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We discovered this game a few years ago – but they didn’t have a mac option. We checked it out the other day and they had a free Mac version 2-12X tables. Cassius loves it – all the kids do. Cassius who has never shown any interest in the multiplication was jumping and yelling out the answers! It’s wonderful to see the looks on the younger kids faces. I can tell they’re thinking, “Math is so cool – I can’t wait till I beat the troll too, like the big kids!”
Of course you can only have the cool environments if you pay for the upgrade, which we discovered when we reached level three. Cassius convinced me to buy it. He was pleading to learn math, how could I say no? Now I wished I waited until he got to level five or six, so the novelty of the new environments would go farther. But who knows, it might keep his attention all the way to 12. He now knows his 2 and 3 X tables all the way to 12 and is working on the 4’s. So it is really working for him right now, and he is so proud of himself when he succeeds.
I’ve really noticed how much it helps him if I sit with him while he’s learning something new, and help him remember to breath and stay calm when he feels frustrated and afraid of failing ( or getting hit by a troll)! Once he’s got past this point he just takes off!
Rosalind had a old drill that she brought over to see if Tyler could fix it. All the kids were very interested to look inside and see how it worked. Paris was captivated and never left Tyler’s side. The most fun was when we put a straw in another drill and the kids got to make it spin.
Anja and Cassius pulled out the game of LIFE the other day and played the whole game from beginning to end. They asked me over to tell them how to read the numbers on the money, cards and board. Two minutes of explanation and they now know how to read and add thousands.
The money comes in $5000,$10,000,$20,000,$50,000,$100,000 dollar bills. You might get to collect 85,000 when you pass pay day, for example – so you need to be able to add the money. At the end I helped them add up all their money to see who had won.
Six months ago they would have sat down any either played for five minutes or just pretended to play so it was really neat to see they have reached a new level of concentration and understanding.
our ultimate tree fort design
We have a very rickety tree fort in our back yard that we we have dreams of rebuilding. Cassius was telling me his good ideas and Paris brought me a pen and paper and told me to draw it. So we all sat down and decided what we wanted together. This is a very rough design obviously. We know we want a drawbridge, trap door, two levels, zip line, a pulley lift, a ball run, a catapult & a sandbox.
We found some great books on the web and ordered them from the library.
treehouse books.com
For some reason our family seems to love playing games with big maps. We like to dream that one day we’ll get to travel to all places we visit on the boards.
Catan Histories: Struggle for Rome
This is our new favourite game inspired of course by Cassius’ interest in Rome. This is one of those games that you could leave out (if you didn’t have a Paris) and play for days.
Cassius had a lot of fun doing this money quiz game
Cassius’ wonderful learning consultant forwarded us this message from another Self Design Parent:
“Murderous Maths – we have them all, and my son LOVES them. He does not understand all the concepts as they are quite sophisticated, but he enjoys reading the cartoons and jokes and he is getting the basic ideas behind the concepts as a result. When I purchased these, it was mainly for my own interest and I did not expect my 7-year-old would look at them, let alone walk around for days on end giggling whilst reading them. But he has – and I feel that some huge step has been taken for making Math fun and interesting and not about worksheets, or “boring sums” as per the back of each book (i.e. no boring sums are in these books).
The actual math in each book is clearly explained on this site: http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/. You’ll need to scroll a little. You’ll see why this is not Math for a 7-year-old – but he is getting the idea.
For some bizarre reason, these books are only published and distributed in the U.K. You can get them through Fun Books in the states.”
Since Cassius loves the horrible histories and I know he learns through humour I thought we’d try them out. They are wonderful! I’ve been up to midnight every night this week because I can’t put them down. Cassius has been reading all the cartoons and we’re half way through reading the first book together.
We actually can’t stop ourselves from working out the problems. In the first book Colonel Cancel needs to buy back his men’s clothes from Thag the Mathemagician. He has 13 pieces of clothes buy back. He can either pay a penny for the first and and double the amount for each following item (1 cent , then 2 cents, then 4 cents and so on), or he can pay one dollar for the first and one dollar more per item ($1 , then $2, then $3 etc.). Which way do you think would be the smartest way to pay?
These books aren’t just funny, they are intelligent. They really make math seem interesting and amazing. If Cassius reads all these books he’ll know more than I ever learned in school about math, even if he never does one boring sum.
