‘Today will be 17 degrees cooler than yesterday: 20 degrees.’
This morning, I wrote those words in an email to a friend. And then I added this: ‘That sentence reminds me of unschool maths.’
Oh yes, those ten words are packed with maths!
Numbers: 17 and 20
Temperature: degrees C
Comparison: cooler than
Time: today and yesterday
There could also be addition if my friend is tempted to add the temperatures together – which she probably will – to find out how hot it was at our place yesterday: 17+20
And that gives us another number: 37
Will my friend do some mental maths as she adds the numbers? I doubt she’ll get out her calculator!
All those mathematical words could be turned into a mathematical vocabulary list. (The list would be English as well as maths.)
So this morning, I did some maths without intending to while telling my friend about my Sunday, which was a bit warm for this time of year. It’s supposed to be autumn here in Australia, but after a summer season of abnormally cool temperatures accompanied by abundant rain, the hot sun has decided to make a late appearance. I just mentioned some more maths words: season, autumn and summer! (Of course, these could be science words as well. And geography has made an appearance too.)
Here’s some more maths that popped up in a conversation:
Last night, when the temperature outside was dropping but the inside of our house still felt hot, my husband Andy said, “Did you know a record was set in Sydney over the weekend?” For four consecutive March days, the temperature passed 30 degrees C. The last time that happened was 165 years ago.
We use a lot of maths without realising it, don’t we? Our kids are coming into contact with it all the time. They’re learning what maths is and how it works by using it.
If we get good at recognising all the maths in our lives, we can make notes about it. And this might be important because if we want to avoid using traditional maths workbooks, we’ll need something else to write in our homeschool records book.
Did you know there are some unschool maths challenges in my book The Unschool Challenge? In the challenges, I encourage you to put on your maths detective eyes, share how I discovered maths hiding in my youngest daughter’s interests, suggest you write your family’s maths story and talk about collecting delicious maths words.
Here’s an additional maths challenge. It’s for you, not your kids. (Of course, they can do it if they really want to!)
Challenge: Write a Maths Weather Sentence
- Write a weather sentence.
What’s the temperature at your place at the moment? What season is it? How does today compare with yesterday?
- Once you’ve written your sentence, list all the maths as I did.
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Open up the weather app on your phone. Find the details for your home town. Take a screenshot.
What’s the point of this challenge? Maybe it will tune your ears into the maths that happens naturally around you every day. It could also give you some ideas for unschool maths record keeping.
Here are a couple of other things you can do with the results of this challenge:
- Write your sentence in your journal. It might be interesting to know what the weather was like on a particular day of your year.
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Share your weather sentence with friends who live in different places than you. Include it in an email or a message. (Does anyone still write real letters?)
Photos
These photos were taken yesterday. My husband Andy, our daughters Charlotte and Gemma-Rose and I were in the food court of a nearby shopping centre, enjoying a simple breakfast. We do that most Sundays after going to the 8 am Mass.
Good morning! Thanks for this math reminder! We’ve found math to be just as natural as you mention. One of the issues though was explaining to the kids that yes, they were multiplying, and yes, there was a name for what they were doing, ‘multiplication’ 🙂 To them, they were just coming up with the number of things (donuts, lights in the cieling of the subway car, etc…), and weren’t sure they cared for the whole process having a name.
Hi Hamilton!
Oh yes, kids can work out how to use maths without knowing its language. We can introduce them to such words as multiply in our conversations, but they might not want to adopt the words. This was the case with my youngest daughter Gemma-Rose. She saw no good reason to learn such words as quotient or factorise. She didn’t want to memorise the times tables or learn the best way to do long division, step by step. But she was very proficient at working out all the maths problems in her life. I find it fascinating that kids can do this without being taught.
Eventually, Gemma-Rose sighed deeply and said she’d decided she might as well learn all the right mathematical words. She started a formal maths course and learnt a few words and procedures. She was about 14 at the time. After a while, Gemma-Rose lost interest and moved onto other things. But she seems to have gained all the maths skills she needs. She uses maths at work and in her personal life without any problems. And no one has ever asked her to factorise anything or mentioned quotients!
I like the sound of the word ‘quotient’. I wonder why this word didn’t attract Gemma-Rose’s attention too, even if she wasn’t interested in its meaning. She used to love rolling delicious sounding words off her tongue.
Hamilton it’s good to chat unschooling with you. I hope all is well with you and your gang!
This activity sounds like fun but the idea of unschooling maths sounds overwhelming with five children, it seems a lot harder to think up math on the fly (I was good at math at school but detested it) than to just hand them a workbook. On the other hand, my older three hate their maths workbooks. My math minded 9 yo, who recently figured out 12×4 on his own in a conversation (yes, we are terribly behind on said work books!) writes that he hates math all over his pages, which makes me sad.
Also, is there a way to log in so I don’t show as anonymous?
I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to reply to your comment. I was pleased to receive it!
I also felt very sad when my younger girls started saying they hated maths, especially as I love this subject. I wondered if they’d enjoy maths if it was presented in a different way. Once we gave up the workbooks and online maths programs, my daughter, Sophie, became very enthusiastic about maths. But I couldn’t convince my daughter, Gemma-Rose, that maths is interesting. Maybe it was too late for her to change her mind. Regardless of her opinion about maths, Gemma-Rose encountered a lot of maths while enjoying other interests. And she did become proficient at it.
You are right: it can seem daunting to look for maths and then record our kids’ experiences with it, but I felt I had no choice but to do this with my daughters. The alternative was to continue battling with them. I didn’t think they’d learn much doing this. We just do what we can, don’t we?
I think you need to sign into WordPress before you write your comment. Because I allow anonymous comments on my blog, there’s probably not a prompt to do this. Perhaps you can try signing in before you write another comment. I’d love to hear from you again!