Math gnomes

My apologies for the delay in our academic blog posting. We've had a lot going on as of late and perhaps the close of this Grade 1 year is approaching too fast. Our final process was Gnome Times, the multiplying gnome. I didn't take many pictures for this particular week, but here is the main ending to the story. At this point, we had met Gnome Share, Gnome Plus, and Gnome Minus Takeaway. We also met a Shepherd Boy who was searching for his lost flock, which Gnome Minus Takeaway had…

The end of our first year homeschooling, and what a year we had! Happy to say we fared well. Here, our weather tree is a symbol of our journey. We started in September with a bare tree on a very clean blackboard, which you can see on this blog post. Leaves were placed on this ...

This past week, we introduced the Plus Gnome to the girls as we continued the story. Lucy and Phineas, led by the Ancient Wolf and Gnome Share, headed back over through the Pine Cone Forest (earth element) on the journey to get the children back home. Here are some of the activities we did this past week. As they got deeper into the forest, they suddenly heard a voice shouting, "Mine! Mine! Mine! They're all Mine!" And out came a chubby green gnome, his pockets bulging with gems. He was…

Monday morning. S's out of playdough with Em, and Math gnomes with Grace (oh, how I wish I'd learned math this way when I was little!). A lovely start to our week.

This past week, we continued with our four week Maths Block on the Four Processes and Quantities of Numbers. Here is a summary of some of what we did this week. We began with an introduction to three new characters in our story. The first two arrived together when the children heard an old, quiet grumbling coming their way. They could barely make out the words, sounding like an apology. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose them..." And then a second voice was heard, that of a young…

Over the weekend I got to do a webinar with Jamie York. He offered it as a follow up to his Seventh Grade Online Workshop: The Art of Teaching Math. Jamie York is friendly and gives practical advice from his experience as a Waldorf math teacher who has been in the classroom for many years. I find that his work is really accessible, and he's super-helpful and willing and interested in being a support person to homeschoolers. He told me that he has filmed four more math workshops! They will be…

Why Bother? Is This Some Kind of Weird Waldorf Thing? Yes, Waldorf in grade 1 is heavy with gnomes but that's not the only reason why we use them in Math. In Math, they actually have a very special and practical purpose. Here are my notes for how to tell the introductory story. If you're getting ready to teach this block, join my NEW step-by-step Math Gnomes course... or check out the full First Grade Immersive Experience! The basic idea here is that you are imagining... what if each…

All of my notes for this block are on my website at Math Gnome Stories. Here are a few photos from my teacher planning pages: introduction to skip counting (0-24) Skip Counting Patterns to 24 (PDF) introduction to number sentences in Waldorf they are written from the whole to the parts arranging 12 gems on our boards in many different ways number sentences after our subtraction stories finding the X in the cart's wheels, jingle bell, suspenders, and the happy cartwheel of Tommy Times…