Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Getting Started AMA1

base ten blocks, algebra, #littlekidsHere is an email exchange that is all too typical. Before we begin let me say none of the little girls pictured are his little girl and this is exactly the time to start teaching math concepts right along with language and motor skills development. But her ability to push a crayon around is not indicative of her ability to understand basic math concepts which, when you think about it are just vocabulary.

How many is three?

What is three anyway?


Well, one and another one and one more. Or two plus one...half of six, the square root of nine...there's a lot to know about three. And at that age it's fun to learn it with blocks with your mom and dad or one or the other. And this is the right attitude. Explore and discover together and you shall see in short order, a little child shall lead them. 

I will say again consciousness rising: there was a time that they had you believing you might have bad math genes.  This dad understands that he has an opportunity to break a cycle forever. Once you learn how to do this they can teach others...like their own children. Kinda like riding a bicycle. This is the difference between rudimentary understanding via memorization, and knowing. Anyway I share this with you because it typifies a lot of mail I get but this one is exactly the right age...I hate it when I get mail like this but instead of three and a half it's 16...



Hi Crewton,

I have a 3.5 year old daughter.

My love of math was squashed when I was in the 5th grade and they introduced long division. I hated math in high school barely squeaked by Algebra and Geometry. I never took Calc or Trig but satisfied my last math requirements by taking "computer programming" classes.

So... here I am. Wanting to give a strong foundation for my daughter to LOVE math and have FUN with math and be GREAT at math.

And I think that learning how to teach Mortensens Math to my 3-year old would actually teach ME how to LOVE and have fund and be great at math as well!

I've looked around enough to believe that Mortensen's Math is the way to go.

And I've read enough great feedback about you on a number of forums, that I feel confident you have the tools, training, resources, etc.

I see that you are extremely generous with information on your website. However, (probably due to my previous bad association with math) I feel completely overwhelmed with the amount of information and seriously have no idea where to start.

Do you have a simple 1, 2, 3, A, B, C (buy this, DO this) recommendation for a math-phobic parent with a 3.5 year old?

Thank you!

J.R.
Austin, TX


J.R. If it was Dallas it would have been too perfect. But anyway my heart particularly goes out to little girls because the deck is so stacked against them. And the concept of transference is very real your show math anxiety THEY show math anxiety except they don't know why. So play and have fun and learn together--with my help.  Hundreds have now come before you. Quite a few get tutoring and then very quickly see all they have to do is play blocks. The cool thing about this is it works for the gifted and talented kids because it's accelerated learning due to multi-sensory input. Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic...base ten blocks cover all the bases.

Getting Started AMA1  + New Year's Stealth Sale.



Yes.

Unfortunately the warehouse is down for the holidays and you just missed our product sale.

Get a password. Start, ANYWHERE--you've got years. But the getting started page is a great place to begin then the EZ PZ Overview, once you get a password. From there Parent teacher training...

base ten blocks, fun math activitties
 45 addends, 400 multiplication facts.

There is a lot of free stuff currently...look through it. But just like learning a new language it will take years to get comfortable...right now play and have fun and put concepts and math facts in. For everything there is a season this is an important post to understand the opportunity you have to make a change.

Get my free subtraction book and there is a Holiday bonus gift attached (I sent him the curious counter compendium). You can get my password for $349.00 if you do it before New Years, NORMALLY I say take advantage of the free stuff but I'd say get a password now because a lot of pages are about to go behind paywalls, and a combo kit combo ($135.00) or a deluxe combo kit combo and you are in for under 500 bucks and it's an investment that will last a lifetime. I can't do anything about the product price or availability but I can offer you a deal on the passwords and training. (And quite a deal considering I charge $50.00 and hour and those trainings go 4 or 5 hours at a shot.) And you'll be able to get started as soon as your blocks come.
Combo kit, m10s, base ten blocks, math manipulatives
Deluxe CKC
And I can't give you the same deal I gave people for the Christmas sale, BUT get a password and I'll throw training 2x in for free...good till new years. That's a $100.00 in real savings.

Season's Greetings.

And if three or more sign up I'll send you all my division book FREE, even the life time members paid for that.  Also I should throw this in, it's like meeting the parents.

Monday, December 26, 2016

Merry Chrsitmas 2016

Merry Christmas, Mele Kaliki Maka you guys is nutz, 500 people came to my blog yesterday and 507 people came to the House Of Math on Christmas Day! Of that only 332 were "new" that means 675 people had been to the house of math at leaste once and some of you mathaholics 10x or more. Playing math on Christmas-- I can not think of anything better than that: giving the gift of knowledge for Christmas. And I hope some of those 675 had fun and saw how magical math can be...when you see the wonder and they begin asking "what if" on their own. (They won't ask if you don't.) I also envision a few of those being because boxes of blocks got opened under the tree. Right now it's because parents want their kids to have them but one day kids are going to ASK for them...this was a dream of a man named Jerry Mortensen. Dreams can be contagious, and those are the worst and most dangerous ones.

I am famous among some students for saying math takes no holiday.  Yesterday I took one, starting with missing my flight Christmas eve...so then I took the Red Eye and got in at 6:30 AM, got to drive on an empty freeway at 95 MPH which to a Maui boy is a Christmas Present all in itself. I was doing 80 but kept getting passed like I was standing still so I kicked up to 95 just to keep even.

Sunrise out the airplane window at 30,000 feet.
Guess which City I'm in.

Pretty sure here was math involved.
I went to not one, but two Christmas dinners. Basically ate and drank and laughed continuously for 5 hours…got to drive at 95 again and then ate and drank and laughed and played with my old friend Ziggy the cat for 4 more…still not hungry today…view from 30th story flat in downtown LA.


You do math all the time when you calculate how long it will take you to get there...making adjustments for weather and traffic if you miscalculate and then try to make it up while driving in California you could end up here:
No too smoggy.

You do it automatically...switching between bases without thinking...11:55 plus 10 minutes is is 12:05 not 11:65...people who tell me they can't do math, while speaking it in English, that can tell time make me smile. They are simply victims of clever programming. If you can do ha you can do any of it, and by the way you learned to do that. There was a time when you couldn't tell time and you didn't care.  Very few believe me when I say that the reason the masses can't do math is very much on purpose and by design. Meantime they can't each their own kids rudimentary algebra; but don't feel bad neither can the teachers in public high schools who believe a certain percentage have to fail...they are programmed, too. The better to extract wealth from you. No one wants to hear this. Fine.

And I've watched the problem steadily increase for 27 years now...my website just turned 8 so far it's cost me $2,400.00, in that 8 years I've received a little over 50 dollars in donations. LOL. But I do have a small, but loyal cadre of customers who have paid 100 bucks or more for passwords, YOU support this effort, and for that I thank you. Soon many pages that are currently free are going behind paywalls. Those with passwords won’t be affected, freeloaders are welcome to see if they can find what’s currently at Crewton Ramone's House of Math for free some place else.....when you do, come back and post it here or on Face Book, I enjoy watching other people teach math...speaking of that.

Here is a great website, Education Unboxed for users of cuisenaire rods beware though, people seem to have a little problem with division for example this video is the still the number one hit on youtube for division with base ten blocks...although she clearly doesn't know how to model the problem.  She does know how to divide up base ten blocks into groups...like this...I show you how to use base ten blocks to mirror the notation they get in school and show you why the problems are set up the way they are.  Across and up for multiplication across and down for division--but this book will show you how to put it together and make division easy.

Should be able to get quite a bit done this week...starting with fixing webpages and making stuff work again winter maintenance then password changes. Also in January I will be having One our live Q&A's/AMA's via google chat just look for the link. And on the 21st a live 4 to 5 hour training...those of you who got passwords during the sale ought come as part of your free gifts. Anybody, that bought anything is welcome at the Q&A's/AMA's Other's mark your calendar and come on the 21st for $50.00.