I know I'm doing it right when there isn't any time for me...
Last few sessions I have had, have flown by in an instant. Have a little seven year old doing problems like 12 x 13, 13 x 15 etc...and having fun doing it...because bigger is funner.
Had a couple young girls doing math and having some fun...we did algebra...than backed up to addends...how is it possible we have created a system where a 14 year old girl doesn't know for sure what 6 needs to be ten? It boggles my mind, and the worst part is the system will start blaming HER.
In the picture above we were doing a compound teaching lesson where I showed her 15 x 13 and (x+5)(x+3)...just introducing them to the patterns and later when we evaluate these expressions for various values of x it will be easy. Then we went from multiplication to division it took a second for them to realize we were doing the same problems...
In my defense I wrote those upside down. After this we backed up and built addends for 10 and 9...they had a little race and I could see they have some sisterly competitiveness...which I can gently exploit to get more done in less time. I started the lesson with the 5 concepts then a quick lesson on rounding for their little sister who was not present, they assured me she had it wired. Then we moved onto a quick lesson on where these symbols (greater than and less than) come from
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No more confusion or memory devices. They know what the symbols mean. One more time and it should be "in there" [minds] and easily re-callable.
Then came some two digit by two digit multiplication, mostly as a confidence builder and then the algebra and then addends...and then 90 minutes had gone by. To me it felt like 5 minutes max....so I was shocked when their mother said an hour had gone by and pleaded for more time.
Also if you go here you can see the testimonials are trickling in. There seems to be a common theme: FUN.
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