Maths Madness!

We have been having fun with Maths this morning, and I’ve been using the Letts Numeracy Teacher’s book for Year Reception (Kindergarden) to keep on track with what exactly Jundee needs to know.

This morning we focused on ‘more or less’. I wanted him to get to grips with the vocab and make the concept of ‘one more’ and ‘one less’ more concrete for him, so that he knows this isn’t airy-fairy, but is used in real-life too. Here’s what we did.

We played ’shop’. I drew a rather wonky shop on an A4-sized dry-wipe board and lined up some Unifix cubes in front as people in a queue.

To demonstrate ‘one more person’, we brought in a cube who joined to line to get his loaf of bread.

It was quite comical, ‘cos I made a huge drama about it.

“Cube number 7 just remembered that he’s going to get a ticket on his car, so he has to rush off. Now we have one less.” Jundee loved it and toddled cube 7 off!

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‘I’ve got a plan up my sleeves,’ he thought.

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Once I was happy with Jundee grasping the concept, I told him to line up people in two separate queues outside the shop – one queue had to have a number of people more than 6 and one with a number of people less than 10..

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…. and he came up with the number 9 – mashaa`Allah!

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I’ve got a ‘Montessori wannabe’ resource I made that I use to teach Maymee to recognise her numbers, and so far she’s learnt up to number 4. Let’s see if I can upload some photos. Watch this space!

~ Umm J.

Making Maths Manipulatives

I am in the process of making some maths manipulatives for Jundee in an attempt to steer away from focusing so much on literacy.

Here’s a great website if you’d like to make materials such as the Base 10 Block (which I’m currently embarking on!):

http://www.mathcats.com/mathtoolbox/index.html

~ Umm Junayd

p.s. I have so many updates that I want to post along with pictures (we have been doing work *smiles*) but I can’t currently upload them. I hope to have this sorted soon inshaa`Allah.

Keep It Simple!

It was way past their bed time. I had just finished praying maghrib, and I was spread out on Junayd’s bedroom floor. I watched as Jundee and Maymi fought over a toy car, one yelling he had it first, while the other claimed it was her who could make the claim.

I coaxed Jundee to simply take another car, and a rush of inspiration surfaced.

“Which one won the race, Jundee?” I asked.

I had a plan up my khimaar!

“That one,” he murmured, taking slight looks at his sister, waiting for a chance to pounce on the car she had in her hand.

“Oh,” I said, “So which one came next then?”

“That one.”

“And which one came third?”

“This one.”

I had always wondered how I’d tackle ordinal numbers without actually having to sit him down, and this was the perfect moment.

“Hey, why don’t you line them up for me, from first to last.”

And that’s what he did.

“So how do we count these then, in the order they won?”

I guided him through to five and he took over from there, scrurrying back and forth between his line of vehicles and his toy drawer. Then another wave of inspiration came.

“How about we match numbers to the order of cars? I’ll write the numbers and you match them.”

So I wrote numbers randomly from 1-16 (since that’s the number of vehicles he had lined up) and he placed them in front of the vehicles. Number 1 matching 1st, 2 matching 2nd and so on. It was a great way to do ordinal numbers, albeit at a late hour. But who said teaching had to be fixed to a certain time or be complicated? I say keep it simple!

How do I do it?

I’ve been asked this question many times when people find out I’m a homeschooler, writer, cupping therapist and a few other things. *blush*

My answer is that I like to stay ahead of the game. And in doing so, I’ll be posting tips for other busy homeschooling Mamas, or just busy Mamas if that’s what you are!

So for today: how do I manage doing cupping for sisters and homeschooling too?

I only do hijamah (cupping) on the Sunnah days: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, so with this in mind I know how to plan for those days. Also, I tend to have appointments in the afternoon which allows for me to homeschool in the morning, cook dinner if needed and travel to the location of the appointment.

As my dear friend Umm J. knows, I am a ‘like-to-have-my-home-in-order-before-leaving-the-house’ kind of person, which means, if laundry needs doing, it’s got to be done, there have to be no dishes in the kitchen sink, and the rooms need to be in some sort of reasonable shape.

~ Umm Junayd