Maxwell has always been really good at math. I've enjoyed the Rightstart Math curriculum, however they don't drill like I think they should. I add a lot of extra worksheets for grade one, and for this third grade year, I've added my own times tables drilling.
Once Maxwell understood what multiplication was (which Rightstart does an EXCELLENT job explaining,) I started having him pass off numbers. I started with 0s then 1s, 2s, 10s, 11s, and 5s. First I have him do it in order (2x2, 2x3, 2x4 etc,) and then out of order (2x8, 2x3, 2x5 etc.) He has to do it within a certain time limit.
There is no memorization necessary with any of these numbers. I was worried about the upper times tables where there's a lot of memorization needed. I had a cute CD, but even to me it just sounded like a string of numbers to music. Maxwell is tone deaf. Music doesn't work too well with him.
Then I found TIMES TALES! Seriously, it works!!!! It's ghetto, don't get me wrong. Black and white poorly drawn pictures with lame graphics and a not-so-talented narrator, but who cares? Maxwell has watched this DVD twice (two times-only 2) and he knows his time tables!
Buy it and try it-you won't regret it.
Okay, enough of me promoting- now on to this week----
This week it was snowy and cold. I had Dustin go to the library for me and pick up my books I had ordered in. (My library is part of a library network where you can order books from libraries all over our region. I never look at the physical shelves, I just find what I want online and order it.)
The librarian said to Dustin "Yah, I think she doesn't need these books. She's done with learning about South America, and is starting to learn about Europe." Dustin-"You know what she's teaching right now?" Librarian-"Yah, she orders so many books, and when we get them in, we know who they go to before we even look at the name." Dustin-"Does she order more than everyone else?" Librarian-"Practically. The Hutterites beat her, but they are ordering books for their whole schools."
Hahahaha! Yep! I use my library!!! In fact, just look at this photo of MOST of the books I have checked out right now:
And I have ordered about 40 more books that should be coming in within the next week or two.
What really cracks me up, is that the librarian was right! I am on my last couple of countries in South America, and I will be moving on to Europe at the end of next week (hopefully.)
Truthfully, we usually don't read ALL these books, but we do read at least 80% of them. This is about two weeks worth of books.
Anyway, this week, we read all the books we had on Chile. We made rain sticks for our activity.
And I thought I would include this photo of our cute CTR boy since it's a new year with new primary teachers.
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