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January 2015 Unschooling Thread

4K views 148 replies 14 participants last post by  mckittre 
#1 ·
Unschooling or unschooling-inspired thoughts, ideas, ponderings, daily life, conundrums, brags, passages... post here! Happy New Year!

Miranda
 
#3 ·
Happy New Year to everyone!

dd had a New Year party -- unlike the parties we have had so far I had little input into organizing the party - she said that she and her friends would do the planning, each bringing a snack to share, etc. It turned out to be the kind of thing where the word spread and a few little kids whose parents I didn't even know showed up. In all the kids ranged from age 5-13. And it was the younger kids (age 5-8) whose parents I didn't know.

It was interesting because I found it quite strange that they would do this. At the same time I have been reading John Holt's book "Escape from childhood" where he talks about children being allowed to engage in their own social lives and not have parents of children who are friends be obligated to be friends and so on.

We are currently in India and although we are in a big city, the demographics are very diverse. Some people are quite "Western" in that they speak English at home and enjoy a first-world lifestyle. I guess along with that comes absorbing some of the habits that are common in a country like the US, at least in the first-world neighborhoods of the US, where I would expect to meet another parent before I allowed my child to go to their house, or their child to mine, etc. However there are apartments right next to us, which are certainly not "low-income" but a step lower than in our immediate neighborhood and I am wondering if that reflects the difference in culture / habits. Their kids almost always play outside without their parents, from quite a young age (4 or even 3). It had not really occurred to me to understand this as a class difference until this incident with the new year party, where kids just heard about the party and showed up - kind of like what might happen at an teen party.

Outside all these kids play together just fine, partly because they group and regroup as they go along, but in a closed space it was not that easy to find something that all the kids could do - for the 9 -13 year olds we didn't need any organized games because they just had fun being together and could make up games as they went along, but then the younger ones got unruly and I found myself wishing we had limited it to the older kids.

On the one hand I feel like it was a chance to see what would happen if we had this kind of party where we don't manage the event very much. On the other hand it is not something I would want to do again.

But then, there is what John Holt says …
 
#4 ·
We thought our New Year would start with the power outage at 9:20 last night...fortunately the break was discovered and fixed by about 11:00. Meanwhile, we and our five stranded bicyclists grew bored of playing with flashlights, so passed around an e-reader and got through the first six chapters of Moby Dick...lights came on and we finished five and then six.

They left this morning in spite of our assurances that it's melting at our house because of a temperature inversion. A neighbor just called to let us know that we need to keep feeding his pets...he got 37 miles or so from home before having to turn back due to ice.

Youngest hasn't been home since Tuesday but I think the road to town is clear; so maybe after this afternoon's kennels. Snow forecast for tomorrow...could be an interesting weekend for her job.

Deborah
 
#5 ·
Happy New Year to all!

Deborah -- So much ice here this year too! The kids butt-slid half the trail home, and the roads vary from gravel to glare ice, depending on traffic level.

rumi -- That party sounds interesting. Perhaps you could insist she has games for the littles if she invites them again?

Our town does its annual fireworks on New Year's (much too far north to have any useful darkness on Independence Day), so we decided to make it coincide with our monthly family campout. Hiked up to the ridge, had a big bonfire, and watched the show (luckily they have it at 9--it was a long wait after dark in any case). We could only see the big ones, but the kids didn't mind, and my son enjoyed shouting out which metal salts make which color "See that red, that's strontium!" with every bang.

New Year's is my youngest's birthday. She's 4 today, and after hiking back home (which she did singing "Let it Go!" almost all the way), we had dinner and cake and presents for her -- mostly very sparkly presents. Her party's the day after tomorrow. She misses kids (holidays, friends out of town, etc...) so I hope we get some kids to show up for the Friday hike. Tomorrow night is another friend's birthday party, but he wanted only boys, and she's a bit sad that only her brother can go (this kid is right in between them in age).
 
#6 ·
Happy New Year to all!

Deborah -- So much ice here this year too! The kids butt-slid half the trail home, and the roads vary from gravel to glare ice, depending on traffic level.

rumi -- That party sounds interesting. Perhaps you could insist she has games for the littles if she invites them again?

Our town does its annual fireworks on New Year's (much too far north to have any useful darkness on Independence Day), so we decided to make it coincide with our monthly family campout. Hiked up to the ridge, had a big bonfire, and watched the show (luckily they have it at 9--it was a long wait after dark in any case). We could only see the big ones, but the kids didn't mind, and my son enjoyed shouting out which metal salts make which color "See that red, that's strontium!" with every bang.

New Year's is my youngest's birthday. She's 4 today, and after hiking back home (which she did singing "Let it Go!" almost all the way), we had dinner and cake and presents for her -- mostly very sparkly presents. Her party's the day after tomorrow. She misses kids (holidays, friends out of town, etc...) so I hope we get some kids to show up for the Friday hike. Tomorrow night is another friend's birthday party, but he wanted only boys, and she's a bit sad that only her brother can go (this kid is right in between them in age).
Happy New Year everyone.
DS and I have been going to a local park
where there is outdoor skating, and they
Count down new years at 9:00 for 3 years now,
This year we didn't wait for the countdown, as I was cold
And he left willingly when I asked, I think he forgot about
The countdown part actually. It has become quite a fun tradition for him and I
But I realized this year that maybe next year will be our last as it's
Mostly young children.
Hmmm, just writing that has made nostalgic for babies and toddlers.....
(And that does not happen very often)
I want to take this opportunity to tell everyone how much this forum has helped
me. As a new homeschooler (not sure if I'm ready to take the unschooler pledge of
Allegiance yet) the wisdom and honesty in these pages has given me a confidence and sense of security.
So thank you all.
Anna
Ps Mckittre are you featured in FIMBY's outerwear guide?
 
#7 ·
Happy New Year, all.

We've been fighting and playing and creating more flying dragons and painting and vegging and fighting some more and reading our new Christmas books and playing our new Settlers of Catan. Tomorrow we go to Seattle to see the last Hobbit installment at the Cinerama. It's my girls' first theater movie. Hopefully it will be as memorable to them as seeing Star Wars was for me.
 
#8 ·
The following things have been resolved recently:

a) keys, lost in snow by Youngest recovering runaway dog, were found yesterday by me, in the rain. She'd marked the path with plastic easter egg halves. I had gone over the trail several times, but the snow had been trampled down and was in the shade and hadn't melted. I was trying to beat the sleet; this morning's 1/2 inch of white stuff is gone. But I'm so glad I found the keys yesterday!

b) the replacement credit card has arrived. I think I mentioned that Youngest had lost it and my wallet when gassing the car, having left them on the roof on the passenger side while she washed the windows. We drove to town and found the wallet on the third pass; I canceled the cc that night. That was about 20 days ago; my credit union was issuing new cards for all, and the interim card never came, although its pin did. So now Netflix is back, and one food subscription.

c) Youngest herself is back, having been out of pocket since Tuesday, when she was recalled from the far town because of the ice storm to the near town, where she has a job. THEN she went BACK to the far town on the afternoon of the New Year to exercise a horse, and got trapped by the continuing ice storm. This morning she missed her job (ice on road still), but made it back for her afternoon shift, and then home.

d) Son is working on the huge pile of things he brought to town and dumped in the front of the garage. He is an accomplished trasher, apparently. I had asked him twice earlier (two different days) to bring in the bedding; but I think the trigger was when I mentioned that Husband has been waiting for him to put H's motorcycle back together (they disassembled part of it before Son went to school in the late summer)...now Son says he will have the garage cleaned by Monday, and will then work on the motorcycle. Husband had been grumbling because Son had 1) sequestered a number of dirty dishes in his room and 2) had made a dirt bike out of an old bicycle and a weedeeater motor.

The following things have not been resolved:

1) The kid bedrooms, the three foster kittens (well, we could just end up with three extra cats), and the Project Room. (This is called the Family Room by neighbors in the 14 other houses that share this pattern.) I keep thinking it is getting better, but really it isn't. Or maybe so incrementally that I can't tell? Today I was going to make a wooden item to keep Old Cat from going under the futon in there (it is blocked now, but she has end run my efforts), but the power went out while husband and I were going to start up some equipment, so instead we sat inside the control room and listened to the wind howl around outside (65 mph, branches broken by the ice were dropping on power lines) and we heard it wouldn't be back until 3:30 a.m. and because I wanted to use a power saw to cut the wood, I decided on a different project, and when the power actually came on a few minutes after I'd shut down a bunch of computers and turned off the UPS's (they were beeping and driving people crazy)...I had forgotten my project. Maybe tomorrow? I did recycle some obsolete banking papers while protecting Old Cat's meal from Tatsi and White Paws.

As for New Year's Resolutions, I don't make them, because I've discovered that what happens to me is usually better than what I plan. My children hardly need me at all, other than sidling up for gas money, for dyslexia accommodations. The younger still needs some input and interference from me, but shockingly little. So, starting to eye my surroundings speculatively and wonder what's next?

Deborah

p.s. Hoping the New Year brings many good things to all!
 
#9 ·
Anna -- Yes, that's me. :) There aren't a whole lot of folks who take very small children deep into the Alaskan wilderness for months on end.

Deborah -- glad you have keys and credit card again.

Had 4-yo's birthday party yesterday. Not many kids in town, but she enjoyed the chance to play with a couple friends. (All of whom have birthdays this week, coincidentally). She's been dancing around decked out like a rainbow fairy since Christmas. She got a little keyboard from one grandma -- does it make sense to try to teach a 4yo how to play it in any formal way, or just let her mess around?

Figuring out how to play Scrabble with my almost-6-yr-old (who can't read, but really wanted to play). He got to choose his letters, and the rest of us played as normal. Worked better than I expected. I think he mostly likes keeping score, and he certainly has the arithmetic down, if not the spelling.

He's been continuing to lecture people on chemistry for most of his spare time, and has been enjoying making explanatory videos with his molecule kit (with my help as camera-holder, and to operate iMovie). Here's one on Global Warming:
 
#10 ·
I'm looking forward to checking out your link, mikittre.

Today my girls won a very short, intense battle. Every other Monday I committed to watching a friend's girl in town and cleaning her house a little and making dinner. Bringing my girls would release dh to work at the same time, a big boon too us financially. Well, every other kid in the universe could be cajolled into making this work, but not my oldest and where she goes my youngest will follow. I could have stuck to my guns and stuck with the agreed upon trial period, but I already had a marginal time last time, and I don't want that kind of negativity around this little girl. So I gave in. DH's work is optional today, so I'm going myself and letting them know it won't work after today. But also, that the money we were hoping for will not be there for the extras they would want.

Ugh. I feel like such a pushover, but this battle was far too intense. At some point I just have to throw up my hands and acknowledge that they ultimately have the power to tear opportunities like this down. I simply could not have that energy around this little girl. I'm bummed it's not going to work out, and that my oldest is so brittle and stubborn not to let us give it a fair shot.
 
#11 ·
Ouch, that's a bummer, sorry SweetSilver. Could you present your girls with a dollar figure for the lost income and ask them for help figuring out how to cut that much money from the budget? Things that they are willing to sacrifice, since it was [essentially] their choice to forgo the money. Would that feel appropriate, or too punitive? I have to say that sort of scenario would make me really angry: both their parents are doing the actual work, and all they needed to do to augment the family income was turn on pleasant behaviour when they didn't feel like it, but they weren't willing. Maybe if it were me I'd need a few days' cooling off period before discussing it with my kids! Sigh... a couple of my kids are pretty intense with the passive-aggressive stuff when circumstances aren't to their liking, so I definitely understand why you weren't willing to take them along.

I've spent the last few days getting the older kids back to school. Drove 4 hours, dropped ds off at the airport, stayed overnight at a motel, dropped eldest dd off at the airport at 5 the next morning, hung out until the stores opened so I could buy a roof rack, then drove home as a winter storm loomed. Got home just as the snow started. Then the next day I had to make a "quick" trip to town to drop middle dd off for school. Normally I allot 90 minutes for the drive but it took about 2 hours on the way down, and on the way home I actually bailed (and went for a 45-minute ski in the dark) for a while, waiting for the snowplow to come through. Got home after midnight and barely managed to blast through 2-3 feet of snow piled at the end of our driveway. Dh had gone to bed and thus not been aware of how much snow had fallen. Glad I got in, because there was nowhere to park along the highway. It would have been a really long dark walk.

Both Fiona and her ballet teacher are sick right now, which is giving us a slow start to the New Year scheduled activities. She and I do need to have a meeting about how to handle the boredom and default-to-Netflix that was happening in November/December during our days in town. She loves the scheduled activities she has while she's there, but they take up at most 3 or 4 hours out of the day, leaving another 12+ waking hours to fill. It's proving to be a struggle, since in that spartan environment almost anything takes a kind of intentionality that doesn't come easily to either of us. We're more "putterers" by nature, and at home there's plenty to putter away at. In town, almost nothing. We houseclean. We grocery shop. We do basic meal prep. Still a lot of hours to fill.

Today I've been shovelling and snow-blowing. She's been sniffling and coughing in bed while watching Netflix. Slow start to the week.

Miranda
 
#12 ·
Ugh, Sweetsiliver. Unfortunately I can relate. When my kids were younger, I was prevented from expanding my violin teaching schedule by my kids. I was teaching in the living room of our small house (the only place possible; husband still at work) and Son would regularly melt Youngest down on the days I taught. I never learned to resolve this, despite all sorts of approaches. The kids were actually hurting themselves (in addition to me, because I enjoyed the challenge and interaction and small income) because my pool of students was also a source of friends and activities for them. Sigh.

Deborah
 
#13 ·
Sweetsilver-- ouch! That level of stubbornness sounds maddening. What is it they don't like about that girl or her house?

Just got back from a two-day "town" whirlwind. Took MIL's van on the ferry because it's headlights are broken and needed fixing in town. Then loaded up kids into the bike trailer and biked an hour to our friends house once we get there because it was dark already. Then biked to dentists appointments, etc... The whole thing was super logistically awkward because we didn't know when we'd have the vehicle, and it's hard to load up on shopping with a trailer full of kids, and the part didn't come on time anyway, so we did a last minute race through the grocery store and ordered the van part to get sent over on the plane and drove back on the boat with the headlights still broken because MIL was worried if the van didn't make it home that it might get stuck for a month (we're coming up to a big gap in ferry service). This van is the only vehicle for the 7 people currently at our property.

Met our school district homeschool coordinator for the first time while we were there. Actually I didn't say more than two words to her, since my son was so overjoyed to meet someone who was interested in what he was learning that he lectured her about chemistry for a solid hour, drawing diagrams in his notebook, beginning his sentences with things like "You might think that Boron would make 5 bonds... But actually...." I had to drag him out of there. Selfishly, I suppose the fact that he sounds impressive is probably useful to us in that context, and as he's flipping through the periodic table book and spouting memorized facts it's probably not even obvious that he doesn't know how to read.

This was much better than at the dentists, where her method of trying to break the ice with the kids (my son was especially cautious and scared), was to loudly repeat over and over again that he was the smartest 5 yr old she'd ever met. Arrgh! I know I've complained about this before, but I don't want him thinking that being interested in things like the synthesis of heavy elements makes him a genius, and I really don't want my 4yo daughter thinking that not being interested in them means she's not smart.

Happy to be back in my own little world where everyone knows us and we don't have to be weird anymore.
 
#14 ·
Wonderful video, mckittre! He is so passionate and *comfortable* about his subject. I like the lecture series.

My oldest has her quirks. She has never gotten on with kids very well. Sometimes *very* well, so it seems so odd when suddenly she doesn't. Or, I should say, odd when she suddenly does get on. She dislikes little kids. Which means any mobile child up to about the age of 6, currently. Our little girl we watch is just about the sweetest thing on the planet. She certainly is the cutest. But the arrangement is all to much for my daughter. She is extremely single minded. She cannot focus on anything else if something isn't going her way. I have solved mysterious moodiness lasting for weeks just by finding a particular pen she was missing. Even she doesn't understand it. So, it's not just a bratty whim of hers to throw wrenches in my plans. She cannot function normally. She says it herself, she's not "bendy". It's frustrating, but I can work with it.

We've talked and will offer our own home-- again something she has never really loved. Her home is her sanctuary against the world and kids who might invade it. But I have explained how important this arrangement could be for us, and we are talking about how an arrangement like that could work. We will see.

Looking forward to getting back on schedule this week. Monday would have been our first day back to gymnastics, but we were flooded in. Our last girl scout meeting in December was cancelled due to our meeting space being booked (an occasional annoyance in exchange for a weekly free space) and this will be our first day back. We expect a lot of noise!

Our busy season is fast approaching-- cookie sales, possible addition of ducks in April, public 4-H presentations. Poultry club gears back up. Will we do the spring youth fair this year? They want to join the Feather Fanciers so they can show next November. Our poultry barn at fair has birds on wire (booo!), so we don't bring our heavy birds. This would give us a chance to show our big gals.

Time to reserve our camping spots.... Need to settle on a Girl Scout Camp date for the summer.... Plan around county fair....

Our year is getting booked up, and it's barely a week into January! I will take anything over what the mood has been here for weeks. But the girls have been reading, playing rounds of Settlers of Catan and Quirkle Cubes, drawing, painting, and... whatever they have going on downstairs in between bouts of fighting. Something where they have "Top Sekret" books and charts and catalogs of information. I imagine this is where a lot of the fighting comes from. My girls are (usually) very good at taking turns, not so good at collaborating. In fact, they are miserably awful at it. Grrr.... thank heavens for girl scouts is all I'll say.
 
#16 ·
My oldest will be 10 in a month. If you didn't know her social history, you would think this is pushing into the tween moodiness, but it's not. Her expression is more intense, for sure, bordering on melodramatic at times, but not unexpected.
 
#18 ·
She does remarkably well at girl scouts. She can step into a leadership role, step aside and take on various rolls as she needs. Something about her private time keeps her very jealous of it. She understandably dislikes the noise and chaos that younger children create, but she is no slouch in the chaos department herself. I think she will do well as her friends get a bit older, and hopefully she can develop better skills and strike up more friendships with girls her age. Some already seem to be so worldly compared to her. She seems very young by comparison, until she can assume that leadership and she shines.
 
#20 ·
The molecules are made from some kits like this: http://www.amazon.com/Molymod-MMS-009-Molecular-Inorganic-Chemistry/dp/B005RUTZ8Q
I remember using them in college organic chemistry, and I feel it's criminal that students don't get to play with them before that--such a nice hands-on way to visualize a lot of stuff you can't actually see.

We still have fall for winter here. No snow, and it's starting to feel like there never will be.

4yo is off at a sleepover birthday party now. I don't remember doing that kind of thing so young, but it seems common here, and she loves it. Almost 6yo is not interested.
 
#21 ·
The molecule set looks interesting. Great that he gets to play with one so young! We used magnetix in a similar way though I guess it would not have worked for more complex molecules.

I am on the sixth Harry P book, very gripping and I am happy to say that dd is waiting patiently for me to finish it so that we can both read the seventh one together.

We had one of those "I am so lucky to be homeschooling moments today" when we were talking about dimensions and point / line / plane etc and I just saw dd's eyes light up with excitement.

Decided to encourage her to do geometry and algebra in parallel rather than one after another. More variety that way. She has also expressed interest in cooking, which I really have to get more organized to help her do. We did a lot of simple baking etc when she was little but she is eager for more involved cuisine.
 
#22 ·
We've been baking almost everyday, so the two older ones have a warm snack to come home to after school. Yesterday Bobby said he wants to be on Master Chef Kids :) . Then said " I may not win, but I could do alright"
Which is a very long way from last years' " I'm to stupid to do anything", and was too shut down to try.
#thankyouhomeschool once again.
Mckittre that video was great, I checked, they don't ship to Canada, but it did inspire me to look into more science stuff, as that is his interest.
Anna
 
#24 ·
Recently we've been "bookending" our days with books. The girls have taken to reading before lights out. DD8 is reading through our home library. She finished reading a James Herriot collection we recently picked up for Christmas after borrowing it repeatedly over the years (highly recommended-- The James Herriot Treasury for Children). Now she is on a rather dull (to me) baby animal stories book a friend sent us years ago. The girls have always loved it and now forgotten about it but we've been rediscovering old favorites now they can read for themselves. DD10 is reading through a Greek mythology book from the library. Chapters! She's always been self-limiting, but those reservations seem to be fading. This morning the tv stayed off for nearly 1/2 an hour while they read the Hobbit graphic novel and a Graeme Base book about dragons. I've been reading a few minutes to dd10 every night before lights out (which is getting later--yawn!) I've always loved the selections-- we read through Practical Cats again, and began a favorite folk story book by Duncan Williamson, in a Scottish traveller vernacular that makes it fun to read aloud.

Back to gymnastics finally after being flooded in last week. The improvement in mood was marked.

More cleanup today as we still are crawling out from our basement refinishing project this summer. We never have days off together anymore, excepting this holiday season and most of that was spent shopping and visiting and getting our geriatric kitty to the vet, doctor's appts and general Life Not At Home. Now we are back to work-every-day schedule. Very good for our bank accounts, hard to get anything done since often a chunk of the day is spent working through the girls' relationship troubles. Today I think I can make a dent. A very little dent, but still...

I've been wondering recently, especially now that my oldest is just about 10yo, if we have enough resources around the house, especially math. Both get exposure to basic math concepts. Recently they've been getting very good at darts now that dh set up an indoor dart space downstairs. Playing and scoring has been very competitive. Both are very confident and happy about their skills. DD10 is still internalizing fractions. Recently she wanted to make a cake and we were trying to get to 3/4 cup. I hope I wasn't being too patronizing when I asked her how she could get there, and then instead of just telling her brought out 4 quarters to demonstrate. Luckily she was in a generous mood and was patient with my pushing the boundaries a little bit. I know she already knows the concept in a very basic way, so I knew it wasn't a big stretch if she indulged me for a minute. DD8 pulled out our English/metric measuring tape to visualize wingspans. She was asking about centimeters vs. inches and hadn't realized that I bought this specifically so they could see both at the same time (had to special order it!!! You would think.... duh... but contractors here use "contractor measurements" written in inches *and* 1/10 inches.)

That sounds pretty good writing it down, but I'm wondering what I need to do next, just to have around the house. Interest in math has leveled off. Maybe I'm just getting the 10yo jitters. 5th grade girls in our troop seem so.... old .... I might be on the verge of panicking :p The next question would be "What is the next natural step?" Finances are unbelievably tight, especially since it seems our Crappy Old Camry is finally due for repairs to expensive to invest in and we'll need to find a new family vehicle. Ouch.
 
#25 ·
Whenever this chemistry interest levels off, we're going to have 3 or 4 of those Molymod sets! It's all he begs for with his homeschooling money (wants to make more and more complicated molecules), and I guess his most driving educational passion is the best use of it, so I've obliged.

SweetSilver -- I have no idea about what math a 10yo would know, so forgive me if this is totally off-base, but would she like puzzles at all? My son likes to play KenKen puzzles from time to time -- they have logic and math and can be chosen in levels from super easy to challenging for an adult. http://www.kenkenpuzzle.com/# (there are paper books of them too, of course). They have factoring, and such, but not really fractions.

Perhaps this is a separate question that could help me too-- what are the various elementary math concepts that exist for kids to pick up? 4 arithmetic operations with little numbers and big numbers, fractions and decimals, units, measurements, area, ratios, percents, angles... Is that it?

For math, the thing I've wondered is when to step in and introduce "tricks" like borrowing or carrying for arithmetic, or times tables to refer to for multiplication. My intuition is that it's probably better for my son to continue to make up his own mental math shortcuts for all of it, but at some point I should probably at least show him there are other ways.
 
#26 ·
I waited for a very long time to introduce short cuts. You are right-- they often create some themselves. But most short cuts as a means to learn math are irritating to me until they have concepts down pretty solidly and are merely looking to speed things up a bit, fill in gaps, that sort of thing (they don't need to grock "9x9ness" for every single number, for example, in order for times tables to be helpful!) The language needs to catch up as well, I think. For example, when multiplying by 10's and 100's etc, the shortcut often says to "add a zero". Um..... if you are not understanding what is going on, "adding a zero" makes no sense! 10+0 does not= 100!!! Language! Language! :p And with carrying, you don't "add a one" to the next column! You are writing "1", but it is really shorthand for "10" or "100" and kids need to understand that otherwise it is *just* a trick and not really math!

My girls still resist using the shorthand for carrying, even though they realize it would allow them to add numbers they don't even have a word for. Why would they want to add numbers they can't say? (According to their POV.) They much prefer adding in their heads, and their method is to rearrange the numbers to make it easier. I use this method myself now when they ask, and have even included "well, 197 is 3 less than 200, so 2x197 = (2x200)-6. We have been at this level for a long time now. They enjoy it, and, unlike my sister's students, never have they once asked "why do I need to learn this?"

I think your list of elementary math concepts is a pretty good one. Some very basic algebra is a very easy concept to grasp, and even Anno's Math Games has a fair dose of it in his fabulous books. I'm also reminded of the excellent book One Grain of Rice, by Demi. An intriguing mathematical story.

Thanks for the recommendation!
 
#27 ·
Oh, two more math-related things to add, not because they are "need to know" but because the games kids play teach these concepts so easily and can be incredibly useful: graphing and charts, and probability. I have an inkling your son would really get into probability. Yahtzee is the classic game for introducing that concept. We use a little bit placing our settlements in Settlers of Catan, which is what prompted me to remember it.

My girls have spent so many hours using charts and graphs to catalogue just about any tidbit of information they care to collect. They adore devising new information and organizational systems, don't ask me why. They keep track of everything from chicken feathering and personality traits to dragon/ fairy flights (down the hall or stairs) and that Top Sekret project I hear so much whispering about, whatever it is, but I know it uses charts and graphs.
 
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