Crazy for Calculating! Making Math Fun

By Sue Smith-Heavenrich
Issue 112, May-June 2002

I was never a math wizard. In fact, if you had asked me way back in third grade what my least favorite subject was, I'd have said math. Or maybe it was fifth grade, when we began learning long division. For some reason, numbers and I just never connected. "I never failed math," I tell my small group of fifth graders, "but I came this close." I stretch my hand out to them, index finger a mere half-inch from the thumb. The students find this amusing. Perhaps it's because I'm their math coach, and we are getting ready for the county "Mathalon" competition. To them, I am the Puzzle Lady. I lead weekly math enrichment workshops full of algebraic thinking games and challenge them to find solutions to word puzzles. At the end of our always too short sessions, I have to force them to go back to their classrooms.

Ages ago, when my husband and I made the decision to homeschool our children, I knew that I'd have to come to grips with my math phobia. That's when I resolved not to say, "I could never do math," or "It's okay if you don't understand math; you'll never use this stuff in real life anyway." Instead, I determined that we would have fun with math. Surely there must be a way of learning without resorting to workbooks and flash cards.

It would be an adventure!

As we set off on our journey, I began to record our discoveries in a homeschooling journal, entries from which I share with you here.

June 16, 1992
Today, after I measured Coulter's height against the paper ruler taped to his bedroom door, he dashed off to his desk and began scribbling furiously. About ten minutes later he came to show me his project. He'd developed a ruler of sorts--a quarter sheet of paper marked with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 spaced at various uneven intervals up one side, and 6, 7, 8, 9 written down the other side. He's been comparing the sizes of Lego blocks, tin cans, and my old slipper.

September 7, 1992
Last month I introduced addition by talking about "one more," as in, "Here's a cookie. Would you like one more? Now how many do you have?" This week our homeschooling friends from New Orleans are visiting. Their daughter has introduced my children to the idea of drawing tally marks to figure out problems. You can write 7 + 7 as /////// and ///////, then count up all the marks, she says. Earlier we discussed the idea of using "sets" to talk about things: a six-pack of juice is a set, two cookies for dessert is a set. Coulter wants to know if he can serve cookies and milk for a snack. Cookies in sets of three, he points out. That's two plus one more.

Young children can learn a tremendous amount of math from their everyday experiences. Setting the table, sorting clean silverware into the kitchen drawer, or matching up socks as they come out of the dryer are all practical applications of math skills we take for granted. You don't need to purchase workbooks or expensive manipulatives to begin learning. Manipulatives are simply concrete objects, like beans or coins or clothespins, that your child can move around as he counts or explores math ideas.

Children who are invited to help bake brownies learn a lot about teaspoons and measuring cups. The holiday season, when you need to bake double batches of gingerbread men, is a good time to let them help you figure out how much 1 2/3 cups doubled is. As our children experience life, they develop ideas about numbers, shapes, patterns of time and space. What math concepts they learn come through their direct observation and play, as well as the language we use to help them talk about what they're doing. Our job is to challenge them to explore their ideas and to explain their thinking to us.

April 4, 1994
"How heavy is my bike?" Toby wonders. This is an interesting problem, since all we have is a bathroom scale and the small pan balance the kids have been using to weigh pennies and toy cars. I'm wondering how a four year old approaches problems, as we carry the scale out to the garage.

"Can you weigh yourself?" I ask. He shows me that he can read the scale and know how much he weighs. But the bicycle is too big for the scale.

"What if you hold it and stand on the scale?" he asks. "That would work," I say. "But then what are you measuring?"

"You plus the bike." He thinks for a moment. "Then we could take away your weight and have the bike's weight."