Today was the launch of 5 Dice: Order of Operations Game App for iPad and iPhone by MathFileFolderGames.com. The app is free. When free sits side by side with the pursuit of education, I rejoice. As a homeschooling mom on a budget and who dislikes math so I am always looking for new ways to inspire my children to appreciate and succeed at math. My recent love for using apps for homeschooling has opened the door to more creative ways to spark an interest in math and to smooth out the rough spots. 5 Dice: Order of Operations Game, sparks … Continue reading →

So much depends on place value. Without place value, a number is just a number. With it, a number can become hundreds or thousands. In our numbering system, we usually begin with the numbers one to ten. These are fairly easy numbers for children to remember: after all, we have ten fingers (including thumbs!). We start by doing simple addition and subtraction. You have five apples, and you eat one. How many are left? But soon, we need to work with larger quantities as well. Numbers range into the hundreds, the thousands, and even the hundreds of thousands. Add more … Continue reading →

It’s the time of year when outside becomes a lot more focus than inside, and so it should. It’s a beautiful time of the year, and the kids need to be outdoors. However, when they’re looking for down time on the computer, and they love math, where can you send them? Here are some of the top math apps that I’m looking at as teaching tools for the summer. My daughter and I both love Math Drills and Math Drills Lite. The lite version is free, and the paid version is only $1.99. While the app is not beautiful, it’s … Continue reading →

Some children excel in math, and find it to be a fun game to play with. Other children struggle to gain number sense and have great difficulty connecting the math on their paper to a real world application of it. Here are some activities that can help struggling learners to understand certain math skills a little better. Each family is unique, but all of them share a few things in common. Everyone has to go grocery shopping. Each family has to eat dinner every night, (hopefully together). Eventually, everyone has to take the time to get the laundry done. These … Continue reading →

Positive and Negative Numbers 1. Using a play by play summary of a real game or a made up game have students calculate yardage for both teams. Have your children will determine total yardage then deduct the penalties or negative yardage from the total. 2. Make a number line using positive and negative numbers. Print out a football or football player to move up and down the number line. Write plays and penalties on index cards. Have your child pick a card to determine if he moves forward or backwards on the number line. Once the card is selected your … Continue reading →

Yes, yes indeed. Legos are a great resource to be used in a homeschool setting. Lest you think I’ve been sniffing the plastic, let me explain. First of all, part of brain development is based on the child’s understanding of how to take a flat object and fold it up into something three-dimensional. By taking flat blocks and building them up into a plane or a house or an animal, your child’s brain is being exercised. Second, it’s good for a child’s brain to envision a finished product and then to work toward that goal, using the materials at hand. … Continue reading →

Teaching Kindergarten math is one of my favorite things to do as a homeschool mom. The lessons are always fun, hands on, and entertaining for the student. One area of Kindergarten math study we focused on this year was telling time. Teaching a child to tell time can be a fun experience or quite exhausting. A child needs to learn how to tell time in two ways; analog and digital. Learning two formats can be difficult and boring for a child and frustrating for the parent. My little Kindergarten student was bored with telling time. Once she had a chance … Continue reading →