Teaching Math Fractions

Teaching math is fun when you can combine the lesson with something your children love. My son Loves pizza so I went out and bought a pizza and burned it as you can see. But, he sat patiently while I explained to him that the whole pizza equals 1. So...

Whole pizza = 1

I cut the pizza in half lengthwise and explained to him that there were 2 pieces that now made the whole 1. Now

1/2 + 1/2 = 1

I cut it again this time across to make 4 pieces.

1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 +1/4 = 1
OR--
1/4 + 1/4 = 1/2

He wrote down what he was taught and I let it at that. I told him to "go for it" and he ate 1/2 of the pizza.

We'll repeat the fraction lesson with pumpkin pie, another favorite of his, tomorrow. This time I'll explain 1/3.

This makes it more interesting to learn his fractions which is a pretty hard subject to grasp.

1 Whole pizza

1/2 + 1/2 = 1 whole pizza

1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 1 whole pizza

Guided Swimming Lessons

Something that both of my children absolutely Love is swimming, the water,the ocean, the pool, the beach, they love it all! My son taught himself to swim and my daughter was just in the beginning stages when we started homeschooling.

One of our homeschooling moms turned us on the Guided Swimming Lessons with Auntie Nani at the Kahului Pool. Since my children started the have excelled by leaps and bounds with swimming. Auntie Nani has a way about her that is calm and sets the children at ease.

My daughter who was soooo afraid of the pool due to a past incident with a group is now swimming in the deep. The other day she learned how to lift her head up for air while doing the stroke.

My son is like a fish in the water! He is truly in his element even though he is a Taurus, an earth sign. Maybe he has Pisces or Cancer rising? He has aspirations to go for the Junior Life Guard program now. In time, I told him, in time. I truly believe his reaching that goal.

Money Math

The fun of homeschooling is seizing the opportunity to teach at every turn. Yesterday my daughter gave my son some loose change for some favors he did for her around the house. This morning he showed it to me and I took that time to help him add his money.

How to Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sushi Roll

Setting up a more organized schedule

Today we went over some of the things we'd like to accomplish with learning. These are some of the things we came up with:

Language:
Every week they will be given 10 words to study. The words will be centered around a book that we are reading together. Most probably a self improvement book like "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff." I'd like to integrate a lot of their learning with anything that also offers them good guidance on how to live a life of confidence which requires self esteem. Self improvement books is one way to accomplish this. They will learn to spell the words and be tested on it. They will learn to define the word and use it in a sentence. The sentence will be structured in such a way that a person reading the sentence can get a general idea of the meaning of the word. They will also use the words in a story.

Cursive writing:
They will create a story of their own and write in cursive writing. At that time I will teach them punctuation and proper grammer.

History:
Because they are Hawaiian they will be studying the history of our people and getting reconnected with their culture. I will be reading to them the Hawaiian Cosmogenies, the history of how the Hawaiians migrated here, what they brought with them as far as food items, plants, and religious ways. I will be checking into Hawaiian Language for all of us and we will also delve into hula dance which is a significant and important part of our heritage, culture, and beliefs.

I'll also take them to study the Petroglyphs around the island and if we can raise the funds I'd like to take them to the other islands not only for Petroglyphs but for historical sites as well as museums.

Science:
Ongoing will be the study of bugs which Richard has been interested in since 1st grade. Rel just recently developed a fascination for bugs as well.

Whale season is coming up and since they have always had a passion for studying whales we'll be concentrating on that during whale season.

Astronomy and weather are other interests they have as well as dinosaurs and bones. Richard wants to get a skeleton of a fish and put it together.

Astronomy - We stayed up all night trying to catch the meteor shower on the 12th but only saw like 6 shooting stars that night. We fully expected to see a shower but we did have a lot of street lights around us. This prompted Richard and Rel to look up meteor showers and what they're supposed to look like. Richard also borrowed a book from the library today so we can really dig into information on meteor showers.

Astronomy also as it related to the ancient Hawaiians who plotted their course here using the stars and the planets.

Health:
--meditation: Richard and Rel will learn to quiet and calm their mind to the point that even in a crowded area with lots of noise they can hear themselves think above the chatter, most importantly, they will learn to stop the negative chatter in their heads that was put there by outside influences (myself included I'm not perfect!).

--Tai Chi: Richard and Rel will learn Tai Chi as a well rounded, balanced exercise that burns calories, stretches the muscles, and relaxes the body.

--Yoga: More stretches that will balance the mind and body.

--Foods: Ancient Hawaiian ways of gathering food and eating. Good nutrition, the importance of fibre, etc.

Math:

Richard and Rel will be given worksheets that will teach them fractions, multiplication, division, and I hope to get them into basic algebra by the end of the school year.

Fine Arts:
I'll be contacting the Lahaina Arts Society to see if Richard and Rel can attend lessons on Plein Air painting.

Both will explore lessons on playing the guitar.

PE:
Guided swimming lessons at Kahului Pool. Richard aspires to take the Jr. Lifeguard class. He is an excellent swimmer.
We will also be exploring horseback riding and the obvious...surfing!

Self Esteem and Confidence

One of the most delightful things that happened today was witnessing the confidence of my 2 children slowly returning just by simple activities performed during our PE pool day. Richard has never really learned how to catch. When the ball comes towards him he closes his hands too slowly to catch the ball. Today he caught the ball and the beaming smile on his face! If only I could've capture that smile with a camera! It will be embellished on my mind forever and ever! We continued to practice and that's one of the things I plan to do with him. Throw balls and let him catch it and throw it back to me.

Rel had an experience at the swimming pool a couple of years back. We go to the beach often and she can swim fairly well in the salt water. Thinking she could swim well she jumped into the deep end of the pool during a Pals field trip and started to sink. She was really embarrassed and never swam in a pool again. I started taking her for guided swimming lessons where she slowly regained her confidence. Today I took her to a pool that is 3-3 1/2 feet deep. She practiced everything she learned at her swimming lessons and I was able to witness her gaining even more confidence. It's the most wonderful thing to witness.

This is the thing about school, the focus is on academics. Although academics is important to a certain point, what will help my children to be successful as adults is their confidence in themselves, their self esteem.

These are just some of the reasons I choose to be a work at home mom (WAHM) and seeing their accomplishments helps me to...

Stay Motivated Forever!

Geography

My children and I play this game, inspired by Richard because he had to study the names of the States for geography in school. It's a fun and simple game but really hard. We usually play this while riding in the car. Rel gets out a tablet and pencil or pen. We name all the states until we guess all of them. It's really fun and it really tests just how much us adults know too. Don't worry, Richard and Rel named a whole bunch of them! No fair! They were studying it already!

There's so much more geography to study. Next week Thursday we plan on a trip to Kepaniwai to look at all of the different ethnic homes there. Kepaniwai is a beautiful park with a clear water streams. I'll post pics when we go. Until then you can look up these 2 sites for more information. Iao is a sacred place...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kepaniwai
http://www.hawaiiweb.com/maui/html/sites/kepaniwai_park_heritage_gardens.html