Math Breakthrough!

Something clicked for me this weekend, and it clicked for Ella too.

All this time, I was frustrated with her counting - HAH! What was I thinking? Ella's problem had nothing to do with difficulty counting, or understanding the relationship between the number of objects with the numeral or the name of the numeral.

She had shown interest, the last time we did math, in trying to match two number rods to make the length of a third. So, using the first five rods we did a little bit of introductory addition. There was no frustration, no "I'm to tired's", no I don't want too's."

Up at my Mum's later while visiting with my visiting siblings, "Uncle" asked Ella, "If you had three kitty cats, and I gave you two more kitty cats, how many kitty cats would you have?"

"Five," said Ella, in a tone of voice which added the feeling that she was thinking, "Isn't that obvious? What a silly question!"

Uncle posed a few more addition problems, all which she answered promptly and correctly, until he asked two plus four, to which she answered "Five!" He cocked his head to one side and look at her, to which she responded, "No, no! Six!"

Earlier today, as we were still at my Mum's, and as a result of visiting aunties and uncles, we hadn't had "school" in a while, I noticed her playing with a group of her "Little People" animals. I laid down in front of her and told her we were going to play a little game. Since "little zebra" is her favourite, he and she were going to be on one team and they were going to figure out the mysteries I made.

I started with four little people in one spot, and one separate from them. I made up a little ditty and sang something along the lines of "How many animals do you see?" while pointing to the four animals together. She and zebra sang back at me, "Four, four, we see four!" Then I sang the same ditty while pointing to the solo animal. Zebra and Ella sang back "One, one, we see one!" Then I slid them all together while singing, "So four plus one makes ____." Zebra and Ella sang right out on cue, "Five!"

We did this for quite a while, when she began asking for harder "mysteries." We went through 2+3, 5+1, 5+2, 6+1, 3+4, 7+1, 3+5, and 4+4, when she (and zebra) asked for a really tough one. So I put out 6+6, which at first she said was 11, but when I said, "You'd better check again," she figured out it was 12.

So, now I'm going to have to buy/make the next stage of math materials, such as the mathematics bead material (now there's a huge project!), the teens and tens boards, and a second set of number rods. I'm really glad now that I received the Montessori Research & Development Mathematics Manual. (In fact, I got quite a few Montessori R&D Teacher's Manuals, and I'll be writing about them at length in a future post.)

I doubt my math woes are completely over, but at least now I know it wasn't that the material was too hard, but that it was too boring. I have a funny feeling that when it comes to making/buying Montessori material, I'm really going to have to work to keep up with Ella!

My Montessori Classroom and Materials

EGAD!!! I haven't posted since 2006, which is very, very sad. So, I've changed the name and the focus of this blog, so that (hopefully) I will remember it exists.

I'm now homeschooling my pre-school daughter using the Montessori method, and I would like to use this as a pictoral and written account of this adventure.

Here is my homeschool classroom:


My daughter, now 3 1/2 is fascinated with geography. She just adores studying that map. We're now learning the location of the continents while doing a unit on Antarctica. Hopefully this will counteract the winter "blahs" that have been invading our household.


Here you can see my Montessori materials. Some I made, and some I bought.

Now for the detailed close-ups, plus how I use them...

Above, you can see the yellow knobless cylinders and my version of the colour tablets box #2. I bought both the cylinders and the colour tablets - although the box of colour tablets I bought was box #3. Rather than going to the expense of getting both box #2 and box #3 (box #1 would have been way too easy!), I have taken out a dark and a light tablet of every shade in box #3, so that she can match two differing shade of the same colour before sorting a range of shades.

This is our geography set-up. I bought the map of the world on e-Bay, and then traced and cut out each continent/piece on black bristol board and glued them onto a piece of cardstock onto which I had printed the name of the continent. The National Geographic "Our World" is a fantastic beginner atlas (Canadians, make sure you get the Updated Edition so that you get a two-page spread of Canada and its provinces, otherwise you'll just get the U.S. and its states!) - and the pictures are actually deliberately made to look like puzzle pieces (did they hear about Montessori???) and the "Antarctica" book is from Usborne. Soon we will have a little globe:

I've been painting (and painting and painting) this globe for her, and it looks so good. But I've come to hate South-East Asia and the Arctic - WAY too many TEENY-TINY islands!!!

My miserable failure of sandpaper letters. I went about it entirely the wrong way, and the only difference between the red and the sandpaper letters is the colour - the painted area is WAY too rough. Next time: I'll mount red bristol board on the wood and then mount the sandpaper letter on the bristol board. MUCH easier!

Practical Life activities: pouring rice and using a turkey baster to transfer water. She LOVES the turkey baster activity.

Dressing frames. I made them with "paint your own" photo frames and tea towels from the dollar store, a variety of buttons from Mum, some hook-and-eyes from I don't know where, pretty white upholstery tacks from the hardware store, and belts from a different dollar store. I have a few more in the making now.

Four little cups and a variety of buttons for a sorting activity. Note the oh-so-classy Cheez-Whiz bottle as a holder!

My number rods (small) in a tin. I nagged my father into cutting a square dowel into the right lengths for me, but I measured them in inches, rather than centimetres. Mostly for his sake (Dad refuses to use metric), but also so they would be a little larger than the classic small number rods.

A little peek into our phonetic "mystery bags." Letter, lion, and letter; Tambourine, train, and towel; Hat, heart, and horse.

Ahhh... the teacher's corner - the messiest spot in the room. What can I say??? I try!

Next time: pictures of activies in progress...