Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Honest. Quirky. Real. Practical tips, candid reviews, and stereotype-smashing humor for homeschooling families.

Honest. Quirky. Real. Practical tips, candid reviews, and stereotype-smashing humor for homeschooling families.

Math Activities For Kids Who Hate Math: 7 Sneaky Ways to Cover Math!

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Written by Adrienne Bolton of The Mommy Mess.

As I type, my 13-year-old son is working on his math lesson. He’s been at it for hours today, taking several breaks just to get through one lesson. It’s Monday, so there’s that, but math has always been a struggle in our homeschool.  It’s the one subject I’m “banging my head against the wall” over the most.

Are you looking for math activities for kids who hate math?

I am!

On days when I don’t have the energy to push a lesson or I just want to sleep knowing my kid multiplied something that day, I can always turn to one of these activities and breathe easy.

Math Activities For Kids Who Hate Math

Go grocery shopping.

Help your child create a grocery list for the week. Estimate the cost of each item and the expected total. Depending on your child’s age, you can take the project as far as you want.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I have an adult child who could benefit from this activity. Ha!

Try these ideas for your shopping trip:

  • Check your grocer’s weekly advertisement and compare prices with another grocer.
  • Figure the cost of items priced by weight like produce and meats. (Hello, multiplication!)
  • Clip coupons (addition, subtraction, and savings, oh my!)
  • Estimate the cost your weekly grocery bill.
  • Meal plan and estimate the cost of each meal.
  • Compare prices between brands.

Sell old toys and games on eBay.

eBay is a fantastic place for your kids to practice math skills! Not only does selling stuff online help you clean out all the toys and games nobody plays with anymore, but it also allows for your child to earn a little extra cash.

Money talks! Nothing motivates my kid more than knowing he might make a few bucks. Selling old toys, figures, and video games has been a great way for my son to practice math and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

The following are concepts covered in an eBay transaction from start to finish:

  • percentages and decimals
  • weight
  • calculating shipping costs
  • profit
  • loss
  • fees (PayPal and eBay)
  • pricing
  • time
  • addition/subtraction
  • multiplication/division

Selling on eBay isn’t just a great project for math either! It covers skills like photography and keyboarding. Communicating with potential buyers helps hone those email and interpersonal skills. Depending on your child’s age, they could even get their own toy store up and running!

Apps, apps, apps.

There are so many great free math apps. When I don’t think we’re going to get to the lesson or I can see my son is shutting down, I can turn to an app and at least know he’s getting some multiplication practice in.

Something is ALWAYS better than nothing!

Get in the kitchen.

Cooking and baking have saved me on more than one occasion. Getting your kids in the kitchen is a fun way to incorporate math concepts without even trying. It’s 100% hands-on and depending on what you’re making, you can even incorporate some other subjects like history, geography, and culinary skills.

The kitchen helps cover math concepts like:

  • measurements
  • conversions
  • temperature
  • following instructions/word problems
  • fractions
  • adding/subtracting
  • multiplication/division (split a recipe or double it for a large family)
  • time

Plan a fantasy vacation.

If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go? This is a super fun project that sparks the attention for sure. Estimate the cost of a family vacation to your child’s dream destination. It goes without saying this could be turned into an entire unit study! Geography, history, travel, cultures…the list goes on, but the math? There’s SO much.

  • hotel and flight costs
  • gas and food costs
  • mileage
  • route
  • time
  • estimate expenses like shopping and entertainment

This is your kid’s vacation. Let their imagination be the tour guide! What activities or excursions does he want to try while your visiting? Add up the cost! The more you “do” on your trip, the more math is covered. Safe travels, friends!

Take a personal finance or stewardship course.

My son responds well to real-world math. Figuring out a sale price or calculating his potential eBay earnings seems to spark way more interest for him than a textbook.

A course like personal finance or stewardship offers an everyday perspective that might interest your reluctant mathematician.

It can be hard to let go of what we think math should look like. Textbook open, pencils out, add stress, the clock ticking, and my child’s frustration, and you’ve got a fairly accurate picture of what math looks like at our house. But there’s always a way for me to switch things up for sanity.

Embrace change.

This year, I’ve made some changes to the curriculum we’ve been using from the start and I’m seeing some positive changes! It’s still a tough subject for us to cover, but it’s better than it was in years past.

Hallelujah!

More than anything, remember: taking a day to do something different helps break up the monotony of math. Don’t be afraid to embrace change.

Is math a battle in your homeschool? What math activities would you add to the list?

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Free Patriotic Adding and Subtracting Mats

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Written by Rachel of You’ve Got This.

Two of the most important foundational math skills are being able to add and subtract quickly. Three of the skills parents and teachers of young students may choose to focus on are:

  1. Being able to add and subtract within 5 fluently
  2. Knowing all the fact families that equal 10
  3. Adding and subtracting with objects

These festive patriotic adding and subtracting mats will help your young child practice those skills.

Patriotic Adding and Subtracting Mats Prep Work

I love activities that require minimal prep work, and the Patriotic Adding and Subtracting Mats are such an activity! All you have to do is:

How to Use Patriotic Adding and Subtracting Mats

To begin, place the mat on the table in front of your student. You’ll use the mat for both the subtraction and addition activities. Next, give your child all of the addition picture cards, and have him count the objects.

The child will place the card on the number that picture represents.

After placing all the picture cards on, it is time to move onto numerical expressions. Have your little one find the expressions that match the pictures. For example, the expression 5 + 4 would need a picture that has five of one object (watermelons) and four of another (corn).

Afterward, you can go back through each square and see if they can remember what each expression equals. You might say, “Do you remember what 5 +  4 equals?”

Once your child answers, lift off the equation and have them count the pictures so they can see if they are correct. Then lift all the pictures and say, “Yes, 5 + 4 equals 9.”

Subtraction Time

Once your child can quickly assemble the addition mats, it is time to move on to subtraction. This math requires the same steps as the addition mats, but once children are successfully able to add the pictures first, you can switch things around a bit.

Instead of adding the pictures first, see if your child can put the expressions on first, and then the pictures that match. This begins moving them from just counting to figure out an expression to working from memory.

And being able to add and subtract fluently is a goal worth pursuing!

Have older students? Try out these Patriotic Math Word Problems.

>> Download the Free Patriotic Adding and Subtracting Mats.

5 Ways to Make Math Practice Fun

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Written by Tara Mitchell of Embark on the Journey.

Do your kids dread practicing their math facts? Do they grumble when you break out the flash cards or the math workbooks?

Try putting the teaching materials aside every now and again. There are many non-traditional ways our kids can practice counting, adding, subtracting and such.

By incorporating movement, games, and even candy, we can keep the drudgery of learning math facts at bay. Who knows, your kids may even begin to look forward to math practice if you try these fun ideas.

1. Play games.

There are so many board games and card games that you can play to help your kids practice beginning math skills. Uno and Go Fish are great for number and/or color recognition. Candyland and Chutes & Ladders will have your children practicing their counting skills.

Older kids can enjoy a rousing game of War while practicing greater than and less than. Many games can be adapted to practice addition, subtraction, or multiplication, as well.

2. Teach with candy.

Whether you’ve got leftover candy from the holidays or you’re looking for a fun new way to teach a lesson, you can’t go wrong when you incorporate candy into your daily math lessons.

Use M&Ms or Skittles as counters while practicing addition and subtraction. They’re great for making groups to show multiplication and division, as well.

Hershey bars are great for showing fractions. Marshmallows and gumdrops, when paired with toothpicks, can be used to build shapes, both 2D and 3D.

3. Toss those facts around.

Blow up a beach ball and use a permanent marker to write numbers all over it. Now, you can play a game of catch with your child. For preschoolers and kindergarteners, play “What Comes Before/After.” Toss the ball to your child, and have them name the number that comes before and/or after the number their thumb is touching.

As your kids get older, you can continue playing the game while practicing basic math facts. Call out a number, 2 for example. Have your child add, subtract, or multiply that number with the number their thumb touches as they catch the ball.

There are so many ways to adapt this game as your child’s knowledge base grows. The possibilities are endless.

4. Take it outside.

Grab some sidewalk chalk and head outside for math. Draw a hopscotch board on the sidewalk, and fill it with math problems or numbers.

Use rocks or twigs for counters as you practice addition and subtraction facts or even just counting.

Draw numbers with chalk. Call out a math problem, and let your child squirt the correct answer with a water gun.

5. Have a scavenger hunt.

Scavenger hunts are great indoors or out. Call out instructions for your preschoolers to find three items. Or, have them find two round objects. Can they find a red object or something that is a square? This is a great way to reinforce colors, numbers, and shapes with your youngest learners.

Sometimes, just getting up and moving is enough to make working on math facts fun instead of a chore.

How do you break up the monotony and make math fun for your kids?

 

FREE Interactive Geometry Vocabulary Book

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Written by Rachel of You’ve Got This.

Vocabulary. We often think it applies to social studies and science, but some math units have a boatload of vocabulary. If kids don’t quite grasp this vocabulary, they won’t be successful. That’s where hands-on activities like this geometry vocabulary book come in handy.

FREE Interactive Geometry Vocabulary Book

My oldest has just reached his geometry unit and is encountering words that he has never heard. Seriously, perpendicular lines isn’t a word I often use when talking to my children.

To encourage success in this unit, I created two activities to help him learn and understand geometry vocabulary words such as line, ray, line segments, parallel lines, and perpendicular lines. We are starting with a fun, interactive dictionary and then moving onto a geometry bingo activity.

Setting Up the Interactive Geometry Vocabulary Book

This activity has two options with different level of prep-work.

Option #1: Very Little Prep Work (the kiddos do all the work)

  1. Print off the free geometry vocabulary interactive book.
  2. Provide scissors and a stapler for your child or students
  3. During math time, have them cut out the book and staple it together.
  4. Have them cut out the pictures and vocabulary words.

Option #2: More Prep Work For the Parent

  1. Print off the book
  2. Cut out the cover and pages and staple them together
  3. Either cut out the pictures and vocabulary words or let the children do that depending on the amount of time you want to spend.

How to Use the Geometry Vocabulary Activity

We did this interactive geometry vocabulary book before we did anything else, so my little guy had absolutely no clue what the words meant. We started by looking up the words in the interactive dictionary. We would read the definition, play with the lines, and then move back to the book.

Once he knew the definition, we would take the vocabulary word and find the definition in his book. Then, he glued the word in the word in the blanks.

Geometry Activities for Kids

Next, he would find the picture that matched the vocabulary word and definition and glue it in its spot.

Geometry Activities for Kids

Finally, he used a ruler to draw his own version.

Geometry Activities for Kids

Not only did he have fun learning the words, but now he has a great resource that will help as we play our bingo game and complete the assignments from his math book.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

What’s your favorite way to introduce new vocabulary to your children?

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I Want to Homeschool, but I’m Terrible at Math

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I am a bit math phobic. Even as a forty-something-year-old adult, I hate keeping score when playing games. When it comes time to tally the score, I can practically feel all the other players breathing down my neck, waiting to see who scored the most points. I can feel my mind going blank and the answers to simple addition flowing right out of my head.

I really can do basic math, but early experiences left a lasting impression that conjures up anxious feelings where the subject is concerned.

I Want to Homeschool, but I'm Terrible at Math

I picked math because it has something of a universal bad rap (poor math), but it could be any subject that makes you feel inadequate to homeschool your children. Maybe you’re terrible at grammar, aren’t a strong reader, or you hate science.

How to Homeschool Subjects that Make You Feel Inadequate

There are plenty of ways to successfully homeschool in spite of your weaknesses, whether they are real or perceived. Whatever makes you say, “I want to homeschool, but I’m terrible at…, there is a solution.

Scripted Teacher’s Manuals

Many homeschool curriculum publishers offer a fully-scripted teacher’s manual. It tells you exactly what to say to explain the concept. We’ve used scripted math, spelling, and reading curriculum. Even the Story of the World (history) activity guides tell you what questions to ask and the gist of the answer you’re looking for.

It’s likely that you won’t even need to rely entirely on the script. Often, the scripted portion provides the key to helping you understand the concept so that you can explain it to your children.

Computer- or Video-based Curriculum

Look for computer-based curriculum for those subjects that make you break out in a cold sweat. Teaching Textbooks has been my saving grace for many years when it comes to teaching math.

Many writing programs, such as WriteShop, offer video-based instruction options. You might also check out resources such as Monarch (try it free for 30 days using code MON30WUH). You don’t have to use the entire program. You may want to use only the subjects that you struggle to teach effectively.

Although we haven’t used it, Kahn Academy comes very highly recommended among homeschoolers. We really like the Crash Course series. Sometimes they do have coarse or rude humor, so it’s better for older kids. They have Crash Course Kids for younger students, but I haven’t tried it since my kids are older.

Online Classes

If you’re new to homeschooling, you may not realize that there are a variety of live, online classes for homeschoolers. My kids have taken several classes through CurrClick. Apologia offers a variety of live online classes. We’ve recently discovered My Fun Science, and we’re really excited about it. Megan is planning to take their life skills class next fall and possibly biology.

I Want to Homeschool, but I'm Terrible at Math

Tutors

You don’t have to do it all yourself. Consider hiring a tutor. Some good resources to check out include:

  • Teacher friends and homeschool parents who may offer tutoring or know someone who does.
  • College students – Check with local colleges to see if they have a learning lab open to anyone other than students or if they have students who offer tutoring.
  • Your students’ peers – Some teens are great at math (or whatever subject you’re struggling to teach), and because they’ve done it more recently than you, they may be able to explain concepts better than you can. I tutored my cousin in grammar when I was a teen.

Co-ops

Co-ops are known for offering some of those hard-to-teach subjects like math, science, or grammar. Ask around to see what your area has to offer. In addition to several co-ops, our area offers classes for homeschoolers. Parents pay the tuition for as many classes as their student would like to take. Classes include academic offerings as well as fine arts, such as art, music, and drama.

Google Is Your Friend

Say this to yourself, “Google is my friend.” Repeat it. If you type in “how do you…” or some version thereof, Google is usually willing to oblige. Try it.

How do you find the hypotenuse of a triangle?

How do you find the square root of pi?

Should I use affect or effect?

Over the years, I’ve bookmarked some handy resources. Grammar Girl is an excellent resource for grammar questions. I like Algebra Help for, well, you know, algebra help. Math Bits is handy if you can’t, for the life of you, remember how to use a graphing calculator.

Perhaps the biggest consolation I’ve found is that the courses that seemed difficult in high school make more sense now. I may still break out in a cold sweat when I have to tally the Scrabble score, but when it’s just me, one-on-one with my kids, I find that the teacher’s manual, my quickly-fading memory, and the occasional shout-out to Google usually combine to do the trick. I have successfully managed to help my teens understand high school level math so far.

Those of you who conquered your fears, what subject made you sweat when you first started homeschooling? What tips would you offer an unsure, new homeschooling parent? What are some of your favorite resources?

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