More fleg creatures and division with some minus

We made more critters for the fleg

It's the Maths Main Lesson block again this week. We are pushing ahead with division and minus. Having introduced the concepts via our famous number gnomes in the first term, we revisit these with more abstraction (but not too much!). Here are some photos from this week...

A lovely sunflower sewn by Kai

The minus gnome who looses things and King Equals

Just above that are the three times tables

The song we are learning this week

 

Division

Maths is an ethical subject. It i good and true, it is beautiful. There is a spirituality in maths which is once removed in language. You don't tell the children this of course, but you say things like...The Divide Gnome is a very fair gnome. He carries his sword and he divides everything up fairly. Later on for minus, they will learn that you do not borrow, but you take, since you never return what you borrow. King Equals rules justly as everything on either side of him is the same, he balances. This will later come in useful in algebra. The gnomes are also related to the temperaments. Division is choleric, minus is melancholic, addition is phelgmatic and multiplication is...yes...sanguine!! Each temperament has a colour...which will explain the worksheets later. Since we learn the timetables through the magic circle, the children see that maths is also beautiful. That the correct answer gives you a beautiful pattern.

The children learn that you can make 15 in different ways

This was sense of number. The children learn number bonds and number relations through the sense of number. It also enables them to think differently - there is no one solution. You have an answer and you can reach it by many different means. At this stage most of them would have understood that all those operations give you 15.

Homemade worksheets

There are two sets of worksheets i make, aimed at different stages of development. Because the class is small i am able to help each child personally. But to be honest, there are very few children who need help at this stage. It is amazing to see how far they have got in less than a year. They get NO homework. And they only started their literacy and numeracy this year.

Our main lesson book

Each brings their own character to the book

We make our own teaching aids

It's not because we are cheap, but working with beeswax and scissors helps the fine motorskills. I got the children to make 36 balls from beeswax - which also helped their sense of number and then we did division by three. 36 divided by 3 is...12.

Division by 5

I love the way we use simple natural materials. I don't know if i have said this before, but it is vital that children experience genuine materials as the sense of touch, smell and taste by a moral counterpart. By knowing what tastes, feels and smells real, the children learn to intuit the 'truth'. It is better explained through the reverse...which is how is a person supposed to know what real silk feels like or real wool feels like if they have only felt the synthetic one? Similarly, how are you supposed to know what the truth is when all you have known is a lie?

See how our sunflower has grown in a week!

I'm hoping for them to do some observation as the inner leaves now begin to grow.

Teacher's example

Picture of our happy gardening club!