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.  










Thursday, November 3, 2016

Trigonometery For Little Kids with base ten blocks.



In this pic we see our little man looking from 60° so we can figure out the relationships and put them on the table.
Quick lesson on Trig. This was maybe 15 minutes of an hour lesson where we practiced addends, algebra, multiplication, subtraction, division and more. If it was a little kid we would have drawn a generic triangle and talked about SOH CAH TOA. And that would have been it.  See: How To Teach Trig To Eight Year Olds.

This child was 10, so we did a little more. Talked about two special triangles and made a little trig table, NOTE we did not rationalize the denominators, that will be another lesson. Baby steps. Concept 5: no fun get back to one...
One concept at a time. Keep the cognitive load LOW. Right now most important is understanding what SIN means, which is simply the relationship between the opposite side and the hippopotamus...but you need to understand the what the opposite side means and that it depends on where you are. But look at it as vocabulary. SIN COS AND TAN are words that have meaning and are the basis (along with
Pythagorean theorem) of trigonometry.
We talked about Pythagorean theorem (one or more lessons in and of itself), the fact that the angles add up o 180 another lesson in and of itself and a great way to practice some subtraction...subtract from 100, 100.00 and then subtract from 90 and 90.00.

I hope you can see how after a little bit of practice figuring out angles, where we subtract from 90 you could easily segue into subtraction or algebra lessons x + 60 = 90...as opposed to dumping it all on them all at once and then going into the unit circle...sin = y and cos = x?? What? Just memorize SIN30° = .5

We talked about that too...if all I did was memorize SIN30° = .5  and didn't even know that meant the relationship between the opposite side and the hypotenuse was one to two, trig is going to be hard and NO FUN...and no fun. And if I play on the unit circle without even having been exposed to basic concepts the cognitive load is too high, not to mention they probably aren't even trying to teach to my learning style, and I get an "F" and then I have self esteem problems...and $35 bucks a month is too much. OK.
There are a leaste SIX separate lessons here...all of which can be EASILY understood by a six year old if you keep the numbers small while explaining the concepts. Get a password. For $35 bucks a month for 10 months you can have these lessons and more FOR LIFE and AVOID the tears that typically come with math when they are teens...most people wait until their kids are 13 or 14 or even 15 and 16 and confused instead of avoiding the problem in the first place. 

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Be Careful With Worksheets (Reprise)


Be Careful With Worksheets otherwise you end up with kids like this:




That's my son, save yours from a similar fate. Take Crewton Ramone's teacher training and learn how to play math and make it fun for your kids.  Here are few comments off the new Kajabi site:



This was a low stress test--should have been fun and easy making 9's and 10's, he is showing classic test anxiety and stress ticks in his hands and neck it's all in his mind and attitude but you can see the effects are very physically real.

I actually went down to his school and told his teacher to STOP giving him worksheets. He's known how to make nines and tens since he was 4 or 5...oh look! Video proof:



But he had been literally stressed out with multiplication worksheets over and over and over again...btw he's known his multiplication tables out to 12 since he was 6 or 7 again I have it on video...we were working on 13 to 20 when we were interrupted.

Be careful with homework too.

Research Shows Homework Doesn’t Improve Academic Performance, 

It Makes It Worse


Especially if that homework is a drill for time math worksheet or yet another mind numbing multiplication worksheet.

http://thespiritscience.net/2016/06/14/research-shows-homework-doesnt-improve-academic-performance-it-makes-it-worse/

Don't believe me? Do a search on Finnish Schools

"In the past decade, Finnish students have hit it out of the park. Their PISA scores in math, science and reading have been at, or very near, the top year after year, while the US has floundered near the middle and bottom. In 2000, the Finnish surprised everyone when their students placed first on the reading portion of the test. In the latest results released in 2010, Finland scored third in reading, sixth in math and second in science. The US trailed coming in at seventeenth in reading, twenty-third in science and thirty-first in math." ~We Are Teachers.


Timed tests will cause more of this for my son, pressure tests where he isn't fully prepared will be worse than that, he is now in a private college prep school.

And you wonder why Crewton Ramone is the alter ego of a pissed off math tutor; this is what they do to kids and this kid is my son. He did not come into the world this way and he did not always behave this way especially during math. We rarely used paper and pencil just blocks or a white board and STILL look at his face in the first video...now does he looked stressed or like he's having fun racing his brother in this video? Then look at the first video...note his hands and how long it took him as compared to the younger boys who have yet to be damaged.



Don't worry though, they eventually got to the younger boy too...



Manipulatives to drawings to symbols.


Like language, it's important that the students hear the patterns as well as see any patterns before they write down the symbols. Multiplication is a great example of this idea. Long before students see a multiplication table or worksheet young students should be singing songs, using blocks and hearing the patterns that are associated with the various multiplication tables. Then when they are exposed to the symbols, they understand what they mean. They understand that three times three is written 3 x 3 and that it really is the same as nine. The equals sign and all the symbols are understood. If your children are playing with blocks they can see that nine is a square number and what that means. Nine really is square even though the symbol for nine has curves and a circle. 9. Look at it, it doesn't look very square, little kids and even some older kids can get caught up in the symbols instead of understanding the concepts and what the symbols represent.

Parents and teachers can use worksheets to reinforce math learning but they should be used sparingly to introduce new ideas, if at all. With manipulative based teaching we always start in the concrete with base ten blocks, then move to sketching then at last to the symbols. Since most worksheets are symbol based, it's only natural that they should be used last not first. Concept based teaching techniques emphasize understanding the concepts long before students see the symbols. In fact, a lot of little kids can start getting complex math concepts well before they can write complex symbols, however understand for everything there is a season the best time to introduce large numbers of math facts is early on according to their ability to generate brainwaves in particular ranges at particular ages. In the early years they are in "download mode." So large numbers of facts can be downloaded and when I say facts I don't just mean math facts. When have finally figured out early is better when teaching languages and rather than being confused they switch between languages easily. Also as an aside if you have various base en block sets in different colors he kids will switch between blocks easily, it's he parents ha get confused and often pass it on to the kids but left to their own devices they know what a three looks like with Mortensen Blocks as compared to Cuisenaire rods...the nine is blue with one teal with the other, occasionally autistic kids or other learning challenged kids can have problems but not as often as you might think. If it is a problem, stick with one or the other but years of experience tells me the parents have a much harder time than most "normal" students. You will find this in teacher training and linked in many places, a post called house for a duck explains this a little more in depth than I need to go into it here.

Think of like an Ipod, you come in clean slate and down load for about 12 years or so and then you begin playing he songs. In other words first you "download" the info and store it, THEN you use that information. First you get the thoughts or ideas then you think about those thoughts or ideas. First you acquire those thoughts and beliefs then you create a life based on those thoughts and beliefs. First you acquire he programs then you run the programs. First you acquire the math facts and formulas then you apply the math facts and formulas. First knowledge then application. My focus is on helping you help your students with step one: making 45 addends and 400 multiplication facts available for instant recall in a FUN way, NOT drill hardship and stress that leads to what you see in the first video up there.

Here is a page of testimonials.


Using math worksheets 

to introduce math concepts is literally teaching backwards.

 

First Grade Math Worksheets should be introduced after quite a bit of playing has been done. That way the worksheet is just practice that allows you to see how well they understand the math concepts you are teaching. They can be used for drills but using drills at an early age has unintended consequences, you don't want to turn them off at an early age and excessive drills will do just that eventually. The worksheets should be easy to begin with and then become more challenging as the student's confidence builds. They should be thought of as practice instead of as tests or drills or something to be fretted over. Some students develop math anxiety at an young age and worse test anxiety AS YOU CAN PLAINLY SEE. Of course formally educated teachers with degrees from American universities are ever so much smarter than I am and we have the Post Traumatic Math Disorder in many, many students to prove it.

If the child firmly grasps the concepts any math worksheet should be simple or at worst “challenging.” If children don't have the writing skills required you can actually do the writing for them. Be sure THEY tell you what to write, you are not doing it for them just writing the symbols. This is more for parents or home schoolers because teachers in school will find this impossible unless the number of children is very small in their classroom and we all know they rarely are.

Often times it's a good idea to play with the concepts for several days and then give the worksheet on Thursday. If the students don't complete it they can take it home and/or they can finish it off on Friday. If you are homeschooling or just giving your child a head start, be sure you play for a couple of days at leaste before you get out a worksheet. With first graders you can often use the same or very similar worksheets every few months and it will be "new" again. This is normal it takes quite a few impressions to get information into the long term memory. Many teachers lament that after Summer Vacation or even Christmas or Spring Break their students don't remember most of what they have been taught. FEAR NOT. It's not about storage hat capacity is unlimited it about retrieval. It's still “in there” and this is a great time to bring it out with a practice sheet on material they are already familiar with...it also can give you a gauge on what you should play next. This is education. Edu cate: "to draw forth" not "to cram in."

Worksheets are great for reinforcement, and great teaching tools when used properly. I have quite a few worksheets but I don't make them easy to find or get to on purpose because to many will go there first and use them incorrectly. Dig around my site there are lots of FREE ones and then there is a collection of them here but you need a password and some training.

These were the worksheets we were playing with in the first video...basically you make nines and tens. If done right playfully, your kids will be able to make change faster than a cash register...if done incorrectly you get what you see in video one. CHOOSE. My sons went to public school against my will BTW.

Using the Making Change Worksheets. (Be sure you have the latest JAVA update to view.)


Practice and fun will make it easy to do calculations in their head, no pencil no paper. Automatic.



Now that you have been well admonished:

FREE WORKSHEETS HERE
at Crewton Ramone's House of Math. More free worksheets and books coming soon. Maybe get a lifetime password while you can still make 10 easy payments of $35.00 and be in for life. The trig page alone is worth tha...

PS Yes it is infuriating that this happened to my own sons, but I think their sons will not be subject to same and later in life like me they will know first hand of which they speak should they decide to pick up this torch and carry it further...or maybe they'll just be singers or play drums. Happy more important than mathy.


Saturday, July 9, 2016

Problem Solving With Hero Zero.

solving equations, manipulatives,


Here is a short video that might change the way you look at equations and your understanding of the equals sign. =

This symbols never lies.  = means same. Here is what many consider a novel approach to problem solving. Hero zero makes an appearance and over time problem solving this way will be second nature. You job is to get them to understand equals means SAME and introduce the concept of hero zero and sometimes same is NOT visually obvious and we have to get help from our hero zero.

In the problem 5x + 16 = 4x +12 we are going to end up with NOTHING on one side. We have a symbol for nothing ZERO.

We start off with a low degree of difficulty like this:

3x + 2 = 2x + 6

then

5x + 16 = 4x +12

then

2x - 3 = x + 5

a few more and these kinds of problems won't be scary at all.



Find out more about the best ways to use your base ten blocks at Crewton Ramone's house of math.

Get my book on subtraction, Crewton Ramone's Supremely Simple Subtraction it also covers the basics of this kind of problem solving. These concepts can be taught to and understood by even very young students. Hopefully you begin to see how it all goes together...check out this what's under the cup video and you can see problem solving introduced in the most basic way with what's under the cup. When we bust out hero zero we have moved down the road a little. But 5 + x = 10 and 8 + x = 10 and 3 + x = 8 are great ways to start with the CONCEPT of making same and then finding same on both sides is a natural progression. Moving from whats under the cup to seeing 8 + x = 10 = 8 + 2 therefore x must be two is just another more complicated way of playing what's under the cup, but to kids who have played what's under the cup at an early age the symbols make sense because they have SEEN what the symbols represent from an early age.


"Sometimes it is useful to know how large your zero is." ~Anon

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings." ~Eric Hoffer, Reflections On The Human Condition

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Vid From The Vaults

A year later at Sweet 16, but now Sweet 16 is about to turn 21.

This is a fun video covering some basic concepts in geometry. Basically, I demystify distance formula for a giggly girl.  Pythagorean theorem.  I always looked forward to fooling around with math with her because we always ended up laughing our butts off.  (See second video.) And this usually led to sloppy notation on my part. The point is she was understanding the fundamental concepts. There is a point in the video where I write out distance formula and fail to put the 2's in for the squares...very annoying looking back but she fully understood they were squares. Other than that, I hope you see how teaching her the fundamental concept of a² + b² = c² improved her understanding dramatically and therefore her grade.

Then she could see that a was equal to the difference of x's and b was equal to the difference of y's.

a = (x₂ - x₁)  b = (y₂ - y₁)

Look at how many less symbols I need to say it mathematically.

Then we have to square them and then square root them AFTER we add them together.

                                                       _______________
(x₂ - x₁)² + (y₂ - y₁)²  = D²  so  D = √(x₂ - x₁)² + (y₂ - y₁)²         which if you think about it a little is just

a² + b² = c²

a little "gussied up" as my grandma would say.   Anyhow there should be 2's there...but as I said the lesson was understood.


Anyhow I dug this out of the archives. The first video hasn't been seen by anyone but me. The second one as I type this has about 50 hits.




We always just laughed and laughed and laughed. Before me, math made her cry. It was those tears that made her dad break down and call me.




These are typical high school math lessons right out of the textbook. I claim exemption from copyright under the education purposes only clause. This blog is free to view and so is the video. Besides these types of questions and horrid explanations certainly are not unique to this text book manufacturer. Often I barely have time to develop concepts because the book covers so much in just a few pages. And people say I skip around. What a joke.

Take a look at the topics covered in that first video...the way they are presented the kids can't figure out it's all basically the same concept...just variation of applying algebra and Pythagorean theorem to get the job done whether it was distance or mid-points.  Learn how to use base ten blocks.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Completing The Square New Password Protected Page.





Me trying to complete the completing the square pages.  I  hope you can see that part of this is showing you repetitive lessons that get the students ready for "advanced" mathematics, but it's not advanced if the various parts are easily understood. 

Basic concepts like understanding the equals sign means SAME dividing by two, what a square number is and what square root means need to be understood and internalized WHILE we learn concepts in algebra. Being able to write an expression different ways but have it be the same just in different forms need to be understood too.

Just playing with square numbers at an early age teaches so much, and more importantly makes life easier later.  This page takes you from lessons with toddlers to lessons with high school students all centering around completing the square.

base ten blocks, squaresFrom things as simple as multiplying and dividing by two, building and knowing square numbers, how to square numbers that end in 5,  square numbers whose roots we call radicals--so many fun things we can do with with square numbers including delve into the imaginary.Don't worry we won't go there this time around, but we will head down the road to understanding where the quadratic formula comes from and how to derive it.

But we get there in baby steps. Understanding basic concepts along the way.

So I have added a little to the basic completing the square page.  Now when you go there you can end up


which is the entrance page to a nice little page chock full of lessons on completing the square and square numbers. It even contains a link to this blog that you may have missed because it's a few years old, driving home the point that the posts get old but not the lessons on those posts. The page has videos that very few people have seen according to their hit count on youtube because they are not public (I'm talking to you Shalynn). Start at the top and work your way down. Now that you know where you are going maybe you will look at those early videos differently.


The password you need is the sitewide password.  Those that have a lifetime pass just got ye more value for money already spent.  You won't find the videos on these pages anywhere else. They don't come up in searches, you have to know the link. Here is a much more detailed tour of what you get on this page. I could make a PDF on this one topic alone like Supremely Simple Subtraction or Divinely Dandy non Difficult Division--but it's going to be awhile.



Please come back and leave a comment for others.

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Division. Simple.


Divinely Dandy non Difficult Division is in fact done. Now I just, have to get out to you. Division is basically being able to make a rectangle and describe the sides using numbers.

If you have already have a password. DON'T CLICK this link and buy until you check your email for the promocode that gives you half off.  If you have ever gotten a password or product from me don't click link check your email instead you may get a promo code. There are only 300 promocodes. There are more than twice as many emails as that going out. So don't delay. Also be aware that if you only ever got SSS for free you won't be getting a promocode just an email informing you that it's ready, so no rush.  Buy it below for $19.99. 
division, factoring, multiplication

Concept number three: we form rectangles to facilitate counting.  Many people think division, factoring and multiplication are three different things instead of variations on a theme or ONE thing..  In divinely Dandy non Difficult Division I show you plainly it's the same thing and best of all it's easy. I also show you how to use the rectangle to organize thought. I left out Trig on purpose because people think triangles are hard and there will one day be a book like this on trig alone. Hopefully, you can see how C= ΠD and 18 = 3x6 and sin30° = 1/2 go together using the rectangle but if not, it will be spelled out for you at a later date.

Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea of what you are getting. This version is printable for EVERYBODY not just those who have passwords. If you have Supremely Simple Subtraction it's basically like that but for division: lots of pictures and illustrations with links to videos for further explanation. You can now get the printable version for just $9.99.  (FREE version is read only.)

division with base ten blocks, division

As with all of my books so far it wasn't what to put in, but what to leave out. I put examples of problems that work out perfectly to start but there are also remainders and ones that don't work out evenly. Fractions will one day have it's own book and so will percentages so I lightly touched on those topics here but basically focused on "long" division concepts in a very traditional manner but without all the constrictions of traditional teaching without base ten blocks or manipulatives. 

division, manipulatives, base ten blocks

I also included more instructional pages that were mostly made by Andrea and Sonya but I edited and added a little to it because the primary axiom is keep it simple.  So you are getting two books in one.
There are 24 pages of meat and potatoes and just a few pages of fluff...like the title page and dedication page and I just noticed the people who made this PDF didn't give themselves a credit page.  I assure you I didn't pull this off alone.  It also has hypertext you can click that will take you to The House Of Math's Division pages, division is covered here on this blog too. Dig around a little.

The idea is with this book when it comes to division you won't have to dig anymore: it's all laid out for you.  I am so pleased with this book that I'm actually doubling the price to 20 bucks. But for a limited number (not a limited time) I will be selling a few hundred copies at a lower price, WITH the understanding that you guys will put comments in the comments boxes of the sales pages so people can see that it's not just me. Supremely simple subtraction does well because it has at the time of this writing 51 comments from people other than Crewton Ramone.  Please take a moment to comment or hit like on some one else's if you haven't already.

The first hundred will get it for 10 bucks. The next for 12.95, the next for 14.95 which is the price I was planning on leaving at for the duration but instead I will attempt to reward the people who have supported me in the past with a lower price and a first look. After the first 300 copies go out, it will be 19.99. I am amazed to see that I have over 500 unique names on various lists...60% of them will get a discount. I assume most people will want it after seeing the subtraction book, plus I'm testing out an "upsell" feature where you will be offered The Curious Counters' Compendium for two bucks more. If you have a password, you won't want this because it's already FREE with your password.  HOWEVER quite a few of you have this book and there are only three comments on the page. Please take a moment to comment or hit like on some one else's if you haven't already. So bossy, I know, but it really makes a BIG difference.


division basics

The table of contents usually comes in the front but this book is short enough I put it in the back along with links to videos for further instruction. 

Just send $19.99:

https://www.paypal.me/CrewtonRamone

Or use the PayPal button below.


PDF Prices





Here is a video that shows the whole book. Get your own copy instantly.




Monday, June 20, 2016

LIFE TIME PASSWORD LIST

Please take a moment to click this link if you have a lifetime password so I can generate a list of Lifetime Members.

Lifetime Password Holders are those that either bought a Lifetime Password outright and paid up to $349.00, bought a DCSK from me WAY back, Before Jan 1, 2013 or people who have paid more than $500.00 in tutoring.

Or people who have been told they are lifetime members by Crewton Ramone.

If you aren't sure, ask; but if you aren't sure you probably aren't, so don't ask.



So if you are a lifetime member: CLICK HERE.

If you are NOT a life time member but have a annual or you got one of the passwords but are not a "Lifetimer"...get on the password list.

If you have never bought a password or anything else but want to be informed of sales, new books and products etc stay tuned I will have an opt in list here shortly too. You will always have the opportunity to unsubscribe. I know you are sure I want your info so I can send you stuff but actually nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly, I don't want to send email to people who don't want it.

Also if you have never spent a dime you will be purged from the members only list unless you indeed won a free lifetime in a contest or something. Other than that it is amusing some people apparently think the operation has gotten so big that I can't check it against my paypal account...lol...I've already purged a few names.

If you got in early don't be embarrassed or feel like you are being Mahaoi. You were smart enough to get in before the price went up to $349.00 and I told you you would be rewarded FOR LIFE because you helped get this thing started. I LOVE it when people who only paid 100 bucks for a lifetime email and ask for the new passwords. Congratulate yourselves for making a smart choice early on that continues to reward you and yours.

I can't give you EVERYthing for free but you will get steep discounts going forward and it not like it's thousands. Which is why my marketing people want to nip it in the bud. But you will always have access to the amount of info that was there behind the password pages. And although because I've had my attention elsewhere they have not grown as robustly as they have in the past more will continue to be added. In the future people will get access to one "property" or website only. When the 10 Hour DVD set comes out for teacher training which I will expect will be priced around $149.00 you will be offered it first at a substantial discount. Just like you will always be offered the PDF's and such FIRST and at the lowest price before others get a crack at it. And I will be able to reward some of you who want to spread the word, financially and automatically using affiliate link technology.

Ever send one of my posts or pages to somebody? It will be exactly the same but it will have your unique ID which will allow you to get paid if they buy whatever it is. MANY people got my SSS for free and went, "holy cow!" and ended up getting blocks and a password. You spread the word I'll try and produce the best products for making math as understandable, EZ, and FUN as possible, and I think by now you see that's all quite possible although you will have a hard time convincing some of your math traumatized friends that it is.

I'm heading to California (again) for a month to expedite all of this...and I think I still need a little luck but I think I am mostly past the luck stage, and now in the hard work stage, which ask anybody I've never been afraid of, Grandma used to say, I was never afraid of hard work: I could lay down and go to sleep right next to it, lol! but time enough for sleep in the grave. Things are happening. Stay tuned.



Sunday, March 13, 2016

Introduction to "How To Teach Math To Young Children."



By Crewton Ramone.

INTRODUCTION:




“What we have here is a failure to communicate!” ~Cool Hand Luke

I'd say by now, in America today we realize we have a problem with the mathematics.

To quote or paraphrase a president.
“Is our kids learning math?”

The answer is, “No. They isn't.”

Actually to be more accurate, I'd say some of us realize that we have a problem with mathematics in this country. Parents with kids in high school. Parents with kids subject to common core math standards. Corporate executives who can't fill positions with US graduates at either the high school or college level due to sub-standard or nonexistent math skills. Too many students graduating high school can't make change. The average grade for a student in algebra for the first time they take it, is F. That comes with a whole lot of damaged self esteem. It dawned on me recently that there is still a large segment of society that is unaware of the magnitude of this problem. The problem is that a large number of those are the teachers of mathematics themselves, for reasons I'll touch on later but I'll sum up here with this statement: you can get a teaching degree without taking much math, particularly analysis which incidentally is basically how we teach math and these two phrases “A certain percentage have to fail .” and “Boys are naturally better at math than girls are.”

Really?

What If we took this attitude with reading or learning English?

Well, math is just a language and we need to teach it that way. In fact it's my contention that if you can speak English or have command of a language you can learn math—or at least quite a bit of it. But I can fill rooms with volumes of books and papers that document the problems with mathematics education in the USA. And it's not for what would appear to be a lack of trying. We spend plenty of money on math education programs that don't work. And that's when another thing dawned on me after 25 years fooling with mathematics education first hand, tutoring students , teaching parents lecturing and training. The US government has no interest in the masses understanding and being conversant with the mathematics. NONE. This does not serve them. Besides people who do math are notoriously hard to govern. They sure make it sound like it's otherwise though, with common core and STEM and all manner of education initiatives like “No child Left Behind” but all evidence points to the contrary.

If you're reading this book you're probably familiar with John Taylor Gatto and/or Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. If not, I would suggest you get familiar with their work. They outline and document the systematic dumbing down of the American populace via the public education system. They have both written several books, lectured extensively on the subject and their work is well documented. The bottom line is the government gets what it pays for. And the current state of mathematical education is no accident; which is my focus, but also the sciences, music, the arts, history, English, reading, law, our constitution here in the USA, these things (and that was the short list) are no longer taught well to the masses for obvious reasons. You will find a bibliography of books by them and others on this controversial topic at the end of this book in the appendix. The university system has also been co-opted. People are thoroughly disgusted by what's going on if they are actually paying attention. Many seem to be completely unaware or if confronted with this information are quick to dismiss it. For some of us the situation makes us angry.

In fact it is the dissatisfaction is so great that more and more people are turning to homeschooling; more and more people are finding that what these two and others are saying isn't crazy talk or just conspiracy theory after all and its concerning them greatly, to the point that they are pulling their kids out of free public schools, and taking on the costly and time consuming job of educating their children themselves.

The problem of course, is mathematics, because they find that they may have not have had the best experience with math themselves and are concerned they can't teach it effectively to their own children. Or have found that even though they understand it they have a difficult time imparting it on their own children or students and turning up the volume is of no use at all. And even if they are successful at getting their children to understand math, which they usually confuse with memorization and regurgitating algorithms rather than actual understanding which is again why so many have no idea how to apply the math they have learned to real life problem solving. Even so, there is usually a great deal of pain and suffering that goes along with the experience instead of it being fun and something they looked forward to as children. The problem is you don't know what tools to use or how to use them effectively because chances are you were taught in a manner that, to put it mildly might not have been the most effective and painless way. Further, although you realize that there are problems with the way we teach math from your own personal experience, you might be under the impression that there is no other way, and that it has to be “work” and all about memorization, algorithms, axiom and postulate--and certainly no fun at all.

Well there is a better way. Using base ten manipulatives, is an extremely effective way of making students understand mathematical concepts. In fact, forty years later we have corroborative evidence from universities that say using manipulatives or more sensory input is a superior method for educating students in whatever topic it is, not just mathematics. Until now using math manipulatives was was mostly relegated to addition, subtraction and place value. What I'm showing you how to do you use manipulatives for elucidating counting through calculus concepts including trigonometry and algebra--all starting at a very early age.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has said that using math manipulatives is advised from kindergarten through University level courses. The problem is most people don't know how to use them effectively or properly and can't even identify base ten blocks that are the best to use for ease of presentation and imparting understanding--all base ten blocks are not created equal. Neither are the methods for using them. Believe me I've spent a lot of time on YouTube and the internet, and I've seen quite a few videos were well-meaning teachers do presentations where they use base ten blocks incorrectly—yes, what I'm saying is they're doing it wrong; the blind are leading the blind.

I also find that any student who managed to graduate high school with an A/B average in math assumes everyone else can do simple computation too, and are amazed when it turns out they are the exception not the rule. At this point I have to point out that computation is how we do math it's not the math, but we're failing even to teach computation which should be easy assuming you have the right tools. Again this book is about solutions but will fall on deaf ears if too many of you ask, “solutions to what?” Let me illustrate this point with a few stories .

Once in Utah. We were confronted with the problem of having too much product to store. We didn't have enough space to store it so we went to a storage unit place, Jerry, the man that introduced me to this methodology, and myself were looking for a storage unit that was 10 by 10. We knew what it was we needed because we knew how much product we had, we had we measured how much space it would take and we figured that a 10 by 10 unit would solve our problem. Despite this. he lady at the counter spent quite a bit of time explaining to us about the various sizes; she made it very clear that 5 x 5 was a quarter of a 10 x 10 not half; that if I you bought a 5x5 or a 5x7 or 8x8 how big that was and then went on to explain in great detail the various sizes that they had.

I was going to stop her because Jerry Mortensen was of course standing right there and his ability to do this kind of mathematics was beyond question. He stopped me and let her continue. After she finished her spiel Jerry asked, "why did you go into such detail about the various sizes when the dimensions are printed out right here on this piece of paper?"

"Well," she explained, "most people can't understand these dimensions and I think that, for example, 5 x 5 is half of a 10 x 10 even though clearly it's a quarter. 10 x 10 is 100 square feet are you sure you don't just need 50? Like a 5x10..?"

Jerry looked at me and said, "you know, the problem is worse than I thought." This was in the early 1990's and it has steadily deteriorated since then. I have been watching it from the trenches first hand.

People have a hard time believing that he average person can't make change. Counting up to whatever bill they were given. Next time you are in a retail store ask the person to count back your change. Say you bought something for 36 cents and you paid with a dollar. Rather than just handing you a pile of change, have them count it back for you. 36, and 4 pennies is 40 and a dime is 50 and a fifty cent piece is a dollar or 36, and 4 pennies is 40 and a dime is 50 and a quarter 75 and another quarter makes a dollar. Then give them a problem like, “the bill is 67.83 and I pay with a 100 dollar bill what's my change?” They should be able to just say 32.17 (thirty-two, seventeen) but chances are they'll need you to write it down, and then do it the hard way on paper. And that's just subtraction.

Here's another one.

I'm in a bookstore. A guy is buying some books. And the total comes to $40. Well actually, he is just pricing some books. So, they aren't ringing it up on the cash register. Then the guy wants to know what the total is going to be including the tax.

So, in the normally quiet bookstore one of the cashiers says, "hey, what's the tax going to be?” And somebody else shouts back,"9%". So, then I hear one of the cashiers say, "9% of 40...oh gawd." and he goes over to the cash register. So, I say, "$3 and 60 cents..." Without really thinking about it.

And then the girl punching the cash register says, {punch} “$43 and 60 cents.” right after I do.
And people say, "oh my god, that guy is a math genius."

And I hear people who were in the room and at the table at which I'm sitting nodding and mumbling their agreement. Side note: There's an older gentleman there with gray hair reading a book looking rather erudite behind spectacles. And he kind of just looks at me. But I can't tell from his look whether he is as flabbergasted as I am that people are so impressed by such a simple feat of math where I simply took nine and multiplied it by an even number and came up with $3.60. Or if he was actually adding his approval too by looking at me as if he was quite impressed, but I'm not sure he was impressed by me or the ineptness of the crowd. We shall never know. But the point is that should have been simple and fast for everyone there.

Anecdotal evidence you say? Where are the peer reviewed studies? Try the experiment with regard to making change next time you are out and about. Here's a famous one: 9 out of 100. Is that .9 or .09? You might just ask them to make a decimal out of 9 out of 100 and see what answers you get.

Fact: if they fix the problem the grant money dries up.

Math genius I am not. But I am both persistence and observant. I consider myself a purveyor of mathematics more than an actual mathematician. I don't create math, I just show people how to teach what we already know.

As I've said this book is about solutions. Not about just about problems. I am going to show you that math is a whole lot easier than you think it is or more correctly were taught to think it is. I'm going to show you how to make math easy and even fun. I'll show you what to teach and when to teach it and more importantly how to teach, and back my theory up with practice (and you can watch me do it on video) too.

I'm sure all of you have had experiences with math where math got in the way of something that you wanted to do; for me personally, I didn't have difficulty passing the securities exam or insurance exam. But many of my agents did which is actually how I came into this in the first place. I looked at this as a way to help me get my agents to pass the securities test so that I could pay them because without the passing of these tests they couldn't get a license and without a license they couldn't get paid. And it turned into this whole other thing.

Instead of being an obstacle, what we want to do here is turn that around and make math a vehicle, so that you can accomplish your goals and dreams or whatever desires that you might have; solve the problems that you might need to solve, without math being a hindrance to you and without “post traumatic math disorder.”

I'm going to focus on basic operations. That is, addition subtraction, multiplication, and division. And then fractions and decimals, percentages, a little bit of algebra, a little bit of trigonometry. Some super simple story problems to illustrate some precalculus and calculus concepts. And that's about it. For more detailed explanations about it to go onto the Internet. I have hours and hours of video, and web pages to go along with. Quite a bit of it for free.

I can teach you math but more importantly I can show you how to use simple tools so that you can teach your children math and maybe even have fun doing it. This is basically just how to understand, teach, and learn computation but we've fallen so far, kids, as I have said, are failing at even just that much.

In order to do this, you have to be able to use certain tools and methodologies to their best effect; you just need to have some very basic understanding of some principles and concepts, and you too can teach mathematics, you too can do what I do and be called “a math whisperer.”
Too many say, "oh, you are a genius" or "you are this or that", "oh--you are teacher: you’ve been doing it for 25 years" - "oh you’ve been..." Blah . Blah, blah. Excuses, excuses. If I can do this anybody can. I failed calculus.

Okay, first off, when I was doing this and was two or three years in, people were like "wow! I can’t believe you’ve only been doing this for two or three years!" In fact when I was only about two weeks in professional educators were sure I was an old pro.

I was quite excited to try this out in my mother's classroom. So there I am with a few 2nd graders. Teaching them to factor polynomials on the chalkboard. This back when it was still at chalkboard. Late 80's, 1990 at the latest. They had the blocks on the floor and were gathered around me in a little group.

Unbeknownst to me, the principal of the school had come to my mother's classroom to deliver a message. He saw me doing algebra with little second graders on the board. He stood there silently and watched with his mouth open. (My mother described the scene to me later.) It took quite awhile before I noticed him, I was focused on the task at hand.

Understand these little second graders were having fun, excitedly factoring polynomials. We are probably factoring something like x² + 7x + 12...and they are racing to see who can put it together and tell me the factors first.

Afterward he was sure that I must be professional teacher, and that I had professional training and asked what university I had graduated. Actually, all I was doing was trying out some of the techniques Jerry I showed me using the base ten blocks, and sure enough they worked.

This principal, by the way had degree in mathematics, so he was even more amazed that I was factoring polynomials--something that at that time you just didn't do with 7 year olds. You were supposed to wait until high school. And most people still don't start early enough even though little kids like algebra and ask for it by name once they see how fun it is. You read that correctly. They have since started introducing algebra earlier but they still are symbol based and make it hard and stupid instead of fun and engaging.

By the time you finish reading this book you will be light years ahead of your peers--and that's not hyperbole.

The idea is that Jerry Mortensen had the same problem, everybody was like "oh! Jerry is so special! He created the program--of course he can teach any kid math." or "Maria Montessori she is special because she created the program”—same with Mario Montessori – or whoever it is, right?

They all have a crowd following that says, “they can do it, but I can’t.” or ”they are special, you are different” and what we are all trying to do, or were as the case may be, and Jerry was especially, but myself included, is try to make you understand that YOU can do this also.

Maria Montessori taught her son Mario, he made some improvements, Mario taught Jerry who took the tools and made some improvements as a clinician not a theorist, Jerry taught me and for over 25 years I've been using the methods and refining them also as a clinician in the field working with students and parents and sometimes teachers and occasionally training trainers to teach teachers. Now I'm going to teach you. Not just theory but theory in practice.

Many of you will take to this like fish to water, as soon as you see the method you dive right in, but many are more recalcitrant. Some of you have tried to teach your kids math and had mixed results. Or sent your kids off to school either public or private and found the math education there lacking as evidenced by the child's behavior...usually tears and expletives where “I hate math” is repeatedly heard. I have had child psychiatrists do nothing more than use this method to teach teen age children math because they discovered that teaching math in such fashion as the child understands it causing their grades to improve returns tranquility to the household. Often times though, the average parent cannot afford a child psychiatrist at 100 or more dollars an hour. How about we avoid the problem in the first place and educate the parents, so that they can educate their children? You do most of the teaching of your child's first language naturally and many of you also helped teach your children to read. Math should be no different, it's just nobody ever showed you how and others have tried to beat this natural teaching ability you have out of you on purpose. Some of you may think, “sure, you teach kids English or whatever your mother tongue is, but you don't teach them math. You need a math teacher for that.”

The teachers are there to assist you in the education of your children, not to do it all for you. If you’ve decided that you want to try and help your child with math but you don’t know how or where to start, you are frustrated and you are having a hard time with it; struggling through work books or stale curricula and memorization of formulae and math facts, know that you aren't alone. Some of you don't have these problems. This book is not for you. But if you have struggled with math you are about to be amazed.

Some parents have told me, they can see their kids turning off to math and they know the serious consequences of this. Others may not be having such a hard time but wish there was a better way, or maybe some of your children 'get it' but other siblings don't. There is no telling your personal situation. So I'm going to share some best practices, understanding of basic principles and concepts on how to do math using manipulatives, or base 10 blocks that will make whatever you are doing at whatever level more fun and a lot easier. Promise. You are in the right place. I've had great success at this for years but this was not always the case. I will also show you how to avoid some common pitfalls.

Mathematics is absolutely the gateway to understanding the world around you, to developing reasoning, logic and creative thinking skills and to developing and creating critical thinking skills; mathematical reasoning helps wherever you are, whatever you are doing--math will make you better at it. And certainly the solutions to the problems facing humanity are not going to be found in taxation and political science but in the hard sciences of technology and engineering. We need to generate clean non polluting sustainable energy for example, clean up our water and air, feed growing populations save endangered species, just to name a few challenges. And that's going require a lot more people being conversant with math and problem solving using math. It's also going to require math to get people to understand a lot of those problems already have solutions it's just that some of those solutions threaten the current establishment and their corporation's profits so they make up outlandish stories to get you to believe change is impossible, and because you can't do the math you are prone to believe them.

Look. Mathematics is liberating; education is liberating. Tyrants want to dumb you down and extract as much wealth from you cradle to grave as possible all the while telling you they are actually taking care of you.. Educators want to liberate you and there's nothing more liberating the mathematics.

Too many students are looking at college syllabuses asking, “what kind of degree can I get out of this college or university without taking much math?” This wouldn't be such a problem if children got started right with math from the get go at home. If you are going to wait for superman or government, you are going to wait a long time.

The point is, if your children become poets or journalists, they become a poet or a journalist because they love poetry or journalism not because they washed out of engineering. Maybe they start a band. Not because they failed in the sciences because they couldn't do the math, but because they really love music. (If you can do music you can do math and if you can dance you can count and vis versa.) It frees you to do what you want. Not everyone will become a rocket surgeon. But if what you want to do requires math it won't stop you. Even if like me it's just getting scholarships for college. And an “F” in math in high school does not a full scholarship in college make.

If you are like me, you failed at some point in mathematics. For most people it's right around algebra. For me it was Calculus. (Although I remember fractions throwing me for a loop.) Now you can watch video of me teaching trig to eight year olds. Math isn't hard--all it is is counting. The way we teach it makes it hard. I am going to show you how to use some simple tools to make understanding mathematics fast and easy. Most people just don't know how to count because they weren't given the proper experiences at the proper times. If you would have told me I was going to be teaching people how to teach math after I failed calculus in high school I would have laughed in your face. Now I've had success with just about every kind of student you can imagine from young to old, normal to autistic, blind, kids, deaf kids—name it. You can too.

What I am going to lay out for you is a rough frame work of cutting edge methods and practices you can use to help your children understand mathematics using base ten blocks to level the playing field and make math accessible to all by making math concrete and graspable using base ten blocks as our primary modeling technique. We will also touch on some of the latest brain science because it is important not only to understand mathematics but how we learn mathematics or any subject. The way we learn language at an early age can be applied to learning and understanding math and I'll cover that too.

Just like in days of old, this book has lots of pictures because what we need to do is put the pictures (and reasoning) back into the the mathematics because they are crucial for the understanding of it. Imagine learning to read the word 'cow' without ever seeing a cow. Then the word 'chair' might be confusing because they both have for legs and they both start with 'c'. It's the same in mathematics, the base ten blocks are simply going to help us decode the symbols, keep the operations straight in our minds, and show how to count very quickly, collapsing time frames down to the point where it looks like the fact is memorized when in fact it may be just that the computation was done with lightening speed because a picture can be seen in the mind's eye and be described with words and those words are numbers. A lot of the mathematics gets demystified when you discover what the words and symbols really mean.

You may be thinking that teaching mathematics in someone else's job and that you can't teach your children mathematics because you're not a professional and teaching math requires you being a professional. Well, you teach your children a much more difficult and complicated language: English. And you do it naturally.What this book is going to do is show you how to teach mathematics as naturally as you do English to your children.

Later this fallacy could be used to your advantage as you you offer your skills to parents who would rather hire a professional than do it themselves because they have been conditioned into believing this too.

What I am going to do is show you how to get started with very young children, confident that you can modify the lessons for older students because if young students can get it so can you and so can teen agers. These are proven techniques. I have pages and pages of glowing testimonials from people I've taught now as did Jerry, as did Mario, as did Maria. These methods work. I will teach them to you and even tell you why they work as compared to other techniques.

What many have found is that we are failing at teaching students math, and have been failing at it for so long now that those students have become teachers. Teachers have been trained (not taught) in a manner that isn't as effective as it could be and many of those teachers are either blissfully unaware that there is a huge problem starting a a very young age, or are aware of it but are placed in a bureaucracy where they feel powerless to do anything about it or in fact can't and if they do go against the grain and become 'commando' or 'rouge' teachers they are very quickly identified and either brought back into the fold or eliminated.

Imagine a world where governments and corporations collude not only to withhold cures in medicine, but also to keep you ignorant of the mathematics, and hamstring your logic and reasoning skills which make critical thinking difficult or impossible. The better to extract maximum wealth from you. If at this late date this still sounds like 'conspiracy theory' to you, put the book down. If you have an inkling that what I and others are saying here is true then I invite you to read on.

And basically I go on to tell you that I am not giving you the equipment you already have the equipment, I'm just teaching you how to use the equipment you already have, actually I am not even doing that I'm just explaining to you what others have taught me using base ten blocks, by breaking it down to basic concepts and foundational teaching. Distributive theory is foundational teaching. The difference of two squares is foundational teaching. The definitions of sine cosine and tangent is foundational teaching. So I'm going to put some foundational teaching in the book replete with pictures.