I left you to figure out why the even/odd (multiples of 2) triangle showed upside-down triangle patterns (when coloured) in a previous post: Here’s what Daegan and I did to figure it out. We began by investigating what happens when you add two whole numbers. This means you are adding in one of four possible [...]
Daegan had his last class from the winter session of Homeschool Art recently. He loved it so much he has asked to be signed up for spring session as well. We lucky enough to live within walking distance (literally a 30-second drive) of one to Calgary’s two Arts Centres, so I’ve obliged. Art was never [...]
Now that he has addition under his belt, I introduced Daegan to Pascal’s Triangle, one of my favourite devices for playing with math. There are so many fun activities to do with this, so many patterns to find: symmetry, natural numbers, triangle numbers, the Fibonacci sequence, factors and multiples, binomial expansion, etc. We’ll be revisiting [...]
In addition to Fact Flowers, which are quite simple and self-evident, we also made Difference Diamonds, a more complex idea and one that creates geometric art. Begin with a reasonably large, square piece of paper. Choose four numbers between 10 and 20 and write them in the corners. (You’ll want to do this on regular [...]
We did a couple of ‘math art’ projects this morning. I got the ideas from the book Adding and Subtracting (Math Magic series), by Wendy and David Clemson. More here (Canada) or here (US). I started by making a fact flower for the number 4: Well, actually, I only made the petals and flower [...]
I saw the kernel of this idea here, and thought this would be a fun activity for us with a few adaptations. This morning we set up the table with watercolour paint, brushes, index cards, a white crayon and a pen. For Daegan, I wrote the answer to a math fact on one side of [...]
My friend Alicia, who writes an online homeschooling column, offered some new pictoral story starters for February, and Daegan wrote a story about an evil magician and a man with a giant purple ear. It’s been published in Alicia’s column, just as Gareth’s polar bear story was last month. Here is the text of [...]
While Daegan and I worked on some math and his short story (coming soon!), Gareth—who now wants to be included and “do homeschool” too—asked to see the Draw Write Now books. He said he wanted to learn how to draw an alligator. I helped him find the correct book and page, and left him to [...]
The boys and I did some shopping this morning, trying to get it out of the way before the regular school kids are out for teacher’s convention (tomorrow and Friday) and Family Day (Monday). Our first stop was Indigo Books, where Daegan used the last bit of his birthday gift card (from last June!) to [...]
We had a pretty good weekend. My parents were in town for a conference/meeting, and my Dad came for a visit on Saturday afternoon. It had been a while since he’d seen the boys, so it was nice to catch up. Earlier on Saturday the boys each had their drama class as well. This morning [...]