multiplying our fun

This week we are working with multiplication. We started our work on Wednesday (Tuesday being spent at museum classes, etc, as posted yesterday) with a review of Max Multiply's verses from the Paddy's Picnic math play (see the post from last week for further information if needed). Then we drew Max into the drawing we started last week -- there he is in J's drawing, the fine fellow in yellow standing next to Paddy, handfuls of cherries and lines of excited exclamation above him.

Here's Zoo Boy's drawing. His Max has heads at all arm/leg junctions, but The Boy assures me that it just LOOKS that way because he's cartwheeling so quickly, he doesn't really have four heads.

Today we wrote out the verse that I thought most captured the spirit of Max Multiply (at the very top of this post), then the boys used their counting stones to complete their multiplication worksheets.

J counts out his stones in the number of piles that he needs, then visually counts all the stones to check his total. J completes his entire assignment in silence, concentrating on what he's doing.

Zoo Boy counts his stones into one long string, keeping track of how many sets of stones he has with his hand, then he counts them all up for the answer (although usually he's just keeping a running tally in his head). A lot of his thinking out loud is done in song (he just puts random tunes to his thoughts), and occasionally imaginary beings help him count the stones, etc. So a vastly different approach than J's. Yet both boys were dead-on accurate with their worksheets, they both got every answer correct. And they both just LOVE doing this work.

Zoo Boy's verse and worksheet. His first couple of words were written with his left hand. He's still not showing a strong preference for either hand, although he has more practice writing with his right, so his letter formation is clearer with that hand. I'm going to need to determine if I should be encouraging choosing one hand and sticking with it at this point. At 6 1/2 years, I should think handedness would be evident by now. Perhaps he's truly ambidextrous. (It's possible, my Grandfather was).

Another thing to note in Zoo Boy's work, he was having all sorts of trouble forming a "2" without reversing it, and then he got "12" (the first answer) backwards (wrote "21" instead). So there was a lot of crossing out and starting over with that first answer. He figured it all out after that.

I also gave the boys some simple word problems after we were done with our main lesson for the day. J was building with his Zoobs, and made this guy -- I asked him how many red zoobs he would need to make three of them. How many green? How many silver? What if we were going to make five of them? You get the idea.

As I was getting snack ready for them, I asked Zoo Boy how may cookies we would need if four friends came for snack and they each wanted two cookies. After he answer that, I asked "What if they brought their Moms?" and "What if they only wanted one cookie?" We'll be doing a lot more with word problems as we progress in this block. I like just sticking them in throughout the day in real-life situations. That's one of the great things about homeschooling (I know I say that a lot, but there are a LOT of great things!), all the learning happens within the context of real world living.

My Max, for comparison. Mine is standing on his hands, mid-cartwheel, holding 5 cherries in each hand.