Making Math Meaningful: A Source Book for Grades 1 Through 5

Description The Second Edition!  What’s new? Week-to-week lesson plan block outlines. Many more ideas for rhythmical exercises. Grades 1-2: More ideas for the 4 Processes and working from the Whole to the Part. Grade 3: More ideas for Measurement. Grade 4: More ideas for Fractions. Grade 5: Sample drawings for Geometry. Who can use this book?  Most of the author’s teaching experience is within the Waldorf school system.  Yet this source book can be effectively used by any teacher or homeschooling parent who wishes to teach meaningful, age-appropriate math. The Math Tightrope.  In teaching mathematics, perhaps like no other subject, we find ourselves walking a tightrope.  If we step a bit to one side, a sizable portion of the class becomes perplexed and overwhelmed.  If we correct ourselves to the other side, the quicker students get bored and the class as a whole doesn’t progress enough.  For many teachers, each step along this tightrope brings up unpleasant memories from their own childhood. As Waldorf teachers, we are aware that the teaching of math is more than just an intellectual exercise.  We engage the will of the students as we use movement and rhythmical exercises to teach the times tables.  Through appropriate stories, we engage the feeling realm of the students and spark their interest in math.  Rudolf Steiner, the founder of the first Waldorf school, spoke of the importance of “permeating the soul with mathematics in the right way” and how a healthy relationship to mathematics can benefit the student’s later spiritual development. Certainly, math in a Waldorf school is viewed differently and taught differently.  Yet, the problems we face are often the same as in the mainstream.  All too often, a class enters middle school with many of the students weak in math and saying, “I’m bad at math, and I hate it.” Why is this so?  How can we do better? This book covers the following: Principles of Waldorf education Working with “struggling” students Will our children be prepared? Golden rules for teaching math Topics in the math classroom Ideas for manipulatives, movement, main lesson books, etc. The art of teaching math What makes this Waldorf math book different? Detailed curriculum guidelines for first through fifth grade. Overview of child development in each grade. Specific ideas for every math main lesson. Step-by-step progressions for learning the arithmetic facts, times table, basic addition, and subtraction, long multiplication and long division, etc. General ideas and suggestions for teaching math successfully in the lower grades.