Long Morning

This Monday has been a tough one. Not for Little Miss. Her studies went very well today.

In math she learned about adding and subtracting numbers with different denominators. It took a few tries before she really understood that this was equivalent fractions with a new step. Looking for the common denominator. Once she grasped it she was off and running. Grammar-review of action verbs. History-she completed her book report on Isaac Newton (she did a history of his childhood). Vocabulary-The root Terra. Science-she checked on her mold experiment (so far no mold on any of the 3 specimens) and then learned how to make a simple microscope. I had no idea that you could use 2 magnifying glasses for this. A neat little trick. She then observed a strand of hair, salt crystals, and sugar crystals and drew pictures of what she saw.

This brings us to Mister B. His morning not as wonderful. He learned about multiplying decimals today. This was not easy for him. We spent about 2 hours going over the concept. Sure, I could have just taught him the trick I was taught. Multiply the numbers and then count the spaces for the decimal location. That would have been quick and easy. But then there would be no understanding of the place value. Thank you Math-U-See for teaching me something new. I never knew why I counted spaces for the decimal point. It is just what I did because the teacher told me to do it that way. Back to Mister B and his morning struggle. He understood the factors when building the problem. He was having difficulty with the place value. 2 tenths x 2 tenths is 4 one hundredths. This is difficult. We tried building the problems. We watched the video lesson again. His father took him upstairs and showed him a method (and he thought he had it but he didn't, although he was closer). This was closely coming to total melt down territory. Mister B was already grumbling that he had been doing math for 2 hours. But, I persevered. I was like the Chinese mother in that article that has been making the rounds. We went through the video lesson. Step by step. Pausing after each step to make sure he understood and trying to find where the breakdown was. It was all the place value. As we went through it again step by step he had his breakthrough. He got it. He then finished his worksheet in 10 minutes. He solved the problems, wrote them out in place value notation, and solved the 2 word problems. Success!

I then sent him off for a 10 minute break. He still has science, grammar, vocabulary, and history to do. I think that meltdown may still happen.