Math Mammoth Review

Looking for an affordable Math Curriculum for your homeschool? Math Mammoth could be your answer! Math Mammoth offers full math curricula for grades 1-6 in their Light Blue Series as well as worksheets for some of the older grades. You can also purchase individual books on specific topic. 

In exchange for an honest review, we were provided with a copy of Math Mammoth Grade 1 Light Blue Series.

Math Mammoth offers both a downloadable version or a paper format. When we downloaded our version I was instantly impressed with how much was included in the curriculum. It included worksheets for an entire year of work as well as answers keys, reviews, and tests. 

The topics appear to be very thoroughly covered and coincidentally, the Light Blue Series, through grade 5,  is also Common Core aligned although no changes were needed to make it so.

The first thing I had the girls do was try out the kindergarten review. I have to say they were not thrilled with the worksheets. If you read much here you know my kids are not too into worksheets.

Based on my kids, I have to say the number of worksheets is the down side of Math Mammoth. They would much rather be doing something hands on, and they learn better from manipulating.  While this may be a downside for my particular kids it could be a huge plus for others who have a different learning style. I know lots of kids who enjoy worksheets, and they do provide a great way to keep track of what your kids have mastered.

It does not require a teachers manual or many manipulatives which help keep costs low and ease of use high. Even though my kids like the manipulatives, they can be costly, so this is still a plus! And the downloadable version can be printed again and again, so there is no need to purchase a new workbook for each child! Another way to keep costs low!

I do like the fact that the program includes possible games that can be played to go along with topics as well as Internet resources that may be helpful.

I was also impressed to see the money section not only provided information for United States Currency, but also for Europe, Australia, and Canada!

As I said before the program is very affordable (~$34 for an entire year), so even if you don't use it for your base curriculum, it is possible to use pieces of it to supplement another curriculum if your child needs more practice. This will most likely be our use of Math Mammoth.

I really like Math Mammoth, and I think it could easily fit my teaching abilities. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to fit my kinesthetic learners the best.  I would certainly recommend that any of you looking for a math curriculum look into Math Mammoth.  It is certainly a complete, affordable option for your homeschool!

You can read more reviews from the Mosaic Reviews Team HERE!

Teddy Bear Picnic

Happy Teddy Bear Picnic Day!!!   We had our own Teddy Bear Picnic and learned about Food Groups and Sequencing along the way! Visit Gummylump to read all about it!

Apple Math for How to Make and Apple Pie and See the World

The last activity we did to go along with How to Make an Apple Pie and see the World was Apple Math!

I started by reviewing simple fractions. I drew apples on blank index cards and then cut one in half and one in quarters.  This way the girls could easily see there are 2 halves in a whole and 4 quarters. 

I also made ten more of these apple cards and taped them to the piano (the girls thought it would make a good apple tree).

From there they took turns collecting the number of apples I told them. Once they had the apples I asked them to give a certain number to their sister and then tell me how many they had (subtraction). I also asked whoever received the apples how many they now had (addition). This was repeated over and over and over, refilling the tree several times. While I'm sure they didn't memorize any of their addition or subtraction tables; I do think it helped to cement the idea of addition and subtraction (what we really needed to work on). 

Need other activities to go with this book; check out these:

Collecting Salt from Salt Water

Milking Cows

Kid-Made Butter

Star Counting (to 100)

Last week we practiced some Skip Counting by tens up to 100.  This week we counted to 100 using stars (we sort of have a space theme going on).  The first way we did it was using a piece of paper with numbers 1-100 written on it.  I then had the girls count each number as they put a star sticker on it (they love stickers).

The second way we counted was using star shaped beads and egg cartons.  I was hoping I had 10 egg  cartons saved for each girl, but I didn't.  So each one had a single egg carton cut down to just 10 holes.
I had them count as they placed one bead in each hole.  Then I had them repeat with each set of 10 until each hole had 10 beads in it (100 all together).  Then we could skip count using each hole as a set of ten.

Of course the girls wanted to use the beads for necklaces, so I let them each make a necklace after we had counted.  The only catch was they had to make a pattern with the beads rather then randomly stringing them on like they typically do.

Sorting beads by color to make necklaces.

Necklaces!

They were pretty happy with them, and Bria put hers in rainbow order. Rainbows always make me smile too. :)

"Skip" Counting

Before this week I hadn't really introduced the girls to skip counting or really into counting much above 20.  They could do it a little (just counting, not skip counting), but I had never stressed it.  We had some nice weather though, so while we were playing, I wrote the numbers 0-100 by tens on the sidewalk.  Then I had the girls skip as they counted them.  They were doing pretty good remembering what each number was too.

Then Bria decided to write the number 1-10 on the next section of sidewalk. Then they jumped on them while saying those numbers too.

It was a simple way to practice their counting, and they thought it was a pretty fun game.

Hungry Fish Addition

A friend gave me a paper lantern a few weeks ago thinking maybe I could use it for something.  This past weekend I finally decided what that something was.....a fish. Not just any fish, but a hungry fish!  One game the girls really like the iPad is Hungry Fish. They feed the fish bubbles that equal whatever number is on the fish.  As they do it the fish grows.  Some of the bubbles have the correct number from the start and others have to be merged together to get that number (For instance a 5 bubble and a 2 bubble to get 7).

So I started with a plain white lantern (turned sideways), some card stock, and some streamers.   I cut some eye and fins from the card stock and hot glued them to the lantern.

Then I cut some streamers and glued them to the back opening as a tail.  This left the other opening as a very big mouth!

I cut down some blank note cards to make small number cards.  I put the number 0-10 on the cards.  I also used a pencil eraser to stamp dots of each number on some cards too.  I made a total of 4 sets of cards (2 sets with numbers and 2 sets with dots).

I also made larger cards to hang from the mouth of the fish.

The rule of the game is they have to feed the fish 2 cards at a time that equal the large number hanging from the fishes mouth.  So for the number 4 they have to feed the fish combinations of 0 and 4, 1 and 3, or 2 and 2. It may be possible to play as a competitive game as well. With players starting with a certain number of cards and drawing more if they do not have something to feed the fish.  However I think you would have to remove any cards that don't work with the number on the fish. It may be more viable for larger numbers.

Of course this can be reversed and used for subtraction as well.  So for 4 they would feed the fish combinations of 10 and 6, 9 and 5, 8 and 4, 7 and 3, 6 and 1, 5 and 1, or 4 and 0.  I am sure it could be used for multiplication and division and possibly spelling. We'll see how long it lasts!

Giant Car Graphing

Thinking about all the types of toy vehicles we have got me thinking about graphing them.  This is the first time I had introduced graphs to the girls, so I needed it to be pretty easy.  I decided to me a giant bar graph on the kitchen floor with painters tape.  Then the girls could make the bars by separating the vehicles by type.  (Please ignore the towels in the background waiting to be washed; it is laundry day).


So I started by making the lines for the graph.  I told the girls each tile would be a measure of 5, so only 5 cars could go in each tile.

They started categorizing the cars.  For a while we had SUV's and vans separate, but it was hard for the girls to tell the difference with some of their toys, so we combined them.

We actually didn't have room for all the cars, so we just stopped after we ran out of other vehicles.  Once we had them all in lines, the girls counted the vehicles in each line, and I helped them make a graph on a piece of paper.

As soon as they finished the graph they just wanted to play with the cars on the blue tape!  Then Eli got up, and the cars went everywhere!