Bear Necessities of Rounding

Counting Bears have been a bear necessity for our home school.

I remember eyeing them in Wal-mart,

waiting for the day I could afford them.

When I found another set at a garage sale,

I was ecstatic. 

It felt better than that dream

of picking up money in the streets,

cuz this was real.

Doesn't take much to make the

Momma of home-teached kids happy,

does it?

 

I said that on purpose - remember the name of my blog?

Any-hoo, we were trying to learn the

concept of rounding to the nearest ten.

As always, the first time a concept can be introduced,

it can be confusing.

First time mastery brings confidence and enjoyment to any subject.

I pulled out my pile of tricks from overstuffed and underorganized shelves and got to work.

We started with the laminated number line that goes from 1-100.

A small bear was placed on the number 18,

the number we needed to round.

Rebekah had to tell me the two tens her number was between,

in this case 10 and 20.

Large bears were placed on the tens.

If your items aren't different sizes, you could differentiate with colors.

At a glance, she could tell the 18 was closer to the 20.

(double-click to enlarge and print)

We repeated with different numbers,

emphasizing the rule~

numbers ending in 1-4

are rounded down,

numbers ending in 5-9

are rounded up.

Yep, counting bears

are the bear necessities

of a hOme tEaChEd life.

 

Playing In Math Class

Beka and I love to play together.

We play dolls, store, raft, school, restaurant, store and servant.

She always lets me be the boss and she's the servant, isn't she sweet?

It's hard to do school when you wanna' play,

so we like to play during school.

It greatly improves math skills.

So does scratching your head, we learned.

In 2nd grade, Beka is learning money skills.

The worksheet introduced the concept of counting back change.

Having a cash register with a calculator and a change drawer that

"dings" when you open it, is a must for math class.

The worksheet was  kinda' confusing.

It was kinda' boring, too.

If Teacher Momma Mindy is bored,

I know my student is bored.

When the head scratchin' didn't help enough,

 

We opened a store.

While Beka priced her toys, I scribbled quick cards for each item.

The box on the left is the price, the bill used to pay is in the middle.

She had to use $5, $10 and $20 bills.

First, she had to figure out change, using the lease amount of each coins.

 Then, I came into her store many times, in character,

buying gifts for nieces, spoiled children, brats, and kids having birthdays.

She recommended an item, took my money, and counted back my change.

After I bought out the store, she had nailed the concept.

We went back to the boring worksheet, and finished it in a few minutes.

I'm thinkin' boring doesn't always mean just boring.

Confusion can bring on boredom.

When you are confident and understand,

math isn't boring, it's exciting.

Then, we played, because that's what we like to do.

We play.