Fraction Fun and Captivating Stories

This is a different kinda blog but I'm so thrilled at my discovery that I have to share the good news. My kids can't wait to learn fractions with me! Oh yeah, I'm teaching them one of the world's most detested subjects and they are eating it up. 

Literally. I'm teaching with candy. Wait--don't stop reading--it's not that bad! This is how it works. There ain't no paper or pencil (and grammar don't count neither.) They each get twenty jelly bellies or chocolate chips. Or, a couple of marshmallows which require good skills with a sharp knife. I ask them to find 1/20 and to pick up the correct number of candies. Then, they get to eat it.

We proceed, from 1/3 of 18, to 2/3 of 18 ("of" means multiply; denominator as in division--separate the 18 candies into 3 piles. How many are in each? Now, how many candies are in 1 of the 3 piles? How many candies are in 2 of the 3 piles? How many in 3 of the 3 piles? What's 3 divided by 3? 1! Yes, 18 x 1= 18. You may now eat 1/6 of your jelly beans. And so on....

Until we're left with maybe 4 and then I tell them they can eat 1/8. or 25% Haha! My son can figure it out!

Yep, they like this so much that I'm trying to do it nightly for maybe 5 minutes. We're building math sense. Playing with candy in this way slices through my daughter's own math anxiety. It's working so well that I decided to take it into my 5th grade class. I tried it out today with a few kids (each brought a bag of 20 "manipulatives.") Oh, they were smiling, laughing, learning! The rest of the class peeked on, busy with their own activities, knowing their own mini-lesson was coming.

Bragging here: I am so impressed with my son. He has great number sense. Don't be jealous. He won't pass any tests, win any medals, bust any curves. His brain is injured--temporarily, I pray--from Lyme Disease and PANDAS. How do you spell E-N-C-E-P-H-A-L-I-T-I-S? (And if I spell it wrong, as I'll sometimes do on purpose in a class, can you locate the error?)

I started slowly, given that my son has lost his math ability to PANDAS and Lyme brain fog. And my daughter is two years younger and just really learning fractions. Now they didn't wanna quit. I'm sure my kids will get bored at some point, or not want to make their dessert last for fifteen minute. For now, however, I'm delighting in my success, especially as we have so many negative symptoms at the moment. OMG, so many. How do you spell F-L-A-R-E? My son has a flair for being in a flare.

Homonyms are so punny.

Talkin' 'bout language arts, my son read the entire Chronicles of Narnia when he was 9 years old, even with undiagnosed PANDAS. I've always had a rule that my kids have to read the book before they see the movie (hey, books are ALWAYS better. Except for Schindler's List, which stuck faithfully to the book--I know, I read it after seeing it--but kids can wait another ten years before seeing that.) 

And he was totally into Shakespeare. Read the stories (not the original plays; he was 9.) Watched old movies. Came with me to see adult performances. Waited until 11 PM one night with excitement to see the sword fight at the end of Hamlet.

But then he stopped reading. The neuropsychologist has recommended a vision specialist because the Lyme Disease has affected his visual and spatial processing--both on an eye-level and a brain-level. She is suggesting books on tape.

For the last couple of years, I have been reading to him nightly because I felt that it sometimes was the only education that was sinking in. When he's relaxed, he's open to learning...vocabulary, comprehension, inferencing. We have ventured through at least two of Christopher Paul Curtis's books (one of my favorite authors in the world,) The Cay, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, When Tia Lola Came to Stay, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Wonder, Holes and many, many more. Now we are engrossed in the modern nonfiction classic Grayson, the story of Lynne Cox, a long-distance swimmer, who finds a lost baby whale in the ocean. I highly recommend all of the above books.

With my daughter, we've made our way through a few Roald Dahl books and now she's reading more on her own. She and I are reading a nonfiction book that I got from Scholastic about the origins of toys (inventions.) I have a lot of guilt over not reading with her as much as I read to my son. She's healthy. She's happy usually. I love spending time with her, but my attention often goes to the child who is distressed. It ain't fair. Not at all, at all.

But there's not much I like better than cuddling with one of my kids and reading, sharing an amazing story, teaching them how to escape into another place, another time, with friends who are always there when you open the book. 

My own kids are my toughest customers. If they like something, it will definitely fly with my students, who are kind of forced to comply. 

It's getting late. If I'm lucky, the melatonin will kick in quickly tonight while I'm reading Grayson. I'm done. 

P.S. I have at least one spelling error in the above essay. Can YOU find it?