The littles and I have been continuing with our Monday morning math lessons. They love to learn. It is almost too easy. I have said in the past I’ll ride this joy train as long as it lasts … because some of the other students here might GROAN audibly before their math lesson.

I have added another component to our calendar time. I use this beautiful calendar from Sarah’s Covenant Homes and our friends, the F Family, to ask the littles questions, like “Point to where it says what month it is” or “Point to the day on the calendar.” I figure they need to also be able to read an actual calendar. We have it hanging up now, and I love the Scriptures in it and the photos of the beautiful children.

I discovered last week that I could write on the metal hanging deal we use for calendar with a dry-erase marker.

I have a pointer thing I found at the Dollar*Tree, and the kids ALL love to use it … so I came up with this. As I called a number, the littles would point to it.

I used numbers 1–20 for Li’l Bro and numbers 10–100 (by 10s) for Li’l Miss. They did well, and I extended the lesson by having LM make her numbers from play-doh and LB made his with the magnetic numbers as I called them out. I gave him 3 seconds (he did well and is so close to having these numbers solid in his mind).

This week, we worked on the concept of “less than.” While we were at it, we also added in our heads using the numbers 1–6 (using our giant dice). I was amazed how well they did with adding in that extra skill.

First, I will show you my assistant.

Now onto photos form our “Less Than” lesson.

We talked about how the “alligator” wants to eat the bigger number because he is very hungry.

Once we did this, they got it. I will be curious to see if they remember it! They also didn’t want to quit, but we did before they got bored.

First we used just two dice and compared the numbers.

Then they began to roll two sets of dice and add the two dice together for each set. Sometimes they counted the dots, but more than a few times they called out the answer by just LOOKING at the dice. So impressed!!! They are smart I think, but I am admittedly biased!

Then it happened … finally … Li’l Miss rolled two sets of equal numbers … and she was stumped … and then she said, “Well the alligator would want to eat them BOTH!” I said, “That’s right because they are … ” And she said, “… the same.” I was hoping for “equal” but she did understand they were equal … we revisited that word, and I was reminded I needed to use it more often in conversation.

After Li’l Miss finished her rolls, I continued working with Li’l Bro a few more minutes … and LM helped to put away our number tiles. I forgot to mention we first just chose two number tiles and would compare those. Then we used the sets of dice. But anyway, she didn’t just put them in the box … she arranged them in the box.

Below are just some random pics from other math lessons we’ve had. The littles see us giving the older boys problems on the board, so they like to work math problems on the board too. One day I just wrote random two-digit numbers and called them out for them to point to (or erase as I called out) … they did much better than I was expecting. It is great to see them thinking!

And on another day, I just gave them copywork for their Math Notebooks. I am determined they will not get to a certain grade or age and not at least get that fractions, decimals and percents are all different ways of saying the SAME thing. 🙂

I gave them some real-life examples of fourths, 1 part out of 4, and we showed with our pizza 1/4 and 1 out of 4.

Hope your math has been most enjoyable lately too! 🙂