Some Learning has been going on, but is it what I meant to teach?

Why did I need the white board at breakfast?

B is up to dividing fractions.  The boy has got to know why, because, "Mom, it’s not satisfying to follow a procedure when I don’t understand it.  It’s not comfortable."

I tried explaining yesterday about inverses.  The light came on, then faded.  So I turned to the LivingMathForum Yahoo!group.  Already this morning my post has gotten some helpful replies.

We also found some fun videos: I can divide (to the tune of "I will Survive") good for remembering the procedure.  Math Playground has a snippet where they show that sometimes you can just divide directly, and Welcometochrisworld has a clever way to explain why invert and multiply works; if you’ve already had algebra and understand negative exponents.

I tried again this morning to explain why it works (this was where the white board cloth met the accidentally on purpose milk spill):

a/b / c/d is equal to (a/b / c/d) x d/c / d/c (the identity) then that would equal (a/b x d/c) / ( d/c x c/d) and the macro denominator cancels, leaving the good old: a/b / c/d = a/b x d/c. The light came on, then faded.

But DH (of course, he has all the luck) really made a breakthrough, when he started asking how many dotted half notes could fit into a 4/4 measure of music!  Our B is a real aural/oral learner.  Trust DH to think of music as a tie in!

I think I’m going to do some sidewalk math today with B and divide up the cement rectangles, as Maria suggested at Natural Math.  I should think of a way to use music too.

Yesterday we played Miquon games on a numberline on the sidewalk, to help M with subtraction.  He doesn’t mind having to try again so much if he’s playing a game with me, but having to erase something on a work sheet?  Oh Boy.

K just climbed on my lap, she has gotten a stocking cap on her head, one shoe on and off by herself, and I did check her ankles, no hair elastics there: lots of learning going on, but she hasn’t gotten to consequences yet.  Necessary, but so messy!