opposite operation close in time to the principle operation. So addition and subtraction are taught almost simultaneously -- same with multiplication and division (in all its forms).

Today, after doing a few addition problems on the abacus, I turned it around and started showing Samuel subtraction. After he did a few correctly, I let him put up his own problem. He moved all 10 beads over, and I held my breath -- 0 is a pretty big concept, what's he going to do? It didn't slow him down at all. "Ten minus ten," I coached him through the math sentence, "equals zero!" he crowed.