Maths

All my children are thoroughly enjoying the new maths course we have. The way their minds seem to work is - Maths = good/fun, Literacy = hard/lots of work/reminder of school.

Martha likes the dvd that came with it and watches it then rattles through the written maths. She's skipped a few chapters as it was too easy at first. Isaiah's is also too easy but being a box brain he won't skip anything. In typical Isaiah fashion to regainplenty of control over his universe he's rebelled and decided he hates the dvd and won't watch it, but it's not an issue while the work is easy. Flossie hasnt got anyting specifically for her but this mroning quite spontaneously she sat down and started using the blocks that came with it to count in threes and sixes. This was great - she was doing it because she wanted to and was genuinely curious about what would happen if you counted up in threes and sixes, and with the blocks she could actually see why she was getting the answers. She could have been at school being pushed into Year 2 SATS and instead she was doing it by herself for fun.

I ran into an old classmate of Flossie's in Morrisons on Friday. Her mam was full of how she 'hadn't worked hard enough this week - she'd been very lazy'. I looked down at this tiny six year old, who repeated to me 'I didn't work hard enough this week', and thought about how it had been the first week back after Christmas, and just felt really really sorry for her. In most countries she would have only just started school and instead she's being driven forward to her exams in May/June like flogging a tired old workhorse. Her mam was then full of how most of the time she was wonderful and came top in most subjects and how the reading scheme wasn't hard enough for her, and made a point of saying to Florence 'Lucky you being at home - some people have to work hard all day', and which point I just thought 'You're issue ridden - go home and chill out'. What's the big deal with reading early? Martha read far earlier than Isaiah, yet now he likes reading for fun and she doesn't. Somehow if you got a university class of graduates I don't think you'd be able to tell who'd read at three, four, five, six, seven or even eight.

But I divert away form my original subject which was that *we love the new maths course*. Even Rosie jumped on the bandwagon and said 'Me count. One two three four five seven nine ten'.

Flossie doesn't like reading yet, I often suspect she can read more than she lets on, she sometimes knows stuff she couldn't know without having read it. Her innate maths skills seem very sound though, the way she manipulates numbers in her head, or on paper or with the blocks. She will read, and she'll be able to get a basic level of whatever she needs in that type of subject to then progress on to any career she likes in the maths or science world if she so chooses. Which may be a C in English at GCSE, or simply the ability to read schematics of some sort of machine, or receipts and explanations if she's an accountant, or whatever, you get the idea :-) Maybe she'll choose not to go down the career path in life and have a smallholding with a few jobs to pay the bills, or even end up a stay at home home-educating mam. Whatever, one thing's for sure, it'll be irrelevant whether she has her Year 2 SATS!