Home Schooling Resources

What kind of supplies or tools do you need to teach homeschool Math?  Math doesn’t have to be a chore.  When things get stale, change things up and have a good attitude.  Whole some writing is required in math, in the early grades you can teach almost as much with a hands on approach.

Here are some tools and manipulatives we have around our house to help teach math and math concepts.

1.  Cuisenaire Rods or Math U See blocks or Saxon manipulative kit or some other manipulative kit with blocks.  Children need to be able to “see” math first before they can imagine it in their heads and then relate that to numbers.

2. Calendar – always have one handy to check what day it is or how many days until a special day at your house.  You can flip through the calendar to learn the months of the year.

3. Flash cards – These can be a great alternative to workbook pages.  You can set a goal to get through a certain number each day.  Make a pile of the ones that you get right and the ones you get wrong.  Then keep going over the “wrong” pile until you get them all right.  Make sure your child understands how objects relate to numbers before you start using flashcards.  These can also be done independently by your child.

4. Money – Who doesn’t love to play around with money?  Money can be used to teach skip counting by fives or tens and also about fractions.  A quarter is 1/4 of a dollar, a dime is 1/10 of a dollar, etc.  At first you can add pennies and take pennies away and then move on to what coins equal each other.

5. Measuring tape -  Have your child go around and measure different objects around the house and write down the name of the object and it’s measurement.  They can do this with you or independently depending on their age.

6. Fraction pies and puzzles – Any type of hands on math manipulative will help reinforce your child’s understanding of math and math concepts.

If Math is getting to be a chore, try using a hands on approach to explaining the concepts your child is struggling with.  Math U See uses the Build, Say, Write mode of learning.  If your child is not able to write a math concept, they probably don’t understand the concept because they can’t build it either.

Get back to basics and vary your math tools as often as needed, and you will find that you and your child will enjoy math and learn much more than you every thought they could.

For more information on the tools I recommend for homeschooling check this site listed by grade levels.

Originally posted 2008-11-05 14:16:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter