Everyday Educator - Math Beyond the Textbook: Creative Summer Learning Ideas
00:00:00.000 | Well, hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Educator. Today I have
00:00:11.680 | someone very special in, she's not in the studio, but on the show with me, Babs from
00:00:17.160 | the MathMap team. And we were just talking about the fact that I'm really excited she's
00:00:23.420 | here because she and I both don't consider ourselves to be math experts, but we're about
00:00:29.060 | to have a whole conversation with you about math and what we can do with our children
00:00:33.740 | over the summer to encourage them in their mathematic exploration. And I think while it's
00:00:39.640 | great to hear from the experts, it's also really great to hear from just normal moms, just like
00:00:44.760 | you who are in the thick of it, trying to figure it out and doing their best and also to learn
00:00:49.600 | what has been successful in the past. So without any further ado, Babs, welcome to the show.
00:00:55.200 | Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.
00:00:58.120 | I'm excited too. This is going to be fun. So for people who don't know you, maybe haven't
00:01:03.020 | heard any episodes with you, can you just introduce yourself, your context and kind of your homeschooling
00:01:07.560 | background?
00:01:08.000 | So a couple of years ago, I think it was probably six or seven years ago, I was asked to go to
00:01:16.000 | some kind of introduction to math. Actually, they were piloting a curriculum. I don't think
00:01:22.740 | I was told it was math. And so I was like, Oh, sure, I'll be in the pilot. And when I got there,
00:01:27.780 | I found out it was math. So I was like, Oh, man, I'm gonna pilot a math curriculum. And so I was a
00:01:36.180 | little nervous. But what I found out is that I am a math person. And I think the language that we use
00:01:44.960 | is, yes, we're not a math expert. But I can be an anything person, I can be a Latin person, I can be
00:01:50.720 | a math person, I just have to want to do it. And I have to, you know, rely on the Holy Spirit, right to
00:01:58.020 | help and really just encourage me as I keep going. Bring things to light. I remember asking lots of
00:02:07.000 | times for the help of the Holy Spirit, as I was working through some things. And so, so fast forward,
00:02:14.180 | so I got to work on the math map pilot for a couple of years. And then I became a curriculum assistant
00:02:19.620 | with the math map. So for somebody who did not make A's and B's in math and high school or college,
00:02:26.980 | magically, I get to work on the math map team. And I always I say that I've said this over and over
00:02:32.100 | again, I've learned more in the last six years than I ever learned when I was in school. And it's really
00:02:38.100 | obviously, when you're an adult, right, you want to learn more than when you're a kid. But I think just
00:02:43.140 | learning the classical using the classical tools has really helped me make it approachable. And I can learn
00:02:50.260 | it, I now get to be invited into the conversation, whereas I don't necessarily know that I was invited into the
00:02:55.940 | conversation before. And so it kind of, you know, just kind of brings that brings that to light.
00:03:01.700 | I've been homeschooling, I feel like forever, I just graduated one son last year, and I have a senior
00:03:10.020 | upcoming this year. So I'm kind of towards the end of that journey. So it's a different place to be.
00:03:17.060 | But it's a good time of reflection. And I think to kind of pour into other moms, to show them, hey,
00:03:23.540 | you're not gonna mess your kid up. Right? My kid is great. He went to community college. And apparently,
00:03:29.220 | they think he's the smartest thing ever. And I think it's because a lot of those kids don't know how to
00:03:35.060 | write papers. And that's a lot of what we did in CC was write a lot of papers, give a lot of speeches.
00:03:41.460 | And so I guess it's just, it's a good time now to just pour into other moms and show them that we
00:03:49.140 | can do it, that we have the capacity to do it, especially with the Lord's help, and with the
00:03:53.460 | help of our community, you know, that we can be successful. So I love that. You said a couple of
00:03:59.940 | things, honestly, Babs, that I'd love for you to expand on, even before we get into this specific
00:04:06.100 | math conversation. Two things. One, you said, you know, I don't think I'd ever been invited into the
00:04:11.700 | conversation. And I think that idea of, of a way of educating where you're inviting your students into
00:04:19.940 | the conversation is groundbreaking. I mean, that is a completely different way to look at educating.
00:04:29.300 | Will you speak to that? And then also the fact that you invited the Holy Spirit into the
00:04:33.540 | conversation? Because it's kind of like you're having this two way conversation, right?
00:04:37.140 | I think, you know, I guess because I felt like I wasn't a good calculator, you know, I wasn't a fast
00:04:48.260 | calculator. I didn't always understand a lot of the big picture ideas in, even in geometry and algebra.
00:04:55.540 | So I felt like I wasn't invited into that conversation to keep learning. And I feel like
00:05:01.300 | that's what CC has done for me is, hey, we want to invite you in the conversation. We don't care about
00:05:07.380 | your math background. We don't care if you ever took an advanced math class. We want to invite all
00:05:13.060 | parents into the conversation. Because if we're invited in, now we can invite our student, right?
00:05:19.060 | And so there are students that feel like, I just can't do this math. You can, right? You can. And so
00:05:24.900 | we want to model to our students, I can do it. And how old am I? 49. And I can do it. So you at 16,
00:05:33.860 | 15, 14, whatever age they are, they can do it too. So the Holy Spirit thing, I just have to share this
00:05:41.460 | with you. So we will probably talk about this a little bit with a different topic. But so
00:05:47.220 | this past semester, I took a class through Southeastern, the master's program. And I was
00:05:53.380 | trying to decide, you know, what major I wanted. And so I was just playing around with different classes.
00:05:57.940 | So I took elementary number theory. There's nothing elementary about it. Okay. It was very hard. It
00:06:07.540 | was very hard. And what I found myself doing was crying a lot and also praying a lot. Like I would get
00:06:17.220 | to a topic and I just wouldn't understand it. And I would, I would pray, Lord, I know you can help me do
00:06:24.100 | this. I know you can help me at least understand enough, you know, to get the gist of this problem,
00:06:29.460 | to complete this assignment. And a lot of times it would take me leaving, you know, like walking away,
00:06:35.780 | you know, how we get to that breaking point sometimes, and we just have to take a break.
00:06:40.120 | And then coming back to it, you know, after spending some time with the Lord. And eventually I would get
00:06:47.380 | it. Now it might take me a day or two, or maybe even a week, but I would eventually get it.
00:06:53.580 | And so I feel like if I can take a master's level math class with the help of the Holy Spirit,
00:06:59.160 | then I can do anything now. I mean, it really was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
00:07:04.820 | I know that sounds silly, but it really was one of the hardest things I've ever done
00:07:09.740 | because I, I couldn't see the end result. Like I didn't know, well, at the end of this,
00:07:15.320 | I can write a paper, right? I couldn't see that. It was just, I was understanding this number theory.
00:07:21.940 | So definitely inviting the Holy Spirit. I have to do that all day long. You know, even if you go to
00:07:28.020 | Walmart, you should invite the Holy Spirit to come with you. But for sure, when you're teaching your
00:07:34.620 | kids, because not only can the Holy Spirit stir in you and give you the right word to say, but now they
00:07:40.060 | can stir in the heart of your child, you know, as you're, you're teaching them as well. So.
00:07:45.500 | It's so true. I love that you shared that story. Um, something else that we mentioned before we
00:07:50.340 | press record, you guys is just the fact that I also was a person who, who just had the way I think of
00:07:59.360 | it. And I'm not sure if this is actually the truth, but this is where we landed is that I had some
00:08:03.760 | neurological blocks. Like there were just things in my brain, the figurative speech about math where I,
00:08:11.060 | I just had a block and I needed the time. Like I actually needed my brain to grow and shift and
00:08:17.540 | change so that I could wrap my mind around certain concepts when it came to math. And because I was
00:08:26.240 | homeschooled through high school and had the benefit of not being the guinea pig child, my mother
00:08:29.780 | recognized that fairly quickly. So when I was between the ages of like 13 and 15, she said,
00:08:34.900 | you know what? We've done algebra too, so many times, you know, geometry was nothing for me. I
00:08:40.600 | could have done it in my sleep. I still can tell you, yes, that wall is about this, this big. And
00:08:44.800 | it's this shape. I just, that's how my brain worked. But when it came time to make it figurative,
00:08:49.520 | I couldn't get there for a long time. And then when I went to college, I needed to get there for the
00:08:54.960 | major that I had. And so I was like you begging the Lord to enlighten me. And the thing that I want
00:09:01.920 | everyone to hear in both of our stories is that he did, you know, like it's, it's not as though math
00:09:08.120 | is this topic where you can't invite him in. So while we have this conversation about math and I know
00:09:13.600 | everyone tends to have mixed feelings, um, let's teach our kids to do that, to, to really have that
00:09:20.400 | conversation with the Lord. Because if we really do believe that the purpose of education is to know
00:09:25.620 | God and to make him known, then he should be in the conversation.
00:09:29.420 | Yes. And that's, that's something too, to, you know, a lot of people are like, why do I even care?
00:09:36.620 | Like, why do I, why should I make my kid like study all these things? And there's a couple of reasons,
00:09:42.000 | but you kind of hit on one of them is I can learn more about God by studying math. And it's probably
00:09:47.860 | things that I'm not going to discover anywhere else. You know, like if you think about like Fibonacci
00:09:54.300 | numbers, okay, God created this pattern that he put in a sunflower or a shell or a pine cone
00:10:02.960 | for, for my enjoyment, right? For me to love it and to see its beauty. And so if I don't study and know
00:10:12.680 | that the, the, the way that was created was by God's math pattern, why I can learn one more thing about
00:10:19.360 | the Lord by studying that particular topic. So that's one thing is that we can learn more about
00:10:25.260 | the Lord by studying this math topic. And another thing too, is how to do hard things.
00:10:31.700 | Yeah. I mean, we all know in CC, we're training our kids to do hard things. Right. And so I feel like,
00:10:38.940 | you know, it's really training your brain to think logically, to, to look for patterns. I mean,
00:10:46.340 | we can take a lot of the skills that we're learning in mathematics and apply them to so many other
00:10:50.740 | things that it's just, you're just transferring that skill to math. And so I honestly don't feel
00:10:57.580 | like you have to love math in order to want your student to succeed in it or want them to, to know
00:11:06.480 | about it. I mean, it would probably be helpful for them to see joy while you're teaching them,
00:11:11.580 | but also it might be good for them to see you're, you're doing hard things. Like my boys watching me
00:11:18.440 | cry and struggle and pray to get through this class. I mean, as embarrassing as that probably was
00:11:24.100 | for me, I'm glad they saw it because I didn't give up. I didn't not take, you know, I did not finish the
00:11:29.920 | class. I actually got an A in it. Hey, you know what I mean? So the fact that they get to see that and
00:11:36.100 | we're modeling that for our students, that's just another skill like showing them, Hey, I can do hard
00:11:41.320 | things. I can look at something that maybe right might seem really difficult, but breaking it down,
00:11:47.360 | looking at the grammar, looking at patterns, it's approachable. So I think that's another thing too,
00:11:52.420 | is, um, you know, there are lots of reasons to do math. Not, not just that I'm going to be a good
00:11:58.120 | calculator. I mean, we have computers to calculate, right? And so, you know, yes, it's, it's important
00:12:04.560 | for me to know how to, to add a subtract and multiply and divide. It's definitely important. I mean, I need
00:12:09.500 | to know if this person gives me back change, did she give me back the right change? Exactly. And I don't
00:12:15.000 | have time to pull out my calculator to figure that out. If something's on sale, right? I need to know if
00:12:21.080 | they're going to ring it up correctly, right? Cause I can figure out percentages. So there's lots of
00:12:25.240 | reasons why we need to know those kinds of things. Um, but more importantly, I think is,
00:12:29.920 | can we do hard things and what can I learn about God by studying something that I've never studied
00:12:35.380 | this deep before? Yeah. And that starts, you know, I love that you and I are having this conversation
00:12:42.500 | because your boys are a lot older. I've got one in utero and one who's three, you know, so I'm like
00:12:48.340 | on the opposite end of the spectrum. Um, but that, that literally starts from a young age,
00:12:56.020 | you know, when your children are older, you can explain to them the value of doing something
00:13:00.000 | difficult when they are younger. It's more along the lines of modeling, but there are some really
00:13:05.720 | practical things that regardless of the age of your student, they're going to glean from focusing on
00:13:12.980 | math. And, and some of that is for, for my son, it's like, Hey, I really want you to write these
00:13:19.680 | numbers because we're working on your fine motor skills. And I know what that's going to do for your
00:13:25.720 | brain. So if you are resistant to, and he's not, he loves to draw, but if, and when he was resistant
00:13:33.200 | to writing, I knew it was because he was struggling with a fine motor. So there were a lot of things that
00:13:38.460 | we did exercises that we did games that we play, just stuff. I had him pick up all over the place
00:13:42.780 | to strengthen those little fingers so that when it came time to do the math, that wasn't a hurdle for
00:13:47.920 | him. Same thing with like practicing sitting still that might seem so, so unrelated to math, but that
00:13:54.060 | patience of doing hard things, that's a skill that you're building your child over time. And if they
00:14:00.240 | don't have that tolerance to be able to wade through and just sit there when they're not interested
00:14:05.720 | because they don't understand yet, then they can't get that light bulb moment. But those are,
00:14:09.580 | that's a character conversation we're having right now. So yeah. And it's, it starts young. So I just
00:14:15.180 | love that we, I'm seeing what you're seeing from a totally different angle, but the value is the same.
00:14:22.140 | So I'm sure that there are people listening who are like, okay, I love what you're saying. Give me some
00:14:28.920 | practicals. So let's switch gears for just a few minutes and maybe talk about some of your,
00:14:36.420 | your top math activity ideas specifically for children in the summer.
00:14:42.500 | So I think first I would make sure I've taken a break, right? Whenever we're done with community
00:14:50.400 | or whatever we're doing with school, make sure I at least take a week or two and take a break
00:14:55.760 | because we do need the break as moms. We need the break and as kids, they need the break too.
00:15:00.760 | Right. So making sure we, we have a break. Um, and for, for a lot of our families who are getting
00:15:08.520 | ready to use the math map, which is brand new, um, there are lots of things to do in the summer
00:15:13.900 | that can get them ready. And one of them as a parent is to download, there's a naturals booklet.
00:15:20.200 | It's for like ages four and five, no five and six. And it's mostly, mostly copy and trace,
00:15:26.340 | but for the parent, it gives them an introduction into this brand new curriculum and they can just
00:15:33.320 | copy and trace at their will. So what I've been trying to do is print out a booklet, stick it in
00:15:38.460 | my giant pocketbook that I carry everywhere. And if I go to like the doctor's office and I have to wait,
00:15:43.340 | instead of scrolling my phone, which I want to do, I put it up and I try to get out my booklet and just
00:15:48.580 | copy and trace. And what that does is it, it gives me an overview of the curriculum, but it also
00:15:54.740 | gives me, it introduces me to some grammar that either I don't remember from school or I've never
00:16:01.640 | seen before because I didn't take that particular higher level math. And so that's one thing that
00:16:07.660 | parents can do. And then if their kids are old enough, they can have their kids join and do the
00:16:12.180 | same thing with them because again, it's copying and tracing. So there's not a lot of brain power that has
00:16:17.840 | to go through if I'm just tracing a definition or I'm, you know, copying a symbol. Um, but it's
00:16:24.000 | still, I still have the connection. Right. And so I would just, you know, copying and tracing is just a
00:16:29.620 | good, a good thing to try. Also flashcards. I love flashcards. Um, not necessarily just the CC ones,
00:16:37.160 | but like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division to always keep those things, you know,
00:16:42.780 | going on in my mind. But the new notations flashcards, I love them because it's all those
00:16:48.800 | symbols that I don't remember from school. Now they're brought up again in a flashcard way. And if
00:16:54.440 | I don't really like the sitting and drilling, I could like hide them around the room and let them go find
00:16:59.380 | them. And as they brought them back to me, they could tell me, you know, what the definition was of
00:17:04.280 | whatever the symbol was, you know, you can find little ways to play with them and not necessarily
00:17:08.620 | have to be, um, you know, just drilling. But so, so that's another thing. And then any games,
00:17:16.620 | any game that you have in your game closet, you can make it mathematical. So I went through the game
00:17:21.560 | closet a while back and I have a hard time getting rid of games. You know, my kids are older, so they
00:17:27.060 | probably aren't going to play hi-ho cheerio, but I still have that game. And, and that game can be
00:17:32.420 | mathematical because I have to count how many of those little red cherries to put on my, my little
00:17:38.040 | board. And so like battleship, they have to know coordinates, right? Because they have to put those
00:17:43.560 | on there. So probably any game you have in your closet, you could figure out a way to make it
00:17:48.520 | mathematical and your kids don't even realize they're learning or reviewing anything. They're just
00:17:54.300 | playing a game. And so I like to do stuff like that, that really tells them, like, they don't think
00:18:01.100 | they're learning, but they are. And we get to play a game because I love games. I love card games. I love
00:18:06.600 | board games. And so if I can get all of my folks at one table, I'm going to get them to play a game.
00:18:12.620 | Yeah. And then a bonus if they're, if they're learning something, right? Exactly. Oh, I love those ideas.
00:18:20.020 | And I mean, it's, it's so true that I had never thought of that. The fact that most,
00:18:24.920 | I can't think of an exception at this time, pretty much every board game or card game that you can
00:18:30.740 | play can be. That's the easiest. I mean, even, even just like that's number recognition, really. It's
00:18:37.020 | like numbers and colors, right? But like checkers, that's like logic. Cause you got to, well, and kind
00:18:43.180 | of numbers too, because you have to have so many in a row, but like almost every game is either, you know,
00:18:49.420 | you're practicing logic or you're practicing numbers. And then like reading books, you know, we always want
00:18:55.400 | to read to our kids. That's really big for us. But there are books at the library about math stuff. Like there
00:19:01.120 | was this one book. See if I can remember. It was something like, how does a dinosaur count to 10? It was like
00:19:06.960 | over and over again, like little things like that. You could just go to the library and just pick out
00:19:12.900 | random books about math. But you're, you're reading to your kids. They're hearing the numbers, you know,
00:19:19.020 | what was the other one? There was another one about counting. It might've been a Dr. Seuss. Oh,
00:19:23.960 | you know, like the, he was counting all the weird things in the Dr. Seuss.
00:19:27.300 | Apples up on top is another one. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, those kinds of, and see,
00:19:33.280 | that's still, you know, reading, right? So you're, you're doing two things at one time. You're reading
00:19:37.960 | to your kids or having them read it, but then you're also looking at a math concept. So that's
00:19:43.480 | something else you can kind of do in the summer too, is, is reading different math. Yeah, that's
00:19:47.500 | great. Well, and what you're making me think of too, Babs, is just the fact that sometimes
00:19:51.320 | expanding a child's ability to see the application of math is a fantastic use of your time. Like I'll
00:19:59.900 | take one just right off the top. Although I'm sure there are many more. I love the story of hidden
00:20:04.840 | figures. I find it so inspiring to me. I, and I would have told you in high school and into my early
00:20:12.840 | twenties. Now I'm in my thirties that I didn't care about math. That's what I would have told you.
00:20:16.780 | But when I learned what these ladies were able to do with their math skills, I said,
00:20:22.000 | hang on a second. Actually, I think I want to learn Euler's method. And actually I think I'm very
00:20:28.560 | interested in the way, you know, my father's an engineer. And so I had, I'd always have kind of
00:20:34.320 | a concept of what you could do if you did love math with your mathematical knowledge. However,
00:20:39.620 | sometimes I think people just need to be, they need to be exposed to a new way that math is,
00:20:46.520 | is kind of hitting them in the face in their daily life, you know, or people who they might
00:20:51.800 | not expect to be thinking in a mathematical way so that then they, it'll wet their palate and they'll
00:20:57.980 | say, okay, well, I do want to know these facts because if I can, if I can get ABC, I can get to D and I
00:21:04.060 | really want to be in this D range. So I'll just, I'll just plow through. So I love what you're saying
00:21:11.400 | about that too.
00:21:12.060 | And cooking, like cooking is the easiest one, right? Because you have to know your measurements.
00:21:17.000 | And I remember there was a foundation song. I'm probably going to mess it up, but it was like
00:21:20.300 | eight blue, an ounce equal one cup, you know, all the ones where you're, it's the measurements.
00:21:24.660 | So I remember in the kitchen cooking and singing that song to try to remember how many ounces were
00:21:31.680 | in a cup or whatever. And we would be in the grocery store and we would have to get like hot dogs and
00:21:37.560 | hamburgers for, or maybe hot dogs and buns for like some kind of church event. And I would have
00:21:41.920 | to count by twelves, like for the buns, how many buns do I need? So I'd get out the 12 song, 12,
00:21:47.720 | 24, 30, 30, 40, and sing that. So, I mean, those kinds of things, you don't even know you're doing
00:21:53.120 | it. You're just doing it, you know? So, I mean, yeah, math is like all around us and, and just living.
00:21:59.320 | I mean, if you just cooked or you went to the grocery store, you'd be doing math. So, and we talked
00:22:03.680 | about, you know, the sale, knowing the sale price or knowing the correct change, which honestly,
00:22:09.020 | we really need to check these people who give us change back now, because I don't think all of them
00:22:14.480 | know how to give correct change. That's why they don't count it back. They just put it in your hand
00:22:18.900 | and say, here you go. Yes. Yes. So we need to train our kids to know how to say, oh, I don't think you
00:22:25.620 | gave me all the right change. Yes, exactly. We could, we could fund a college, college on what
00:22:33.520 | you could get back and change if you got the right change. That's fantastic. And then even just the
00:22:39.160 | fact that I was thinking about artists as you were sharing too, that's another place that I think a lot
00:22:44.520 | of people don't necessarily expect, although the math map showcases it impeccably, but artists are
00:22:52.340 | constantly doing math because God, the whole world he created is mathematical. This physical world
00:22:59.960 | is mathematical and there is balance in good art. High quality art has the most balance. And so if
00:23:07.680 | you know your ratios and your brain can think in ratios and then like even decorating, I always loved
00:23:12.760 | interior design. That's another thing. I want to rearrange over half the rooms in my house right now,
00:23:17.400 | because it has occurred to me that the ratios are off. And since I know that, you know, now it's,
00:23:24.520 | it's bothering. I can't unsee it, but it's, it's a math thing. I want the balance and I know exactly
00:23:29.880 | where these thirds need to land and, and that, that brings peace. So having your children really,
00:23:34.860 | going back to the math, having your children come at this math conversation from an unconventional
00:23:40.280 | way is, is a great thing. And the summertime is so ripe for this because you do have a little bit
00:23:48.280 | more flexibility usually in your schedule. So figure out what they're into. I promise you math is in the
00:23:55.660 | middle of it. If they like sports, there's a lot of math involved. If they like cooking, there's math
00:24:00.900 | in there. Legos, Legos. There's lots of, I mean, you could do with Legos, you know, like even just
00:24:06.420 | counting, but like building 3d objects or trying to build a 4d object. Cause it was hard for us to
00:24:12.300 | imagine what 4d is like building those kinds of weird objects. But Legos are so fun to play with
00:24:17.840 | math. I mean, you could even do like sorting games, you know, where you sort by color or you sort by,
00:24:23.220 | I don't know, like functionality, you know, like however many have two, however many have four,
00:24:27.980 | you know, that kind of thing. Cause we used to do that when, with, with writing, we were learning how
00:24:33.560 | to make an Annie chart. We would sort Legos or sort something in your kitchen drawer. The same thing
00:24:38.820 | with math. You have to sort numbers, right. Put them in because, you know, like if you can't, you can't
00:24:44.320 | add or subtract different numbers, you got to make sure they have that like fractions have to have the
00:24:48.380 | same denominator. Right. So you've got to know how to sort or you got to put them in the right format.
00:24:53.400 | So, um, yeah, Legos are always fun in my house and I feel like that they're very mathematical.
00:24:58.700 | Yeah. That's such a great point. So, and I was trying to think there was another thing I was
00:25:03.240 | trying to think, Oh, well, well we do have, um, but we talked about card games too, but just a plain
00:25:09.340 | deck of cards, right. You can have so many games just from a deck of cards. You can practice like
00:25:15.740 | adding, you can practice multiplying and dividing me. You can practice algebraic expressions
00:25:19.660 | just with a deck of cards. And so it's not that you have to go buy a bunch of stuff over the summer.
00:25:26.060 | You probably have everything in your house, like a board game that's really mathematical or Legos or
00:25:32.260 | whatever it is. And you can make it into, you know, a math game. Exactly. And that applies to every
00:25:39.620 | age, every range of learning and understanding. It doesn't matter if your child is in the grammar phase
00:25:46.940 | or if they are in dialectic or rhetoric, you can do math with the things that you have around you.
00:25:53.980 | Um, I love that you're making me really want to do some math calculations with sports. My, my son is
00:26:00.980 | very into baseball right now and I'm atrocious at it and he's phenomenal at it. And I bet you, if I knew
00:26:07.000 | a little bit more about like what I was supposed to be doing with my hand or the arc, he keeps trying to
00:26:11.820 | explain it to me. But of course he's serious. He can do it, but he can't articulate it. But he's like,
00:26:16.260 | no, you're supposed to do it like this. If I got that, whatever that thing was, I bet it would
00:26:21.340 | change my life. And I promise you, it's attached to math. Um, I love this. Let's talk about, let's
00:26:27.020 | talk about breakthroughs and tension. Cause again, some of the reason why we have this stigma against
00:26:32.700 | diving into the conversation in math is that it can get emotional and challenging. And you've got a lot
00:26:38.720 | years under your belt of homeschooling. Um, can you maybe talk to us about a time when one of your
00:26:45.040 | students really was having a, a challenging, a challenging season with math and they had a
00:26:52.420 | breakthrough and what, what changed the game for them and how, how you navigated that with them?
00:27:01.360 | Well, I'm trying to think, I think one of the, one of the things that make, that can make students
00:27:07.620 | get overwhelmed is maybe the amount of work that's expected by mom or dad. So I was always the one who
00:27:17.420 | wanted them to finish the entire page. I did not want them to do odds or evens. I wanted them to do it
00:27:23.720 | all because I was afraid that if I didn't do odds or evens, they would miss something. Right. You
00:27:29.780 | know? And so I always wanted my kids to finish the entire page. And I think it got to a point where
00:27:37.200 | there was, there was one lesson that, um, it was so frustrating and he had been doing work for well
00:27:43.400 | over an hour and he was just frustrated and he just wasn't getting it. And I thought maybe I shouldn't
00:27:51.320 | make him, but I kept going back and forth. Like, should I make him finish? Should I not make him
00:27:55.260 | finish? And he took a break. He put it away for the rest of the day. And he went back to that same
00:28:00.960 | lesson the next day and something clicked and he got it. So he still finished the page. I still didn't go
00:28:08.420 | back on my, my, you know, I wanted you to finish the whole page. Um, but he just needed a break. And I
00:28:15.400 | think sometimes we just need the break. We just need a few minutes or maybe the rest of the day
00:28:21.100 | to think about something else. Um, and somebody was telling me that there's some kind of learning
00:28:25.420 | style thing where if your brain is just so clouded with this one concept you're trying to work on,
00:28:32.180 | just taking a break and doing something else and then coming back to it, you just look at it
00:28:36.960 | differently. And so I think that that helps is letting your kids take a break. Um, obviously if it's,
00:28:44.700 | if they're crying, then we need to stop, especially if my boys, like if my boys are crying about math,
00:28:51.020 | we need to stop. Like there's something really wrong. Um, or it might not necessarily be a math
00:28:56.660 | thing. It might be something else. Like maybe they know that we have to leave in 20 minutes to go
00:29:02.540 | somewhere and they know they can't finish this in 20 minutes. And so they're freaking out because
00:29:07.020 | they're not going to finish it. And it just so many emotions. So sometimes we have to kind of get to
00:29:13.140 | the real reason why they're being anxious or why they're having trouble. Is it because they're
00:29:17.700 | thinking of other things that they've got to get done or is it because this is too hard? This is
00:29:22.200 | overwhelming right now. And I just need a break. So I think it's, we just have to know our kids,
00:29:27.200 | you know, and it's going to be trial and error. I mean, you know, we're not given a manual from the
00:29:32.720 | hospital where we're always trial and error. I mean, I guess we do have the Bible, right? That is probably
00:29:37.320 | the closest thing we have to a manual. But with these kinds of things, you know, I feel like it
00:29:42.800 | is trial and error, but I think, you know, your kid. So if every single day they're crying,
00:29:48.040 | then there's something's got to change, right? There's got to be something different that we need
00:29:52.780 | to do. Maybe it's the curriculum, but maybe it's just something else, you know, maybe trying to get
00:29:58.220 | to the root of it. Maybe it's a character thing. Maybe I'm pushing them too hard. Maybe they don't need
00:30:03.740 | to do all the problems. Maybe they only need to do the odds or the evens, right? Or whatever,
00:30:07.880 | you know, whatever it is I'm making them do. Because I do feel like I expect a lot from my kids. I always
00:30:13.440 | have. And so there have been a couple of times when I've had to say, okay, we're not going to turn that
00:30:19.940 | paper in this week. I'll let you, I'll let you, you know, present from an outline because I know you
00:30:25.240 | worked hard and you got to this point, you know, so I think, you know, we have to know our kids and
00:30:30.360 | know where those lines are, but being willing to think outside of just, is it this math that I'm
00:30:35.920 | working on or is it something else? Is it a character thing or is it just stuff that's going on in my
00:30:41.100 | life that's distracting me from what I'm trying to work on right now? Does that make sense?
00:30:45.720 | Hey everyone, we want to interrupt this show to tell you about the classical learning cohort.
00:30:51.340 | So the classical learning cohort is comprised of small groups of CC parents learning how to become
00:30:57.360 | more confident, competent classical teachers. I don't know about you, but being more confident
00:31:02.960 | as I'm teaching my children is exactly what I need and the CLC can get me there. So the CLC provides a
00:31:10.840 | welcome place for mentorship while helping you to practice the classical skills with hospitable
00:31:16.720 | assessment. With feedback from your peers and your mentors, you will experience the transformative
00:31:22.340 | growth as a classical Christian educator. So right now they're also offering a way for you to test out
00:31:30.440 | the CLC for free by attending one of their online events with a CLC mentor. All you need to do is go to
00:31:38.120 | classicalconversations.com forward slash cohort and search experience the CLC to find an event and time
00:31:46.480 | that fits your schedule. We hope that you enjoy the CLC. Let's get back to the show.
00:31:51.220 | One hundred percent. And I mean, is it, are they hungry?
00:31:55.620 | Is it protein? You know, is it the time of day?
00:32:00.060 | Like something you just said made me think,
00:32:03.840 | I wonder if part of my problem was the time of day because we would always do math in the afternoon.
00:32:09.880 | That's just how we did it. That was our routine. Math was never our favorite.
00:32:13.080 | So, you know, my mom didn't make us get it out of the way at the beginning of the day. I know that's
00:32:17.460 | a common thing to do. However, when I went to university, because of where I placed in math,
00:32:23.980 | I had one time that I could choose from and it was 8am. And then I went straight from my 8am class
00:32:30.820 | to the tutor. And we sat together for another hour because school wasn't even open yet. Like
00:32:36.660 | that's how early it was. And that's how behind, you know, I was for what I was trying to do.
00:32:41.540 | And it was fine. But all that to say, I think I needed to do it at the beginning of the day. I think
00:32:46.720 | I needed to do it when my brain was fresh. My mind was fresh. I wasn't bogged down by anything else.
00:32:51.740 | I didn't have anywhere else. I could be, you know, if nobody's even here right now, except for the people
00:32:56.980 | who have to do this little math class. And that set me up for success. So I love that you're saying,
00:33:03.120 | you know, kind of zoom out a little bit and take a step back and evaluate some of the other things
00:33:09.160 | that could be affecting your child. I didn't know until last week that if I told my child I was going
00:33:14.780 | to set a timer, which I, for me, that would have been, you know, encouraging that it would shut him
00:33:20.880 | down. He collapsed in 25 seconds. Just he couldn't handle it. The timer was the problem. It was the time
00:33:26.920 | constraint for me. I'm like, yes, now I have a goal. I didn't know. But again, maybe there's some sort
00:33:32.980 | of a figurative timer in your child's mind and they know that this other thing is happening because
00:33:38.400 | they do have a concept of time. And so they're feeling pressure, even though you didn't put that
00:33:42.080 | pressure there. Can you alleviate that? I just, I really wanted to reiterate what you said, because
00:33:47.560 | I think when it comes to topics like this or any challenge, some of it is the math problem itself,
00:33:56.060 | but most of it is everything around the math problem.
00:34:00.860 | Yeah. And, and going back to your thing about the timer. So I used to test kids. I used to give the
00:34:06.640 | Woodcock Johnson the end of year test and the timer. Oh my goodness. If, if I didn't tell them I was
00:34:13.220 | timing them, it was fine. But as soon as they saw the timer or they heard that clicking or whatever,
00:34:19.120 | it was like, Oh, she's timing me. I got to do really well. I got to do this fast, you know? And
00:34:24.280 | so, yeah, it's your environment, right? What if you sit underneath a clock? What if your dinner table
00:34:31.040 | is underneath the clock and all they hear is, I think that would drive me bananas. And I don't know
00:34:37.300 | that I could concentrate. Whereas some kids could play music in their ears while they're doing their
00:34:42.840 | math. I can't do that either. I've tried to like have worship music on while I'm working and I can't
00:34:48.280 | concentrate. So everybody's different and we've got to figure out what that is. And that doesn't
00:34:53.860 | really have anything to do with, I mean, it does kind of have to do with math, but it's not just math
00:34:57.280 | as all the other subjects. So whatever we're doing to accommodate our kids in other subjects,
00:35:03.440 | we need to do those with math. One thing I always, I hear about is, well, my kid has dyslexia, so he
00:35:09.740 | probably can't use this program. Sure he can. Whatever you've done in the other strands to, to help your
00:35:17.020 | student accomplish what you want them to accomplish, do those same things in math, right? If you look at
00:35:23.200 | a page and it's really, really busy, what do you do? Well, why don't you cover up everything except
00:35:28.640 | one little section? So all they have to do is focus on it. Or if you are using a digital device, make it
00:35:34.780 | bigger, right? Zoom it in and all they see is this one little thing. Because really our classical tools
00:35:41.500 | of attending, really paying attention to detail, oh, they would love that. They would love to pick
00:35:46.760 | one thing on this page and really pay attention to detail. So that's encouraging too, is that I don't
00:35:53.720 | necessarily think I need a specific curriculum for my student who has this challenge. It's just how am I
00:36:01.220 | going to approach it? Whatever I've been doing, you know, if I have to read aloud to my kid because they
00:36:06.020 | struggle reading. Well, as they get older, they can read audiobooks or they can look at the, you know,
00:36:10.700 | on the Kindle, you can, it'll read it to you, but you can actually see the words as they, they tap,
00:36:16.080 | right? So whatever I've done for my student in another strand, I can also do that with math. So it's,
00:36:22.760 | it's, it's still approachable, right? To, to any student out there, not just students who maybe be good,
00:36:29.200 | you know, work it at math. That's so true. And, and I feel like that's probably one of the most
00:36:36.540 | empowering aspects of being the parent and their first teacher and therefore their best teacher,
00:36:45.760 | because the Lord has allowed you to spend all this time with this child so that you can get to know
00:36:53.520 | them. And of course we're continuing to learn, but, but that's the edge. That's, that's the
00:36:58.860 | advantage that the Lord gives you as the homeschool parent, because it's your kid. So whereas a teacher
00:37:04.280 | who just met them may or may not know what they need or what works for them in this other context,
00:37:09.700 | you know, because you've seen them under pressure in so many other contexts that your tool belt is so
00:37:16.280 | full. So you can, you can draw on that. And it's true that I think sometimes we,
00:37:21.420 | maybe we default to what we've seen before when it comes to approaching certain subjects,
00:37:28.800 | especially math, especially science, some of those more, you know, heady topics, as we say.
00:37:34.080 | And so we just think to ourselves, okay, well, I can't apply what I know to be true about
00:37:39.000 | this other topic to math, because that's not how it's done. It doesn't matter how it's done.
00:37:44.080 | God has put you in charge of your child's education. And so this is what we're going to do.
00:37:48.240 | Yeah, exactly. And I mean, constantly going back to him, you know, like my, my two boys are
00:37:56.080 | completely different. What worked for my first was completely opposite of what my second, you know,
00:38:01.900 | so I'm still learning, right. Even as the older they get, we're still learning, but constantly going
00:38:06.540 | back to him and saying, Lord, help me know the right words to say to them. Or the white, if I'm,
00:38:11.580 | if I'm teaching something, give me the right words to explain this so that they understand,
00:38:15.860 | or give me patience as they're learning this and not me expecting them to get it on the first try.
00:38:22.680 | Right. Cause that it might not be that they're going to get it today. They might get it a week
00:38:26.540 | later. They might get it next year. Right. So continually going back to him, I think is so
00:38:32.300 | important to, to keep him as part of your schooling, no matter what subject you're doing
00:38:37.240 | is keeping him in the forefront, like going to him and say, Lord, I just don't get it. I'm not
00:38:41.240 | understanding this. Can you help me explain this? Can you help me understand this? And he will,
00:38:45.860 | he definitely will.
00:38:46.840 | He will. He's a good father. He knows how to give good gifts to his children. He's not withholding
00:38:53.520 | from us. You know, he's not like us. We may be flaky. We don't know everything, but he's not like
00:39:01.460 | that. And we can go to him for the answers and he wants to, he's waiting. I love that, that he's just
00:39:07.920 | waiting to give us the wisdom that we are, are looking for. Um, it's such an encouragement. And also I think
00:39:15.480 | that's, that's the beauty and the benefit that, that we get as the parent, like our, we're, we want our
00:39:22.520 | child to learn this math that we probably already did learn, but the benefit we get is walking with
00:39:28.540 | the Lord and walking with them in the process of them learning. We're learning maybe something
00:39:33.080 | completely unrelated, but it's growing our character while their character is growing as well. And that
00:39:39.140 | that's very true. Very true. Well, I know that I have a feeling you and I could talk for a long time
00:39:46.960 | about this. I'm curious about one of the questions that I sent you beforehand, which is about meeting
00:39:54.300 | God in the numbers. I'd never thought about this concept until I talked to Kirstie Gilpin. Never,
00:40:01.020 | never thought about it. Meeting God in the numbers. Like, what are you talking about? I know how to beg
00:40:06.600 | him for answers because I'm confused, but actually seeing his character in numbers, that was a new
00:40:14.160 | concept to me until I started interacting with the math map. And I'll be honest with you. I know it might
00:40:20.600 | sound dramatic, but it changed my life. It changed the way that I looked at the world around me because
00:40:25.340 | I just wasn't thinking, Hey, here's this tree. And it doesn't just illustrate the beauty of God,
00:40:31.720 | but it illustrates his order and like the structure and aspects of his intentionality and his character
00:40:40.880 | that you can only see if you know math. So since you get to work on the math map and you get to have
00:40:48.440 | these conversations with these brilliant ladies all the time, do you have an example of a time that
00:40:54.700 | you've met God in the numbers or through math recently?
00:40:58.320 | So I see it everywhere now. It's kind of weird. It's almost like you didn't know it was there before
00:41:07.220 | and now you're like, wow, like it's all around you. But I think a couple of weeks ago we had our week 30,
00:41:15.340 | our class, and they were sharing, they're seeing the unseen. They have to make this booklet where they
00:41:21.700 | walk around and they, they just pick random things. They draw pictures of them in their,
00:41:25.800 | in their booklet. And then they tell us where they see God and where they see math.
00:41:28.860 | And this one kid, I wasn't really sure what he got the whole year. I, you know, every, every week,
00:41:37.680 | you know, he would participate and he would, um, you know, he would do what he was supposed to do,
00:41:42.900 | but he, he didn't talk very much. And so I wasn't really sure what is he getting right? What is,
00:41:48.540 | and he could be getting more at home than, than in community, but he shared this one thing in his
00:41:53.840 | booklet and it almost made me cry. I like ran to his mom. I was like, ah, I need to tell you what he
00:41:58.460 | shared. So he drew a picture of a stop sign. And I said, okay, tell me where you see math and your
00:42:04.300 | stop sign. And he said, well, there's, there's angle lines. Um, sometimes there's parallel lines
00:42:10.140 | depending on what, you know, what sides you're looking on. It's obviously a shape, right? And I said,
00:42:15.060 | okay, well, how do you see God in a stop sign? And he said, well, the stop sign tells you what to do.
00:42:20.280 | And then it also protects you because if you don't do what it says, then you get, you know,
00:42:25.320 | a car runs into you. And that's what God does, right? He gives you instructions. He tells you what to
00:42:29.820 | do. And then he protects you. He's giving you those things to protect you. And I was just floored. I'm
00:42:36.600 | like, this kid's 13 years old. And that's what he got from looking at a stop sign because of all of
00:42:43.700 | these conversations that we've had in community about looking at things and trying to see the math
00:42:48.040 | and trying to see God. And I just got goosebumps. And I was like, wow, like if that is all you got,
00:42:55.040 | which I'm sure he got more, if that's all he got, what a big deal. And so it just made me think of all
00:43:02.620 | the little things that I take for granted looking around. Maybe God was showing me that stop sign
00:43:09.200 | over and over again. And I just, it just wasn't clicking to me that that's the connection. And I
00:43:13.600 | had a 13 year old to point it out to me to say, what, did you know that this stop sign really shows
00:43:18.620 | you God's character and what, you know, that just goes to show you that our kids do teach us so much
00:43:25.980 | more than what we think, right? We think we're teaching them, but man, they're really teaching us.
00:43:31.260 | And so I get excited about the math map just because of that conversation that we get to have
00:43:37.880 | with those kids. We look at a piece of art and we try to find math stuff. We try to find God in this
00:43:43.940 | work of art. It starts out very comical. Like a week one, there's this, it's like all these things
00:43:52.000 | jumbled up together. There's this, there's this dog at the bottom of the screen and, and he's very
00:43:56.680 | malnourished. And my kids will say, well, I see God because there's a dog there and God made dogs.
00:44:02.900 | Okay. I mean, that's really simplistic. Well, I'll try to point out where there's an, there's an angel
00:44:08.700 | in this picture and she looks really sad. Like, why do you think this angel is sad? And he was like,
00:44:13.260 | well, obviously the dog's bones are sticking out. Nobody fed the dog. That's why she's sad.
00:44:19.580 | And so getting to have those conversations, that's how they start at the beginning of the year,
00:44:24.260 | but then they end up like the stop sign. And so if we get to be a part of that,
00:44:30.140 | just a little bit of that at home, watching our kids as they're learning that, or if we get the
00:44:35.300 | opportunity to direct and we get to see our kids do it, you know, other kids do it. That's where I see
00:44:40.400 | him all the time is just showing me himself in little bitty things all around me. And I mean,
00:44:48.740 | would I have said that like six years ago when I agreed to be in a pilot? No, I was just,
00:44:54.000 | I was just excited that I got to be in a pilot because I thought that was really cool. But now,
00:44:58.820 | I mean, just watching how much I've learned about God, just by looking around me at little things,
00:45:03.960 | every single thing I look at, I should be able to connect it to God. Right. And so being able to do
00:45:10.360 | that now, I feel like I would have never had that opportunity. If I haven't had wanted to study math
00:45:16.460 | or wanted to study this a little bit more. So it's kind of a, it's not really one thing. It's just,
00:45:22.700 | it's continuous. We always, I always feel like I can see it. I just have to be mindful, right? I got
00:45:29.000 | to pay attention. I can't be busy 24 hours a day or I'm going to miss it. But being intentional,
00:45:33.860 | like just going for a walk with your kids and just asking them, where do you see math out here?
00:45:39.200 | Like, you know, you're talking about the trees or looking at the branches and whatever the patterns,
00:45:43.780 | where do you see, where do you see math here? Where do you see God here? And that's,
00:45:47.460 | that doesn't take any prep. There's nothing I have to print out and make my kids worksheets for.
00:45:51.560 | I'm just taking a walk outside and asking them a question. There's not a right or wrong answer.
00:45:56.880 | We're just asking, where do I see God here? Where do I see math here? And let those connections
00:46:02.040 | kind of come together. Yeah. And the thing is, he is revealing himself. I think sometimes
00:46:11.200 | we feel so much pressure, or at least I'll speak for myself, but I bet you do too. Sometimes I feel
00:46:18.820 | so much pressure to try to orchestrate the moment. You know, it's like, you're trying to orchestrate
00:46:23.040 | the light bulb moment. And I was a teacher for years before I even became a parent. So I know what
00:46:27.760 | it's like to make your plans and you have these goals for these children and they need to learn
00:46:32.640 | this thing. But at the end of the day, who brings the enlightenment? Who gives the knowledge? It's not
00:46:39.640 | you. It's such a privilege to be in the room. And yeah, you better be faithful to do whatever your job
00:46:45.220 | is. So ask the question. But at the end of the day, God is revealing himself. He is revealing himself.
00:46:51.780 | He is faithful to do that. And he's going to show your kids something about himself that he might not
00:46:58.760 | show you. And you're going to learn it through them. And so you don't have to worry when you're going out
00:47:04.680 | and you're saying, oh, I don't even know the answer to this question. Well, that's okay. You can still
00:47:08.260 | ask the question. Let's discover together. Where do we see God outside? Who knows? I don't know what's
00:47:14.480 | going to happen out here. This is the wild. It could be anything. But that's part of the adventure
00:47:20.340 | and the honor. So thank you so much for having this conversation with me today, Babs. I hope that
00:47:29.300 | you all listening are encouraged by it. That two women who would have definitely told you within 10
00:47:36.360 | years ago that they didn't want to have anything to do with math and that's why they have the jobs that
00:47:41.040 | they have and have lived the lives that they've lived. We're passionate about it. We're excited about
00:47:46.740 | it. And it's not just because we love the numbers and we've learned that, okay, our limitations weren't
00:47:52.440 | what we thought they were, although they are not what we thought they were. It's because we met the
00:47:56.800 | Lord there. And we are seeing that in the same way we're so passionate and excited to know God and to
00:48:03.580 | make him known in the other areas of our life. This is a whole area of our life where we can do that too.
00:48:09.340 | And we can inspire our children to do that. So this summer, while you're playing math games,
00:48:14.940 | you're outside and you're playing sports and you're cooking and you're doing all of this stuff,
00:48:18.780 | we'd love to hear from you and to see where you are doing math in your daily life and being an
00:48:26.040 | everyday educator and leading the learning. And so please definitely follow us on social media so you
00:48:33.020 | can tag us in your pictures or tell us your stories because we really do want to hear what
00:48:37.480 | you're doing. We do this for you. And also share the show with a friend who maybe has been discouraged
00:48:43.940 | about their math journey or their learning journey and need to be reminded that it's all about God.
00:48:49.820 | It's all about the Lord because that's the truth of the matter. And he is always in the process of
00:48:57.340 | trying to show himself to us. And so we are the ones who need to slow down and look for him and
00:49:02.760 | we're not going to be disappointed when we do that. Thank you guys for listening. We will talk to you
00:49:07.900 | again next week. Have a good one.
00:49:09.520 | Bye.
00:49:10.520 | Bye.
00:49:11.520 | Thank you.
00:49:12.520 | you
00:49:13.020 | For more information, visit www.fema.org