Inchimals=Math Fun!

This year is our first official year of homeschooling. We did unofficial preschool the past few years, but this year was the first year I sat down, went through curriculum ideas and plans, and carefully chose a rounded curriculum to suit our needs and desires for our girl's learning. For a few various reasons we decided to combine the girls so they always work together in one grade. They are close enough in age for this to be reasonable, close enough to each other (inseparable, actually) to prefer it this way and be upset by any other, and therefore it is just much easier all around for teaching. We ended up going for Timberdoodle's Core Curriculum because quite frankly, every time I started going through all my options for books and curriculum I got fuzzy-brained and overwhelmed. Since generally I've appreciated their products and guidance since I started buying kid-learning-tools from them, I decided to just go for their core curriculum idea for this grade, see how it went, and adjust for the following year if needed. It also came with a schedule/planning tools, and I was really attracted to that because figuring out how much they needed to do each week was so daunting to me. In short, I am SO glad we went for this curriculum, because I have pretty much LOVED all of the products we got.


When I started thinking through all this, setting goals and planning, I knew that it would require dedication, planning, organization from me. I knew, because I'd been told again and again, that some days would be hard--really hard. And, I'd processed all this, and was prepared for it to be true. That being said, one thing that I never really thought about was that it would be FUN! I've gone out of my way to try and make it fun for the girls, because I want them to LOVE learning, but I didn't really think about the fact that it could be delightful and fun for me as well. I feel like this is such a gift from the Lord, every day... because I was planning on the irritation of it outshining the fun and still blazing through, and it has thankfully been just the opposite. The fun has definitely outweighed the irritation--by A. LOT. :-) At this point I can't imagine our girls education happening any other way, and I am so thankful for the joy in that.

This product that I'm going to talk about today was one of the products that came with the Core Curriculum, although you can buy it separately for a pretty reasonable price-comparable to any other quality education toy anyway. It has definitely contributed to the fun, and I'm featuring it because it is one of the girls very favorite things to do--and they actually ask me if they can pull it out and play with it even when we're not doing school. It is Inchimals... 12 "Rods", a very sturdy book, and an erasable marker...


It starts with easy problems...

and gets to harder problems as the book continues...

There's 100 problems in the book, the girls are supposed to do at least three per week. I'm doing good if I can get them to stop at 5. The "Aaaaaawwwww!!'s" resound every time I say it's time to put the Inchimals away...

The rods each have inch markings along the length for whatever number they represent, a set of dots to match the number of inches on one end, the same number written on the other end, and a picture of an associated animal along the length of the rod.

I started doing the problems from the front (easiest) at first... but there was a little bit of dilemma with this process. You see, the different sections of the book have different colors: Yellow for simple addition, Green for simple subtraction and so on... and the pink and purple pages happen to be much more difficult problems. But, when you give a little girl a book, she must use the pink and purple pages... yellow and green are quite boring, and not suitable for princesses at all. So, we've had to sort of work with this issue, and I let them try for a more difficult pink or purple (there are also red, orange, brown, blue, etc.) equation after they've completed those boring yellow and green ones. So far I've found that while the harder ones are definitely more challenging to them, they are also doable with some simple lead-in questions from me, because it's so easy for the child to check their work while they're doing it, since the inches help explain the problem, and errors are very easily seen.

Keira checking her work for the problem she's doing... (side note: do other homeschooling moms hate calling math problems "problems" as much as I do?! Sometimes I call them math opportunities, but then I feel like such a stereotypical corporate positive smiley person that I just want to punch myself in the face... I am so weird.)

They don't even realize they're doing math. I love it.

Then Debris picks her math opportunity out.

Checks her work against the coordinating rod...

And writes the correct number down... I usually have them draw the correct number of dots out too... I've found they love it if I use different voices while we count. Yelling, whispering, southern accent, Boston accent, English accent, roaring like a lion, etc., although Yoda is by far their favorite... we always have to finish with "Correct you are, my child!!!"

If I were to have any complaint about this product, it would be that the box it comes in is bulky, and already falling apart. I can't come up with a smaller way to store it, although I'm working on it. The girls love to put it away as well, as it goes together in a pattern, seen below, which is really fun for them to figure out and put together.

They say this is suitable for ages 3-8. I would have to say that I think three might be a bit small as they do have to have an attention span exceeding that of a gnat, but starting at four would perfect... Kiki and Debris are currently almost 5 and barely 6, and they love it, but are also challenged enough by it that I think they could easily be amused for another two to three years or so with it. They currently require me standing over them just a bit when they do it, more for making sure that they're paying attention to the addition, subtraction, etc., symbols than anything. The best thing about it though, is that it makes the introduction to math completely painless, and just plain fun which sets them up so well for future learning.

I've so enjoyed reading other homeschooling moms review the products they use and love that I'd like to share some of our stuff as well... so stay tuned for more reviews on Homeschooling products this Autumn!