Piney Woods Homeschool

***Update:  I no longer use the Beechick guide.  Instead I use the original teacher guide published in the Eclectic Manual of Methods.  As a result, our early math lessons look much different from what I planned here.*** How much of this is completed in Year 1 remains to be seen.  Ruth Beechick’s Parent-Teacher Guide assumes only addition and subtraction are covered in first grade, but she also uses lessons I-X, which I am omitting as not being in line with CM’s recommendations.  Besides which, we don’t need the practice learning the actual numbers conceptually that those lessons would provide, and I don’t want to work on writing numbers before moving on.  I’ll fold that into our penmanship work.  The concrete lessons on weights and measures will follow the model outlined by CM in Volume 1 and described in a post below . _____ Lesson XI – Addition 1 _____ Lesson XXV – Subtraction 1 _____ Lesson XII – Addition 2 _____ Lesson XXVI – Sub...

We are to work with measures by actually measuring. "On the same principle, let him learn ‘weights and measures’ by measuring and weighing; let him have scales and weights, sand or rice, paper and twine, and weigh, and do up, in perfectly made parcels, ounces, pounds, etc. The parcels , though they are not arithmetic, are educative, and afford considerable exercise of judgment as well as of neatness, deftness, and quickness." I’m not sure I even know how to do up such a parcel, but maybe it would be sufficient to do it in plastic containers without actually wrapping a parcel?  Or would that be leaving out an important part of the process?  I suppose it would since CM mentions that the parcels themselves provide training in valuable skills. "In like manner, let him work with foot-rule and yard measure, and draw up his tables for himself." What does it mean to let him draw up his tables himself? "Let him not only measure and weigh everything ...

"When the child is able to work pretty freely with small numbers, a serious difficulty must be faced, upon his thorough mastery of which will depend his appreciation of arithmetic as a science; in other words, will depend the educational value of all the sums he may henceforth do. He must be made to understand our system of notation. Here, as before, it is best to begin with the concrete: let the child get the idea of ten units in one ten after he has mastered the more easily demonstrable idea of twelve pence in one shilling." So after we work with basic arithmetic and achieve mastery of the four operations with small numbers, we move to working with money for a time to introduce the concept of place value.  Two skills are drilled during this process:  converting a quantity of one coin into larger coins, and noting on paper the value of the whole. "Let him have a heap of pennies, say fifty: point out the inconvenience of carrying such weighty money to sh...

***Update:  I no longer use the Beechick guide.  Instead I use the original  teacher guide  published in the Eclectic Manual of Methods.  As a result, our early math lessons look much different from what I planned here.*** Here’s my tentative plan for Ray’s New Primary Arithmetic, just through multiplication and division. _____ Lesson XI – Addition 1 _____ Lesson XXV – Subtraction 1 _____ Lesson XII – Addition 2 _____ Lesson XXVI – Subtraction 2 _____ Lesson XIII – Addition 3 _____ Lesson XXVII – Subtraction 3 _____ Lesson XIV – Addition 4 _____ Lesson XXVIII – Subtraction 4 _____ Lesson XV – Addition 5 _____ Lesson XXIX – Subtraction 5 _____ Lesson XVI – Addition 6 _____ Lesson XXX – Subtraction 6 _____ Lesson XVII – Addition 7 _____ Lesson XXXI – Subtraction 7 _____ Lesson XVIII – Addition 8 _____ Lesson XXXII – Subtraction 8 _____ Lesson XIX – Addition 9 _____ Lesson XXXIII – Subtraction 9 _____ Lesson XX – Addition 10 _____ Lesson ...