Getting out of math’s mud

The past month hasn’t been much fun – we mostly did math – stole from other subject periods to finish the previous day’s homework… Tammy really struggled with most of the math we did – especially problems like converting recipes. But she has nevertheless shown much improvement in all areas. Here are a few examples of the types of problems we did:

Time calculations e.g.

• On Saturday Tammy went to bed at 21:30 and she woke at 5:15. How long did she sleep?
• Nick Jonas wants to phone Tammy on her birthday at 19:00. What day and time will it be in California then?” “Lana wants to phone Tammy at 21:00 on her birthday. What day and time will it be in Australia then?
• The April holiday starts on 16 April and ends on 3 May. How many weeks/ days is that? (She calculates this without a calendar and then checks on the calendar to see whether she is right. These sums involved much subtraction, adding and division by 7.)
• Why time calculations? Because it is important in every day life as well as tourism and geography – two of her subjects. Whereas other people just pick up these skills, Tammy has to practice a method for everything.

Adding or subtraction e.g.

• Tammy invited 25 guests to her birthday party. 4 said they could not come. How many guests can she expect?
• Tammy received 14 gifts. She has already opened 6 gifts. How many more gifts must she open?
• Why? She still struggled with such basic problems, although we did a lot of them last year. I am convinced though that if we keep on practicing these, the ability to apply mathematical solutions to a variety of problems will emerge.

If one then multiply, if many then divide problems:

• The following recipe is enough for 6 people. How must Tammy change the recipe so that it is enough for 25 people? (Divide ingredients by 6 and multiply with the number of guests. Round the answer – you cannot use 3.75 chicken or measure 7.33 ml salt or 990 ml sauce.)
• Shaen will take 5 photos of each guest. How many photos will he take when there are 20 / 25 / 30 guests?
• If one plate costs R25, how much will the dinner for 30 people cost – i.e. how much will 30 plates cost?
• For the problems we whisked out the abacus and number line again. We drew pictures and real objects. And we practice and practice and practice. The conversion of recipes is part of lesson 1 of Grade 10 mathematical literacy, and both of us are determined to crack it – not only for the lesson, but forever!

Multiplication and division

• How to multiply with 25: Since 25 = 1/4 of 100, divide by 4 and multiply with 100. These problems also took several exercise sheets, before she could do it. Once she got the hang of it, it was fairly easy, but then she would apply the same “recipe” when multiplying 10 x 25! Of course you can divide 10 by 4 and multiply the answer with 100, but it is so much quicker to just add a zero!
• Besides the 1-12 tables, to also be able to count in 15’s and 25’s. To know the answers to 60/4, 4 x 15, 3 x 15, 45/ 3, 75/ 3, 3 x 25 100/ 4, 1000/ 4 etc. etc. This is much more fun and she loves it, if she “gets” me, i.e. if she can give the answer very fast!
• Percentages: this is nothing new, but it requires continuous practice. Also to understand what it meant when you run at 50%, 80% and 100%! (Water aerobics)

There is still a massive elephant to be eaten and for Tamerin the bites can never be too small. I am just grateful for the few mouthfuls that she has been able to digest. Let’s pray that these skills will stick forever!

First two days

We spent the first day fixing the year calendar on the computer. I made a calendar on Excel for Tammy, but I made it in Grade 1 font. I forgot that their computer does not have Grade 1 font, so Tammy had to select all and change the font to Ariel. It was good Excel practice nevertheless. I have had this calendar for a long time: every year I just retype the first 7 days of the month and Excel calculates the rest e.g. if the first Monday is 3 and in Cell A4 then the next Monday is =A4 + 7, i.e. 10. I have to change the holidays of course. It takes a little bit of time to do it, but then I get a custom made calendar. Next year I will let Tammy make all the changes.

She also completed the weather charts and register of November 08 on Excel. She fills in the weather on the calendar every day and on the first day of the next month, she enters this handwritten data onto an excel data base. Excel automatically reflects this data in visual charts. Tammy thinks it is so "cool". It helps to see that summer is hotter and has more rain than winter.

Of course our charts are not complete, because they only reflect the weather of school days, but one gets a reasonable picture anyway. This year we will add the daily rainfall - there is a rain-meter in the garden. Our charts reflected very few rainy days, as she only drew rain on the calendar when it actually. However, it seldom rains in the morning, so her charts reveal only about 1/3 of the rain!

Well last year's charts are now filed along with the printed register and the calendar with the hand written weather on it. Our register reflects all the outings we had and of course also all the sick leave or vacation leave either Tammy or I had.

We have started to read Hannah Montana: "A Nightmare on Hannah road" and it is a hit, but she does not read it as fluently as I have hoped she will. BUT she read 5 PAGES IT WITHOUT PRACTISING SIGHT WORDS BEFOREHAND! I must just be careful not to push this "test" of reading too far. It must remain easy and fun, so I will probably revert back to the match, choose, sight read method. It is a bit tedious for me, but she never seemed to mind and the important thing is, it worked. She asked for Hannah Montana work sheets where she can fill in words again. We will concentrate a little more on drilling of spelling as well - that is something the end of year tests indicated could be helpful.

For history we discussed general world news very briefly: the cholera in Zimbabwe, the trial of Jacob Zuma and the new political party COPE and more at length the fighting in Gaza. I copied news articles and rewrote them in simpler"Tammy" language for work sheets. Yet, even simplified there is a lot of new vocabulary! We have covered new concepts like infrastructure (a very topical one for anyone in Southern Africa!), the United Nations, firing of rockets, Hamas, controlling (of borders) destroy, smuggle, terrorists, import, export. The Gaza theme also compelled us to revise concepts we dealt with last year like refugees, borders, government, political parties, Egypt and Israel, elections, unemployment. Of course we used the globe to locate Israel again and maps to locate the Gaza strip and the West Bank. (While explaining I wrote on her board "people lose jobs" and she corrected me "People loose their jobs"! It was a sentence in her prize giving speech last November!)

We live in an interesting world and Tammy is part of it and should know what is happening is this world! She said she would ask at Sunday School that they pray for Gaza: "The fighting must stop." The pictures and news of Gaza fill us with such sadness! It is all so unnecessary, if only....