Mathematics Their Way

Hi, Maricel,

I took that training probably 15-20 years ago! I have the book you are speaking about. I do agree that there are some good hands-on strategies there. Maybe a good combination with our On Cloud Nine training!

Janis

Hey Janis,

I can’t believe we have another thing in common! :lol: I discovered that book from a teacher with whom I was working with in an inclusion classroom. As you can tell I’ve been on the look out for Math resources. I also bought books by Peggy Kaye and Marilyn Burns. After reading On Cloud Nine, however, I think that as always Lindamood simplified and clarified everything. They are just so good at looking at the whole picture! I think that the Math Their Way belongs to the “whole/concepts only” philosophy that OCN talks about at the end of the book, but I do like the activities there and I like the way the strategies are presented in a table format with lots of pictures to match. So yeah, we can combine that with OCN.

I have Mathematics Their Way as well. Yep is right in the center of the Old New Math :-) thing (as are cuisenaire rods which i still think are a great manipulative. Some of the materials and suggestions presented could still be used. There’s no reason to throw out the entire Old New Math ideas that kids can learn from experiences with real objects, etc.

Admittedly some of the ideas on teaching algebra and factoring to first graders might be a bit wacky but still… I also liked all the ideas for teaching graphing and so on.

There’s another ancient book I have called “Work Jobs”. It has some neat things in it too aside from being Old new math and so on.

—des

I just mainly remember the early skills such as teaching how to write numerals and counting objects using manipulatives. I’m sure I must’ve totally ignored the algebra and factoring as I have no memory of anything that difficult! We made lots of the manipulatives in the class I took. I still have them packed away, but I may need some this fall.

Janis

I don’t think Mathematics Our Way gets into such difficult topics— and I think I was being facetious about factors (not sure though), but some proponents of the “old” new math felt that algebra was not a particularly difficult topic and could be introduced extremely early. Perhaps at a very basic level— to show say subtraction as indoing of addition. Say 2+3=?
or 5-2=? or 2+?=5 though usually a box was used. I don’t think that’s very difficult. This is *part* of algebra. I do remember reading of some projects teaching algebra to grade school kids. Of course many of these same kids then won’t have time to learn fractions, decimals, etc. because they are so busy getting caught up on other topics.

They also got off on some tangents, like set theory. Really set theory is not regular mathematics it is part of a mathematics covering finite nos. Not necessarily very functional for most people.

—des

I have zero memory for upper level math, so that is probably why I only recall the very basics…which is good since that is what my students need! Lol! My brain has adapted to the level of my students! :shock: :D

Janis

Well they were teaching set theory and parts of algebra in lower grades.

The set theory was things like you’d have group of blocks and some are green and square and some are green and round. And maybe you’d have some that were red and square and some that are red and rectangular. Then they’d show what the set that was red, green; and square. That type of thing. Not really all that difficult supposedly. Though kids may have a hard time with that. It’s sort of like trying to tell them that something can be an animal and a cat at the same time. Tricky.

The algebra was like what I mentioned. The “X” you are figuring for, is really NOT unknown. The x is what makes 3+X=5 say. This really isn’t an unknown. So not what we might think of as algebra. I think it might be algebra at some level, a HS student learning algebra would take 0 time on this.

If you don’t remember this you are probably under maybe 35 or so. So cheer up Janis. :-)

—des

Sorry, older than 35!!! I’ll keep the number a mystery! Maybe you can make a real algebra problem with my age being unknown “x”!

(But yes, I have seen many math texts that have probelms like 5+_=7)

Janis