Currently the items we’re doing are coinciding well with her kindergarten class. We’ll go through her lessons at home and then a few weeks later, they’ll touch on the same concept and she flies right through it with great success.

Aspen carries around her AL Abacus Junior in her backpack and has been using it in her classroom. She says that the kids in her class love to use it as well! She is also using it in her daycare to “teach” the other kids math. Her daycare provider gets a huge kick out of watching her be the teacher and how excited the other kids are to learn from her.

Aspen’s grasp of math has been such a blessing. Time and time again, I’m wishing I had known about the program when her older brother was going through school….

We think this was a great idea so we thought we would share with all our RightStart™ users.

Thanks Jill!

January 25, 2012

Aspen has been showing great understanding of organizing items by size in Level A. She is able to take any type of items and organize them both smallest to largest and in reverse. She continues to beg to go through her lessons each night and rarely gets frustrated with anything we’ve encountered thus far. She continues to want to “count items” using her AL Abacus. She wanders around the house and totals up her findings then has to verify that she is correct. When asked if a certain quantity has been added or subtracted, she has been stellar in her grasping of the concept and rarely gets them incorrect. I’m finding that the lessons are clear and concise and that it’s been quite easy to give the instructions to her to follow.

February 22, 2012

Aspen has been flourishing with her Level A lessons. She’s still so very excited when we work a lesson. We were working on parallels and about a week following the lesson as we were driving down the highway, Aspen kept asking to play the “pallellell game”. She definitely has a slight problem pronouncing it, however I was racking my mind trying to figure out what she was talking about. It finally came to me that she wanted to play a game to see if items were or were not parallel. We play our new game now whenever we have a drive, as well as when we are at home. She continues to verify with me if she’s correct when she judges if any two items are parallel or not. Math has been becoming one game after another with her, and it’s such a joy to see her enjoying herself and her new knowledge she’s acquiring.

March 27, 2012

Things are progressing nicely for Aspen, as she continues to enjoy her math. She loves working with the Abacus, and continues to play with it to work on her skills even when we’re not doing a lesson. She’s been working diligently on identifying numbers of items with her tally sticks, abacus and her fingers, and for the most part, she’s been successful. She still struggles with the 7, 8 and 9, but is getting more successful with those all the time. She still has a tendency to try to count those out when she thinks I’m not looking. She was working on them the other night, when her big brother, who’s 18, was watching. She was given an “8″ and she was looking at the abacus to figure out the appropriate beads to move, when her brother said, “Aspen just count them out on your fingers”, in which Aspen replied: “Bohdey, we don’t do it that way, we have to think about it.” He just looked at her and grinned. Maybe a little of this will eventually rub off on him, as he didn’t have the opportunity to take advantage of this product and he struggled all the way through school with his math classes. A mom can always be hopeful!

Part way into the game, Anson picked out a slip, opened it, and stared intently at the paper for a long while. Finally, he said, “Mama, I think this is eight, but it’s SPELLED WRONG!”.

He showed the slip of paper. It showed 3 tally sticks to the left of the group of 5!

We love @RightStartMath because we get to cut and glue

Thanks for sharing with us @ServingFromHome

Notice how she has the planets proportionate in distance and size? Hmmmm. Wonder if she used math? Good job, Kylee!

Let’s look at how to find check numbers, then how to apply them. We also have a presentation on check numbers for you to review. Check numbers are first taught in RightStart™ Mathematics Level D, starting in lesson 47, and Level E, lesson 4, and Math Card Games, game #A63.

Finding Simple Check Numbers

Check numbers are one digit numbers from 0 to 8. We will designate the check numbers by using parenthesis.

Let’s start with a simple two-digit number:    17

Add the digits together:                                 1 + 7 = 8

Check number of 17 is (8).

Now let’s try another:       49

Add the digits together:  4 + 9 = 13

Remember check numbers are only one digit, so we’ll need to take the 13 found above, and continue to add the digits together:  1 + 3 = 4

Check number of 49 is (4).

Another:                              99

Add the digits together:      9 + 9 = 18

And again:                                      1 + 8 = 9

However, remember we said that check numbers are from 0 to 8? There are no 9s. Now what? Well, all 9s are 0s. So, on this example, we have 1 + 8 = 9, and 9 = 0.

Check number of 99 is (0).

Because all 9s = 0s, we have a quick shortcut to help find check number.

Let’s back up to our second example:                 49

If 9 = 0, then it looks like this:                             4 + 0 = (4),

which is what we had the “long” way. Neat, right?

Let’s reapply to our third example:                      99

Well, that’d be:                                                   0 + 0 = (0)

Remember the other name for Check Numbers is Casting Out Nines. If we “cast” the 9s out, which is the same as 0, our work is simplified!

Finding More Check Numbers

Let’s find check numbers with a four-digit number:   4639

Add the digits together:                                            4 + 6 + 3 + 9 = 22

And again:                                                                                        2 + 2 = 4

Check number of 4639 is (4).

Let’s try this again using some of our newly discovered shortcuts.

Remember, 9 = 0.                                                     4639

We can “cast out” the 9, so now we have:           4 + 6 + 3 + 0

But 6 + 3 = 9, so let’s “cast” that out too!            4 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 4

Well! That was easy! Check number of 4639 is quickly found as (4).

Another one:                                                              7326

See anything to “cast”? How about 7 & 2 and 3 & 6? Check number is (0).

Applying Check Numbers

So now that we can find check numbers, let’s use them!

Consider the following equation:

.   4639

+  7326

. 11965

If you’re like me, you wonder if you added it correctly and often will double check either by recalculating and/or checking on a calculator. We can check accuracy by using check numbers!

So, figure the check numbers:

.   4639  (4)

+  7326  (0)

. 11965  (4)

Look at the check numbers! (4)+(0)=(4)!

Let’s do another:

.     364

+  4426

Calculate the answer then calculate the check numbers. Did you do it right?

Should look like this:

.     364  (4)

+  4426  (7)

.   4790  (2)

and the check numbers are correct too.

Now, let’s assume you came up with a wrong sum (which happens) and it looked like this:

.     364  (4)

+  4426  (7)

.   4780  (1)  ERROR

Notice now how the check numbers don’t add up. (4) + (7) does not equal (1). This becomes our check! We now know something is wrong and needs to be corrected.

More Applying Check Numbers

As we can see, check numbers are a method of checking and verifying addition calculations. If the check numbers are not adding up, the answer is probably wrong.

Remember that check numbers work with subtraction, multiplication, and division? We’re going to save that for another post. Meanwhile, play around and see what you discover! Stay tuned……

December 19, 2011

I got the Level A for my daughter Aspen, who is 4 years old. She is currently in pre-school and was so excited that now she gets to do “homework” like her big brother and sister. On her first lesson, she jumped up and down she was so happy to be working with the tools provided in the kit.

We just started with the tally sticks and working with some small objects up to three, and she flew through it with great success. At the end of the lesson, she was completely disappointed in the fact that she thought we were going to finish all the “cool stuff in the box”, but I let her know that she’d get to work on it lesson by lesson.

My older son, who is currently a senior in high school, struggled so much with math, that when he brought home his math homework, it brought both of us to tears at times. I only wish that I had been able to take advantage of this program with him while he was young.

When Aspen told him that she was going to be doing “math homework” with mom in the evening, he wasn’t thoroughly impressed. He’s now seeing how excited she is about it. Maybe it will be a bit contagious, and he’ll be able to take away some valuable insight as well as he works with her through the lessons.

January 3, 2012

Aspen is continuing to show her excitement over her math. She is completely loving the program. She’s consistently running through the house reciting her “one, two, buckle my shoe” rhyme she learned in Lesson 1. She asks several times a day if we can do another lesson.

She is forever looking at groups of items and letting me know how many are there. When I ask “if we take away 2, how many would there be?” or some other number, and she is excelling in her responses, both in accuracy and in speed.

People looked and smiled when we were shopping the other day. We were doing our little groupings and subtraction/addition lessons as we worked our way through a store.

The only thing that she has “struggled” with, and I use this term loosely, is her grasping of the terms of placement, such as “second, third” etc. This is still a bit of a mystery to her, but she is so willing to jump in with both feet to work harder to grasp it, it’s a complete joy.

Stay tuned for more reports on Aspen’s progress in Level A!

About a month before the event, Tami Kramlich, the Elementary Principal, wrote to us and said,

“Last year we had a literacy and fitness event that was very well-received. Each classroom had a fitness station where the kids and parents learned some easy to do fitness activities. At the end we all met in the lunchroom for snacks and read a book together. We would like to do something similar with our math event.”

So the planning began. We set the event on Monday, November 21, 2011. The event schedule was set:

1:00 – 1:30—Introduction to RightStart™ Math
1:30 – 1:50—First Station
1:50 – 2:10—Second Station
2:10 – 2:30—Third Station
2:30 – 2:50—Fourth Station
2:50 – 3:10—Fifth Station
3:10 – 3:20—Snacks
3:25—Regular Dismissal

Each station, held in different classrooms, had a one or two of the math games set up. Games chosen were Corners™ (MCG #A9), What Makes 16 Cents (MCG #M6), Short Chain (MCG #A47), Fraction War (MCG #F7 and #F9), Multiplication Memory (MCG #P10), Swim to Ten (MCG #N34) and Memory with Different Sets of Cards (MCG #N17).

Parents and children were placed on teams and rotated from station to station to learn a new math game and spend a few minutes playing that game. In some situations, the group would watch the video, sometimes the teacher would demonstrate the game, or sometimes the group would watch a select few play the game, then everyone would go and play it themselves.

We had a blast! Parents and grandparents were involved, children were proud of their classrooms and their math skills, and everyone was learning. Laughter was heard up and down the halls. When the buzzer sounded to indicate it was time to move to the next station, I’d hear “Hurry up so I can get a turn!” or “Now that was GREAT!”

I challenge you to create a game day. If you’re in a school setting, we have the plan outlined right here. If you are a tutor or homeschooler, maybe set up a couple hour block and play games, changing the game every 15 to 20 minutes.

Let us know how this goes. Post your thoughts on Facebook or Twitter!

Have a great day and play a math card game.

Check out Marshall and Karen’s fractal.

Since it’s the Christmas season they decided to make it a Cotter Fractal Tree!!