Have you ever wondered if there's a math curriculum out there that could completely change the way your child engages with numbers? Erica from Michigan joins me to shine a light on Math Inspirations, a unique program that ditches conventional teaching in favor of a more exploratory, hands-on experience. This episode isn't just about a singular approach to math, though. We're venturing into the wider realm of personalizing education to fit every child's learning style, discussing how to supplement standard curricula, and remaining ever-curious about the myriad of educational resources available to homeschoolers.
With Erica's guidance, we uncover the family-style learning that Math Inspirations fosters, involving all ages from the littlest learners to adults. Discover how this program can adapt to multiple grade levels, all the while encouraging children to teach back what they've learned for a deeper understanding. Erica's firsthand accounts with her four kids reveal the transformative power of this curriculum, offering insights into captivating math games and weekly logic puzzles that the whole family can enjoy. If you're seeking inspiration to revitalize your homeschool math sessions and foster a true love of learning, this conversation is your next great resource.
Have you ever wondered if there's a math curriculum out there that could completely change the way your child engages with numbers? Erica from Michigan joins me to shine a light on Math Inspirations, a unique program that ditches conventional teaching in favor of a more exploratory, hands-on experience. This episode isn't just about a singular approach to math, though. We're venturing into the wider realm of personalizing education to fit every child's learning style, discussing how to supplement standard curricula, and remaining ever-curious about the myriad of educational resources available to homeschoolers.
With Erica's guidance, we uncover the family-style learning that Math Inspirations fosters, involving all ages from the littlest learners to adults. Discover how this program can adapt to multiple grade levels, all the while encouraging children to teach back what they've learned for a deeper understanding. Erica's firsthand accounts with her four kids reveal the transformative power of this curriculum, offering insights into captivating math games and weekly logic puzzles that the whole family can enjoy. If you're seeking inspiration to revitalize your homeschool math sessions and foster a true love of learning, this conversation is your next great resource.
Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Find my Curriculum, a series where we talk all about curriculum. I've been interviewing homeschooling families for over a year now on my main podcast, the Homeschool How-To, but I really wanted to zero in on curriculum. There's so much out there. How do I know what would work best for me and my child? How do I know what works for one child would work for the other? I might like the curriculum I'm using now, but how do I know there's not a better one out there, especially if I don't know all the curriculums? And what about supplemental curriculum? Should I be using that too? This series is to help you decide just that. I'm going to interview parents who are using all the curriculums so that you can decide the absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. The absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. Welcome With us. Today we have Erica from Michigan, michigan. At the moment. I have to say, right, correct. Where are you originally from?
Speaker 2:
I originally grew up in Southern California, oh gosh, michigan.
Speaker 1:
That stinks, but I am wearing my proud to be an army sweatshirt today, so that was appropriate because you travel around, because your husband is in the military, so we thank him and you for his service. So we are going to talk today about math inspirations. I am clueless about this one, so this is good, tell us about it.
Speaker 2:
I don't know anybody besides us that uses math inspirations. It is not common, so you're not alone in that. Interesting Math inspirations is completely different from every other math curriculum I've ever seen, and that there is absolutely no teaching done.
Speaker 1:
So, oh, yeah, go outside and find some sticks, kind of so.
Speaker 2:
For example, well, the process of math inspirations. The idea behind it is that everybody does math differently and for the most part, we don't talk about the fact we do math differently. It's all in our brains. We just figured out what works for us, and so with Math Inspirations, it uses a lot of that idea. I'll just give you an example, because I'm doing this with my first grader right now. He's doing addition, so it will have a page and it will have a definition, creation, and it'll say this is addition. And on the other side it will say this is not addition. And they look at the different problems and then kind of play with it. There's a lot of hands-on and manipulative work. And then it says, okay, now you teach me what is addition and how did you figure this out. And it does this for every principle that there is in mathematics. It goes through basically like pre-K through eighth grade. Everything is taught in this way and so, yeah, it's really unique.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so give me now all right. What ages can you use this for? Or you know about?
Speaker 2:
So you can start it as young as four, and I believe it goes all the way up through eighth grade.
Speaker 1:
My oldest is in fourth grade, though, so I haven't really looked at the upper levels, okay, and you have four kids, all right, so you're using this on all of them? Yes, all right. So give me an example of what now you told me when we had spoken about homeschool, made simple the other curriculum that you use, that you do a family style learning, which I love, that. What does math look like on your family style learning? You know days.
Speaker 2:
So well. Math inspirations comes with four different parts. It comes with a unit that is individually based, based off of what level your child is at. But then it also comes with a book of math games and the math games can be played with. I mean, even my husband and I will join in because they're fun and my four-year-old can play with us, and so everybody can play the games. Not all of the games, because some of them are higher level, but she has games that can be played with everybody. But then it also comes with logic puzzles. It comes with it's 52 different kinds of logic puzzles, so one for each week, and it just has several examples. So if one child needs my help on their individual unit, I might have the others work on a logic puzzle or play a game together. Sometimes, if everybody's stuck on their unit, we'll just all play a game together and use that for math for the day.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I have so many questions, all right. So is this kind of like game schooling that I've heard of? No, that's another episode all on its own.
Speaker 2:
All right. The games are specifically created to supplement the different math ideas that they're working on. So as you're going through the unit, it might say these are some good games to play to help them figure out this concept. No-transcript. And so if they're stuck and they're getting frustrated because obviously they have to spend time thinking about it, which is really an important skill but does not come naturally to us, right, right, so you can say to your kid hey, let's just put this away for a little bit, and why don't you and I play this addition game while you're thinking about it?
Speaker 1:
it has, oh well, over 50 games that it has based and recommended so how do you know if you're not teaching, I mean, I guess, how do you know, like all right, what you go to the next like? So the book has a guide on what should be done next. Yeah, you're just kind of saying to them how would you divide like 10 into 20?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so each new math principle that they're being taught it will start with it has the definition creation page. It will start with it has the definition creation page, but then it goes through it. It's probably about 10 pages and it walks them through discover and then observe and then hypothesize and then prove. So during the hypothesis where they're creating how do I do it? They will write out step by step oh, this is how I did, how I added 44 and 56. And step by step.
Speaker 2:
And then at the prove page it will have a list of double digit addition problems with the answers and it says I want you to work through this only following the steps as you wrote it down, and if it ever doesn't work, you need to go back and rewrite your hypothesis of how to solve these problems. But then after that it says okay, now go find somebody to teach how to solve this. And so I sit down with them and they go mom, mom, I figured it out. I know how to solve double digit addition. Now Let me teach you. And so it does walk them step by step how to figure it out on their own. But they still have to figure it out on their own. I don't sit down and say, well, you add your ones first, and then you carry to the 10, and then you add your 10s. You hand them your base 10 blocks and say, here, figure it out, wow.
Speaker 1:
How's it going? They're like liking this. I mean, I can imagine in my house we might start at 10 am and not be done until 10 pm. Does that ever the case? Or you break it up and play a game.
Speaker 2:
So it's a lot slower than a traditional math program and it's not broken down into lessons, so there's no. You have to finish lesson one today and lesson two tomorrow.
Speaker 2:
So it's just, they work on it a little bit and sometimes it's sometimes a project, yeah, so sometimes my kid might work on it for 15 minutes and then be ready to move on. And sometimes they're like I'm so close to figuring it out, I'm almost there and they'll sit for 45 minutes, because you know that feeling when you're like I almost have it, I almost have it. So it really just depends on the child on the day what they're working on.
Speaker 1:
What a way to solidify, though, like what they have learned when they're the ones that figured it out. I mean, when we think of just things in our life like that we really learned. Was any of it in school, sitting at a desk reading a textbook, like no, it was probably the thing that we messed up on and then had to learn how to do. Or the trying to create a podcast and watching all these YouTube videos and like, wow, that is so cool. I had never heard of anything like this curriculum before. So, okay, so you have all the kids kind of do their own thing. You can do some together with the games and stuff. How, uh? You already talked about how long it takes to complete it, which could be anything. It could be 10 a night, but when do you move on to like the next year? Year? Does it cover a full year? Is it different for every kid?
Speaker 2:
It's not at all broken down. In years she has it broken down into eight different units. At the back of it she does list where it lines up with the common core standards, but it's so different. It's so different that it doesn't translate well to this is grade one, this is grade two, this is grade three. Yeah, it's very, very different. It does come with, though she includes a parent course when you buy the curriculum, and that was absolutely phenomenal and so fascinating. She was a math teacher before she started homeschooling her kids and kind of started evaluating, well, like, why are we doing it this way? What am I doing? Why am I bothering to teach you math? Am I just wasting my time? And so she created this curriculum from that. But in her parent training she uses and references so many different fascinating studies about how children use mathematics and the purpose behind learning mathematics and how we learn math in America versus other countries, and really fascinating.
Speaker 1:
Maybe I can get her on the podcast. If I had a dollar for every teacher who left to homeschool their child and came on the podcast, I'd have like 10 bucks.
Speaker 1:
But no, but it's great. I never sought out to find teachers that left their profession to homeschool their kids, right, but like there I get. I hear from so many of them that it's like wow. At first I was like, well, you come on my podcast. Now I'm like, yeah, another teacher, all right, but it's just a testament to like. These people are in the profession and they're like, why are we doing it this way? And I have a better way to do it. But oh, no, no, you can't do that, because somebody made the decision that never stepped foot in a classroom. That this is how it has to be done. You know it's, it's just ridiculous on top of so many other issues. But that's really interesting. What you don't know her name offhand, do you?
Speaker 2:
Emily Put you on, do you? Emily Dyke, d-y-c-k. So that's another thing that's really cool about this curriculum. So it was a little pricey at first. It's $200 and you get the logic, the puzzles, the games and two of the units which lasted my kids about two years, and then the parent training. But then you also get phone calls with the creator of the curriculum and if you're ever stuck or confused you can just request a phone call and she'll schedule it and you can ask her your questions.
Speaker 1:
That is so cool and that kind of leads into who did I just have an interview with the other day, craig Hayne, with Triad Math. I don't know if you've ever heard about that.
Speaker 1:
To go into your high school levels he has. He was the creator of Triad Math and he was a teacher as well and was like you know there's just. Basically, when I had the podcast with him, he said if you were digging a ditch in 1800, what would you use? What tools? And, uh, you know, okay, maybe find a shovel if you could, or something you know, make a shovel, because if you were building one tomorrow, what would you, what tools would you use? Oh, okay, well, backhoe, he's. Yes, so why are we still using a shovel to dig a trench when we have backhoes today, like.
Speaker 1:
So there was this whole calculator that he like I I don't know, it's on the market but it's not really used much. But he's like this is I don't know, it was a little over my head for math people. I'm sure it made a lot of sense, and if I went through the course, I'm sure it would make a lot of sense. These would go really well together, because you both agree that the way it's being done in schools is not the best way, and when would you use the stuff that they are teaching you in school? There's probably more logical things that we would need to know, like how interest works.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I know that that's covered in the higher levels, but my kids are still on fractions so we're not there yet, but she does cover that in her curriculum.
Speaker 1:
Is there any other supplements that you would need with this? It sounds pretty complete.
Speaker 2:
I don't think so. There have been a few times where one of my kids may have come to me and been like hey, can I get some extra problems. But it's really really easy to go online and find I'm looking for double digit addition problems and print out a free sheet. I haven't needed to buy anything extra.
Speaker 1:
That's awesome. Yeah, I think that covers everything with this curriculum, so this is called Math Inspirations, correct? Thank you so much, erica, and if you haven't listened to our other episode with Homeschool Made Simple, erica explained all about that, so check that one out as well. Thank you so much for joining us today, erica.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, I had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please consider sharing this podcast or my main podcast, the Homeschool how To with friends, family, on Instagram or in your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. The more this podcast is shared, the longer we can keep it going and the more hope we have for the future. Thank you.