How to Use Family Math

My first week of homeschooling I took my one and only “class”, and it was on Family Math. I learned how to play about 10 or so of the games. The basic idea is to start at the top of the directions and work your way down, and the game WILL eventually make sense. Usually my kids understood the game better than me: I’m just there to read the directions!This is how I used it: I looked at the math lesson that my kids were learning that day. Say it’s fractions. I looked in the index in the back of the Family Math book, and look up fractions. It lists 4 or 5 games and activities with fractions. I looked at the top of each game for the grade level (primary, elementary, or middle school). Then I looked at the game to see what I need for supplies. I kept a shoe box with math stuff: sugar cubes, dice, cards. Mostly the games just required paper and pencil.

We played a math game almost every day. I used it as my math manipulative. This math manipulative is directly related to what they were learning in their math lesson (also in some of the Building Thinking Skills lessons.) It helped to teach the “why” of math concepts that may be difficult at first. When my eldest was 11 years old, he would usually begin his math lesson with “I don’t get it.” If I could find a good game for that lesson first, then he would start his lesson with “This is so easy.” There was never a middle ground, by the way!

To make my life easier, and on the advise of the Family Math teacher, I made copies of all the game boards that I needed at the beginning of the year (when copies were 1 penny!) I made about 10 copies of each game. The book is reproducible. I paper clipped the copies together, and stored them in a 3 ring binder in numerical order. If the game on page 92 requires a copy, I slip one out of the folder. I have my hubby make more copies when one set gets low. Not all games require copies, though.

I loved Family Math because it is multi-age (k-8th grade) and inexpensive to use. Much like Spelling Power!

Blessings,

Lee

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