We currently unschool. We're pretty free about what we do and when. We learn mostly from reading books, doing projects and going on field trips. However, I am not comfortable with unschooling when it comes to math. My dh is a mathematician, so good math skills are important to him. Plus, dd is really good at math! So, what math curriculum would you recommend that fits best with unschooling, has lots of activities, and is rather challenging??? Anyone.

We just started officially (I think! LOL! Yikes) unschooling and this has been in question for me too.. BUT I think I am working through it because DD just the other day started discussing math with me and how it worked (fractions is currently what she is curious about) and that is a start. On top of that we have been playing a lot of card games (with chips to bet- not trying to raise someone with gambling problems but boy does it help with math! LOL!) and some pretty complex.. Dealing with patterns and such. Not to mention all the other board games we play and cooking we do.
Like I said I am pretty new to this so that's all we have so far. Would love to hear other ideas!

Marcey, I've never used it, but I hear that Math U See is a good curriculum. They had a stall at the NJ Unschooling conference last summer, so maybe their approach is a bit less school-at-home than some of the others? I don't know. But it might be worth a look-see.

Tara

I use math-u-see and love it. You learn using manipulatives. MY DS has excelled using this program. Just this morning Andrew got up and did his math before I even woke up.

I can take a couple of pics of the pages and pm them to you if you want to see what it looks like. Just pm me.

What about Singapore math?

We are not unschoolers, but my laid back son loves his singapore math.
(He is 5)

http://www.singaporemath.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=SFNT&Store_Code=1

Or, what about miquon math?
http://www.fun-books.com/books/miquon_math.htm

Hope

I don't know, but I will look back through my back issues of Growing Without Schooling, b/c I know they have discussed this before.

I'm interested in what others do here, too.

So far we've printed off Singapore Math worksheets and Katie ate them up one day...just did about 8 worksheets in a row. Since then she hasn't asked for them.

Katie is also really gifted in math. So far I can see that in the course of daily life, math questions come up. We bake and try to discuss fractions while measuring, we use my measuring tape, we estimate how many there are in a pile of things. We've talked about money and coins and the value of each coin and practiced counting money, and she gets $1/week allowance and we go to the dollar store so she can spend it, and figure out how much we have to spend, how many $1 items we can get, how many $1.50 items we can get.

She's also been known to ask math questions in the car, or I ask her addition questions and she answers them in the car.

So far I'm happy there, and planning on introducing math more formally if we decide to take a step away from unschooling and do Enki for first grade. I think Enki still fits w/unschooling, from what I have heard from others, but there is material there for teaching math in a Waldorf-inspired way (I think they use little gnomes to introduce the four processes?). www.enkieducation.org

Lots of relaxed homeschoolers/unschoolers I know use Singapore or Miquon math.

I was also going to say Miquon. It uses Cuisenairre Rods and the workbooks are open ended. To be honest, it was too much work for me to decipher (with 4 little ones and }{ that mugh brain power left).

My son, Nate has loved everything math. And he makes everything a math problem. He finds a way to make even reading math problems (decoding, etc). I could count 90% of his waking hours as 'math hours'.

Rainbow Resources has a book on teaching your children calculus from a young age. You might like that, as well. If I were unschooling, I would look at having certain manipulatives available like: tangrams, pattern blocks, attribure blocks, 1" cubes, base 10 blocks and math link cubes. With those items, you can do pretty much anything math related. And if they are available, dd would probably discover the math objectives on her own or with minimal help. It's amazing to see kids figure out fractions with the pattern blocks... even dividing fractions! You can be there to guide, if you like... to show her how she would write what she discovers.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. When it comes to everyday math, we do lots of it. I am looking for a math curriculum because she's just turned 5 and can already do:

Addition up to 20
Subtration up to 20
Count past 100
Write her numbers
Understand ordinals
Count by 10's, 5's and parts of a few others
Can do money
Understands and can perform measurements
Can look at, understand, and write fractions.

I just feel like I need some guidance to take her to the next levels. I want to start some simple calculus too. I feel very comfortable with unschooling in history, reading, science, writing, art, etc. But, there is just something about math that causes me to panic a bit. She loves it very much and I want to keep that enthusiasm going.

I'll check out Math-U-See, Miquon, and Singapore. I just don't even know what "grade" to start with her. Our local homeschooling store only carries Saxon Math. It looked pretty dry. LOL I just wish I could look at all these side by side before I make a choice. UGH!!!

Thanks again! I appreciate your help.

at Borders looking through their workbook section. Scholastic has a lot of dry workbooks but they also have a few interesting ones.
There were hundreds of workbooks and I found 2 math ones I liked the fun appeal of.

One was math problems in fairy tales or something like that. Stories like the 3 little pigs and then a page of related math questions.

The other was math mysteries...a series of little books you put together that unfold a mystery with math questions through the mystery.

My ds is young but I picked them up because they both seemed like really fun approaches to math practice that would work well for unschooling or as a supplement to a complete math curriculum.

:)Jenn

Originally posted by marchroses
at Borders looking through their workbook section. Scholastic has a lot of dry workbooks but they also have a few interesting ones.
:)Jenn

oo that reminds me! I like the book Family Math

Ooh!
I forgot Pre Math It and Math it.

Singapore and Math u see have placement tests on their websites.

For miquon, I would start at the beginning.
It is for first-third grade.

Hope

Marcey,

You may want to ask Haydn what she wants in terms of math. She truly is old enough to express her desires, just like she does with all her other subjects.

We tried "unschooling" math with miquon stuff, tangrams, pattern blocks, geo boards, etc. At exactly 2 my oldest dd (profoundly gifted) said, "Mom, why don't you just get me a book that has math in it and teach me math? Wouldn't that be easier?" We got a couple different curricula, and she really liked (and still likes) Saxon, despite all the evil things people say about it, especially for gifted kids. She's ten lessons from finishing grade 3 right now.

I think unschooling is fine for kids who aren't mathematically gifted, but to truly delve into deeper math thinking, a curricula is almost required. There aren't a whole lot of handy calculus examples in daily living. :)

Oh, if you truly think Haydn is gifted in math, you may want to look into the EPGY program at Stanford. It's a distance-learning math course for gifted kids, and the examples look pretty fun. We considered enrolling Dagny, but we're doing fine with the program we have-- so if it isn't broke, we aren't fixing it! But we probably will use this program when she gets into higher level math, mainly because she can earn college credit that way.

Right, Wendy!

I have used this method with my dd and math.
And everytime she would choose the program she needed at the time.
I would show her the program (a picture or real life if available at our homeschool supply store) I would explain to her how it was used.
The one time I did not ask her input, we ended up with something she could not understand!

Hope
(Who really wanted to buy math u see this year, but dd picked Saxon and she LOVES it!)