to school, or not to school...

that is the question.  And usually the answer is - um, not to school.  I really am an unschooler at heart and even co-founded a Sudbury Valley style school years ago- but then decided to homeschool, or uh, unschool- or both and neither.  When we travel I really try to just be present with wherever we are at the time and don't push an overt agenda having to do with school. 

But there are seasons to my attitude and often when January rolls around and I'm so full of initiative with new year's resolutions and whatnot that I get caught up in beautiful curricula and desire more form to our learning than 100% organic.  I used to fight these urges and try to talk myself out of it telling myself I really don't believe in out of context learning and get quite irritated with myself, but in recent years I just let it flow.  I know it will be rather short lived and we all really get into it.  

So, currently we are wrapped up in a math phase.  The big sister is focusing primarily on multiplication/division and the little one on addition/subtraction.  First things first.  We had some sewing to do for our math jewels.  Since in Waldorf ed the four math processes are taught using the four temperaments and through story (addition is phlegmatic, subtraction is melancholic, choleric is division and sanguine is multiplication) and each character is given a sack of jewels that are then used as manipulatives.

And the left over sack.

I must have made one of these charts at some point in my life but remember nothing interesting about it. I like doing it with folded lines rather than drawn lines so you can fold it to get your answers more easily.  And I never knew until taking a class on teaching math as an adult that all the squares go right down the middle diagonally.

The big sister calls this her calculator.  love that.  I've also seen these done with fabric and bees wax crayons.  The fabric is ironed until its hot and then the crayon melts onto the fabric.  Stick crayons work better than block.

(for language arts I love old texts from the 1800's like the one in the background, purchased on ebay.  they are so simple and yet far more complex than most texts these days.  And the girls use them for 'playing school' as Laura and Mary-)

She writes out the tables for each number in the way that the pattern presents itself.  Some take a lot of numbers across and others only a few.  I love doing it this way because it is not arbitrary.  Looking for the patterns in mathematics is how all problems are solved.  Really solved, not just answered.

Then she works out problems all from that table.  It's also fascinating to see which answers also fall into the table and which do not.  She circles the ones that are in the table.

Instead of flash cards she loves these down below from a toy maker.  

We also jump rope the tables and do clapping games to each table.  Just basic patty cake in rhythm going from the whole to the sum:  "two is two times one, four is two times two, six is three times two"  both hands clap straight out at the sum and then cross during problem.  The easier tables like 2, 5 and 10 and 11- it becomes a race to see how fast the hands can move.

The next picture below is a tool used in Waldorf classrooms and is usually made out of wood with nails at the numbers and string that goes around from number to number.  But here is a lazy man's version using paper and pencil.  It is so fascinating to see what pattern each number makes.  If it's confusing look at the 3 tables in red pencil.  It starts at zero and goes 3, 6, 9, then to 2 for 12, 5 for 15, 8 for 18 and then to 1 for 21.  Keep going until pattern begins to repeat itself.

And a little beginning fractions here with the making of a game board.