An Excuse For Cake
Yesterday afternoon my 9 yr old son came to me and told me he had just discovered that it was his favorite Beanie Baby's birthday. He had made him a party crown and wondered if we could bake a cake for him and have a party. LOL
And since I need little reason to have cake, I said it was fine as long as he made it himself. I supervised the process and helped a bit with reading the measurements.
I was surprised by how much trouble he has visualizing math concepts such as if we need 1/3 of a cup of oil and you are holding a 1cup measuring cup how full do you have to fill it to make 1/3? He has alot of trouble with mathematical concepts in general and we are still struggling along trying to find some kind of math curriculum that makes sense to him. I am leaning towards buying Math-U-See, but waiting until January when my 8yr old will be at the same level level as my 9 yr old and I can work with them both together.
My 8 yr old, despite his pretty severe ADHD, thinks in very much the same way that I do, so I have an easy time explaining concepts to him. I am not sure what exactly that says about my brain though, LOL. He taught himself multiplication, not by memorizing the times tables, but by playing around with the calculator and a number chart. He understands how and why multiplication works and has the tools to figure them out because of this, which I think is probably more important than rote memorization. Anyway, I hope to find something that will help my 9 yr old achieve this also.
Despite his mathematical shortcomings, my 9 yr old made one good cake :-) And he frosted and decorated it himself also. Everyone made party crowns for themselves and their own Beanie Baby and we sang Happy Birthday.
And since I need little reason to have cake, I said it was fine as long as he made it himself. I supervised the process and helped a bit with reading the measurements.
I was surprised by how much trouble he has visualizing math concepts such as if we need 1/3 of a cup of oil and you are holding a 1cup measuring cup how full do you have to fill it to make 1/3? He has alot of trouble with mathematical concepts in general and we are still struggling along trying to find some kind of math curriculum that makes sense to him. I am leaning towards buying Math-U-See, but waiting until January when my 8yr old will be at the same level level as my 9 yr old and I can work with them both together.
My 8 yr old, despite his pretty severe ADHD, thinks in very much the same way that I do, so I have an easy time explaining concepts to him. I am not sure what exactly that says about my brain though, LOL. He taught himself multiplication, not by memorizing the times tables, but by playing around with the calculator and a number chart. He understands how and why multiplication works and has the tools to figure them out because of this, which I think is probably more important than rote memorization. Anyway, I hope to find something that will help my 9 yr old achieve this also.
Despite his mathematical shortcomings, my 9 yr old made one good cake :-) And he frosted and decorated it himself also. Everyone made party crowns for themselves and their own Beanie Baby and we sang Happy Birthday.
1 Comments:
I had to tell you my 8yo taught himself multiplication too. We just thought he was weird, lol. He figured out 2 x 3 means 2 three times and added until he memorized them. I think I was about 20 when I figured that out. Math is obviously not my strong point. My10 yo thinks like me. He got in trouble for telling the teacher this week he wouldn't figure the area to paint a room, he'd just ask the guy at the store. Made sense to me.
Post a Comment
<< Home