Numbers

Ruth is doing really well with writing her numbers. She still struggles a bit with 6,7 and 9 so I made her this card that she can use to check. She has started working in more detail with two digit numbers. I think we she has finally found something that is a bit of a challenge and so will slow her down a little. Which is no problem - she has been racing through this book at such a speed.

More Math fun

Ruth was thrilled to finally be working with ALL the blocks. She is quickly learning which colour represents which number. The most fun is 8 which is brown for chocolate.

Math fun

December 23 - counting the blocks and circling the number

Ruth has been flying through the Math-U-See work and is having so much fun.

January 3 - counting and writing the number

I was encouraged when on the intro it was said that it's not important for the children to write the numbers if they are young or it's too hard for them. Their writing ability should not get in the way of their enjoyment of the math concepts that this year introduces. It's all about having fun and seeing different things. So I did not expect Ruth would be writing the numbers but she surprised me and with the help of her puzzle got started on writing.

January 6

Then she got introduced to Decimal Street and started reading bigger numbers. Her writing of the numbers in improving all the time. I now have a bookmark for her which has the numbers written clearly as I want her to write them (with a red dot in the spot where she needs to start). This has helped her so much and she continues to have so much fun.

January 10

I could not believe that reading numbers in the hundreds was going to be introduced. Ruth has taken it in her stride and is doing so well.

Math-U-See started

Ruth was so very excited about the copy of Math-U-See Primer that we picked up yesterday. She wanted to get started straight away. Eventually I had to say "enough for today". It's a introductory level so the children don't need to "master" each lesson as they do in the other years. This year it's just about exposing them to the math concepts. In the introductory lesson he even says that for some children they are not able to write well enough - and that's ok - you as a parent can just have them dictate to you and you write for them.

It's all about allowing children who are interested to have fun with math and start that journey of loving math. So although I would never have thought Ruth would start this before she was 5 (having never seen the Primer level before), I do know that she is ready for it and is going to have such a fun time. Already she wanted to show Dad what she could do and she was very excited about telling him that when it's 1, 2, 3 or 4 she can just know straight away how many - that she does not even need to count - she just sees how many there are.