unschoolers...how do/did you deal with math? (and other fears)

[canuckgal]

I have got major math fears! That's funny because math was my best subject in school but by no means do I use advanced math in real life or even in my job (I am an RN...MAYBE some BASIC algerbra type stuff sometimes when figuring out med doses/IV rates)

I am a pretty new unschooler but have been reading/researching about it for the last 3yrs or so. My kids are young (5yr, 28 mo) and it seems to me I really can trust that my kids will naturally learn in all areas but this math stuff. Even with reading and writing...dd (the 5yr old) just yesterday saw me making my grocery list, and wanted paper, she has been making "lists" forever now (just wavy lines across paper) and asked me what milk and eggs looked like, I wrote them and she did a few scribbles and actually drew the letters i,h,and o from memory. This just floored me...we have never sat down and "done writing" except the odd time she has wanted to know what her name looks like or something, and I have shown her but never "made" her do it. She loves books, and we get her anything that looks "fun and interesting" not just because it is educational or get her something that is in her current area of interest...animals have been big for a long time and that has touched on even biology, geography, etc. I can see how she makes the connections and how one interest branches into something else, so this is where I am slowly as I go along developing the trust in how unschooling and how they make their own connections and world view works.

It's just math that I am having a block especially now that dd is "school age" I read here and on MANY other unschooling sites how math is not separate from everyday life and here are some ways you can see that like cutting brownines or playing the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, but I just can't translate that to my everyday life. I am caught between trying not to see math as "drill" and "times tables", (yet seeing how much dd seems to know without me doing math lessons everyday like counting to 20, comparisons like big vs small, she seems to have some estimation skills and a very rudimentary idea of length of time...she has an Usbourne book of numbers and I was shocked at how much of it she seemed to grasp) and trying to have math be "natural" KWIM?

I find myself looking at things like websites, books, games more in the light of "is this going to teach her some math?" vs playing dice or go fish or something for the joy of sharing time with my kids and that is where this whole thing is awkward, it feels manipulative to me and I have this fear that she will never learn more than she already knows it I am not more "proactive" in "strewing stuff" (and keep in mind they are free to "reject" it if they want). I hate this!

I want to just play cards or dominoes or something for fun, just the same as we would read a neat library book or something.

Any advice on how to get rid of those ulterior motives that creep up? And to get rid of this fear that I am not "doing enough" to expose my kids to math and wanting to get rid of the feeling I need to "teach them" in this area or have a major anxiety attack trying to find more for them to "do" besides count cookies or something or talk casually in "math terms" to them to give them a math volcabulary to use like I have read in some books (like "here sweetie, you have two cookies, I gave you one more, that makes three!)

Some other musings I guess is that at what point is it teaching and at what point is it just living real life...does it depend on your motive or what you do when your child isn't interested in the material you are "strewing". And is strewing manipulative? When you are not very "math-y" and are more arts/nature/liturature focused as we are does that put you at a disadvantage?

I am really interested in particular in hearing from you long time unschoolers how things worked out for you in this area, with dealing with your fears if you had any.

Sorry this post is so long!

Tina, dp James dd Stephanie and ds Jonathan :

[UnschoolnMa]

Originally Posted by canuckgal

Some other musings I guess is that at what point is it teaching and at what point is it just living real life...does it depend on your motive or what you do when your child isn't interested in the material you are "strewing". And is strewing manipulative?

Math does seem the scariest thing for a new unschooler I think. A lot of unschoolers (and maybe just homeschoolers in general) do the "strewing" thing. Our family does not. It does feel manipulative to me. I prefer to just get things that seem interesting to us or that I think my children might enjoy and be honest about it. "I found this dice game at Goodwill. It looked sort of cool...thought you might like it. I stuck it in the cabinet." or "There's a book at the library that looked really neat. It had these images of..." and so on.

My only inention or motive is to share things that seem cool, fun, or interesting with the people I love. I don't have any educational motives because to me that would imply that my child isn't learning what he needs unless I step in with my strewing. This doesn't work for me because I see learning as a constant, and it doesn't work for me as an unschooler. I do understand that many do this though, and I hope I am not being disrespectful. To each their own and all.

When you are not very "math-y" and are more arts/nature/liturature focused as we are does that put you at a disadvantage?

Well it depends on what you think a disadvantage is. I am not a math person. Meaning it's not where my mind runs to naturally. I am a verbal arts person. While I will never be a math scholar (the very idea makes me want to gouge my eyes out with boredom to be honest lol) I don't see myself at anymore of a disadvantage than someone who is naturally math-y would be because they aren't naturally verbal or arts oriented. We are what we are lol.

I learned math that got me through, and unschooling with the kids has really helped me feel free (as in not in school math class) to explore math in a way I never got the chance to as a child. I have been honest with the kids about math they will probably find themselves needing at some point (their GED test, college class, perhaps future employment), and they've seen me work with math and learn new things. We've played games that use numbers, etc. Dd loves calculators, and tape measures have been fun. I have casually commented on how math is everywhere when it's come up somehow. "See and people say that we'd have to have a math lesson to learn this!" :LOL

[UnschoolnMa]

Something I wrote about math and unschooling some time ago, somewhere (maybe here even lol):

One thing that sticks out very sharply in my own memories of school was math. I even remember the time of day we did math in 4th/5th grade, it was just before lunch time. I remember that math was usually approached with a certain amount of dread and the idea that math was "hard" and surely not in any way fun or interesting. It was clear to me that even most of the teachers thought this was hard and boring stuff and that we should just grit our teeth and suffer through.

I don't know if I am the only one with that type of math memory, but I doubt it. I grew up hating math and being presented with a string of numbers just plain freaked me out! What is worse is that I began to believe I wasn't supposed to be good at it, being a girl and all, and that I never could be, after hearing everyone say "language and reading have always been her strong suits anyway". So I steered away from math and vowed that whatever careers I decided to look into during my lifetime should have the least amount of math I could possibly manage.
When we started unschooling, after the usual questions one we started hearing was "but what about math?"... What about it indeed.

My children left school just after they had started the 2nd (daughter) and 5th (son) grades. The math phobia I had picked up on in school had gotten to my son already. He admitted that math intimidated him just a bit and that the "timed" quizzes in school were dreadful for him. My daughter hadn't yet learned to be afraid of it (wasn't in school long enough maybe?) and enjoyed number play. She wanted to play dice games, count pop can and bottle return amounts, sort change into piles, buy her own candy at the store, play with Monopoly cash, use rules and tape measures, calculate things on calculators, and determine distance from one place to the next and so on. My son in time picked up on math as the always-around-us thing that it, of course, is and began to work out the occasional math puzzle as it would become necessary. For him it was just the everyday business of stuff and no longer an unpleasant thing where one needs to get 30 problems correct in 15 minutes or less, before the teacher's timer beeps.

Unschooling helped me find my inner math lady. I needed to unschool myself apparently (still am and I am loving it). Now I may still not be the fastest long division doer, or the best equivalent fraction finder. I really don't care though, because I am just happy to be searching out math games to play and not being terrified of place value. I am even happier that my children are discovering math and numbers on their own terms, and that math won't ever become the scary monster it was for me for so many years. It's a language, a code, a game, and a tool, but not a monster.

[Karenwith4]

check out livingmath.net and its yahoogroup - excellent resource!

I'll add more later - sorry to post and run

Karen

[Wilhemina]

I'm guess I'm not really an unschooler, but I think I'm about as far on the homeschooling curriculum you can get without crossing into unschooling, iykwim. I feel comfortable introducing a game/activity/whatever with the express purpose of exploring a topic or skill. But, I don't try to hide my motives and I don't force anyone to do it. More frequently, I notice (often aloud) the occassions when a math idea comes up and might explore the idea in conversation. My profs called these "teachable moments."

For example, from your post:

Grocery store. You're dd is naturally intersting in listing, words, and letters because of your normal activities. It seems almost impossible that she won't become interested prices, quantities, and weights also. (My girls love to compare the weights of produce and collect coupons.) I would and have encouraged this gently, but I'm sure it's not necessary if it's not your style.
I could go on and on about grocery store lessons, if you want - we've done many. Keeps the dds less fussy about the outing.

Y'all enjoy the library. Has she noticed the numerical system used to organize all the animal books? She undoubtedly will eventually if you don't feel comfortable pointing it out.

Other thoughts:

When I studied democratic or free schools I was struck by the teachers' experience that students with no formal "math" training could, when ready and interested learn K-8 math in @6 weeks of study. Having taught middle school math myself, this seems right on to me. If they are not trained to see math as a list of "addition facts" or "problems" on a worksheet, people can't help but attend to and explore numbers and math concepts every day. That gives them the background they need to understand formal textbook type math.

Be aware that just because your dd will completely understand (for example) the concept of addition, she won't automatically understand a written number sentence ( 12 + 6 = ?) without some explaination. I'm afraid that some people misinterpret this is being *behind* in math.

I personally won't give higher math a second thought right now. By then you will have a much better understanding of how unschooling works for your dc and can work accordingly. What I mean is I'm planning crossing those bridges when they come (math is not my fear, but I do have others!). No need to "borrow trouble" as my Granny says.

I hope something in there was helpful!

[Lillian J]

I realize this is a fairly old thread, but I just ran across it while looking for something else. Ironically enough, math is something that can be exceptionally creative and fun for unschoolers in particular!

I just got through updating links in my long list of good math websites and articles (many having to do with unschooling math) - including lots of activity and game ideas, as well as interactive sites for kids. If you scroll through this page, you'll find lots of things that will help answer this question: Go Figure!. If you read through the list before starting to click on links, it will be well worthwhile - you'll find a lot of ideas toward the bottom of the list that are just as interesting as ones in the beginning, since it's alphabetical rather than in order of importantc. My site is totally non-commercial with no ads or associate links - just a collection of favorite articles and links. Lillian

[umbrella]

My kids are young (5yr, 28 mo) and it seems to me I really can trust that my kids will naturally learn in all areas but this math stuff. Even with reading and writing...dd (the 5yr old) just yesterday saw me making my grocery list, and wanted paper, she has been making "lists" forever now (just wavy lines across paper) and asked me what milk and eggs looked like, I wrote them and she did a few scribbles and actually drew the letters i,h,and o from memory. This just floored me...we have never sat down and "done writing" except the odd time she has wanted to know what her name looks like or something, and I have shown her but never "made" her do it. She loves books, and we get her anything that looks "fun and interesting" not just because it is educational or get her something that is in her current area of interest...animals have been big for a long time and that has touched on even biology, geography, etc. I can see how she makes the connections and how one interest branches into something else, so this is where I am slowly as I go along developing the trust in how unschooling and how they make their own connections and world view works.

Well golly, to be honest, when you started going into the story, and mentioned the grocery store...I thought you were going to talk about how you both were doing the math that must be done in grocery shopping!

Things in a grocery store cost money. There's addition. Decimals. There's multiplication (beans cost 60 cents; you're getting 4 cans of beans). There's subtraction (This is $1.49, but we have a coupon for 30 cents off). There are fractions, division (Bananas: 4 lbs for a dollar!). There's the grocery budget. Let's not spend more than we brought. There's comparision shopping between brands, among brands between sizes. There's comparision shopping between the different sizes of mini-wheats! Should you get the 11 oz box, that costs $2.49, or the 14 oz box that costs $2.99?

There is a LOT of math ground you can cover just by living life there. I mean, this stuff falls under just home-ec stuff that needs to be passed down to the kids anyway.

But that's not all either. Games that have math involved are not always manipulative. I mean, I got dd1 monopoly jr because I thought she'd like to play monopoly. Turns out, she ended up figuring out some math in the process. I don't feel "dirty" because my approach is not tricky Games are good and fun, and how else will they know the game is there if I don't expose her?

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by umbrella

Well golly, to be honest, when you started going into the story, and mentioned the grocery store...I thought you were going to talk about how you both were doing the math that must be done in grocery shopping!

And I was reading so fast last night - in such a hurry, and exhausted from all the website tweaking I'd been dong - that I didn't even catch that. Since your kids are so young, they would probably even enjoy having a play grocery store too. Empty containers of food, etc., and a play register with play money can be fun. Not as lessons - just for their own unstructured playtime. You can play a lot of common card and board games that will bring in a lot of math understanding too - and there's no reason to make any of it into lessons either. There are lots of ideas in this article: The Delights of Exploring Math with Your Child - and it has links to websites full of great ideas. Scroll down for that sort of thing.

I guess some of the purists will feel that it isn't "unschooling" if you purposely do things that bring math into your lives, but I've never been a purist in anything else I've done and never strove to be a purist in that either. Well, I was just taking a break from the kitchen - back at it. Folks about to arrive for Thanksgiving. I hope you're all having a lovely day. Lillian

[callmemama]

We unschool. Ds just turned 6 (but he could do all this at 5). He can count to 100 and beyond. He can count by 2's and 10's. He can count to 15 in Spanish. We learned about Roman Numerals when reading an older book with the chapters numbered in Roman Numerals. When he was 4, he "discovered" the fun of tape measures and measuring things. I bought him Operation because I always wanted that game when I was kid - he likes to be the banker! I bought him 7 Wood Teasers because he played with them somewhere, just putting the pegs in - now he does addition from the dice. He helps me cook and understands the concept of fractions. He can do simple addition and subtaction (in his head vs on paper). These are things that came about through everyday life, and sometimes he just starts talking about numbers and we go from there... I'm not suggesting he's advanced or anything and maybe he's "behind" (I don't know what kindergartners typically know about math), but he still has an innate curiosity and love of learning. I don't worry about him not picking up math at all.