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May 14, 2024 15 mins

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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.

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Find my
Curriculum, a series where wetalk all about curriculum.
I've been interviewinghomeschooling families for over
a year now on my main podcast,the Homeschool How-To, but I
really wanted to zero in oncurriculum.
There's so much out there.
How do I know what would workbest for me and my child?
How do I know what works forone child would work for the
other?
I might like the curriculum I'musing now, but how do I know

(00:25):
there's not a better one outthere, especially if I don't
know all the curriculums?
And what about supplementalcurriculum?
Should I be using that too?
This series is to help youdecide just that.
I'm going to interview parentswho are using all the
curriculums so that you candecide the absolute best way to
unfold your homeschoolingjourney.
The absolute best way to unfoldyour homeschooling journey.

(00:47):
Welcome With us.
Today we have Erica fromMichigan, michigan.
At the moment.
I have to say, right, correct.
Where are you originally from?

Speaker 2 (00:56):
I originally grew up in Southern California, oh gosh,
michigan.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
That stinks, but I am wearing my proud to be an army
sweatshirt today, so that wasappropriate because you travel
around, because your husband isin the military, so we thank him
and you for his service.
So we are going to talk todayabout math inspirations.
I am clueless about this one,so this is good, tell us about

(01:22):
it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I don't know anybody besides us that uses math
inspirations.
It is not common, so you're notalone in that.
Interesting Math inspirationsis completely different from
every other math curriculum I'veever seen, and that there is
absolutely no teaching done.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
So, oh, yeah, go outside and find some sticks,
kind of so.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
For example, well, the process of math inspirations
.
The idea behind it is thateverybody does math differently
and for the most part, we don'ttalk about the fact we do math
differently.
It's all in our brains.
We just figured out what worksfor us, and so with Math

(02:15):
Inspirations, it uses a lot ofthat 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 willhave a page and it will have a
definition, creation, and it'llsay this is addition.
And on the other side it willsay this is not addition.
And they look at the differentproblems and then kind of play

(02:39):
with it.
There's a lot of hands-on andmanipulative work.
And then it says, okay, now youteach me what is addition and
how did you figure this out.
And it does this for everyprinciple that there is in
mathematics.
It goes through basically likepre-K through eighth grade.

(02:59):
Everything is taught in thisway and so, yeah, it's really
unique.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, so give me now all right.
What ages can you use this for?
Or you know about?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
So you can start it as young as four, and I believe
it goes all the way up througheighth grade.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
My oldest is in fourth grade, though, so I
haven't really looked at theupper levels, okay, and you have
four kids, all right, so you'reusing this on all of them?
Yes, all right.
So give me an example of whatnow you told me when we had
spoken about homeschool, madesimple the other curriculum that
you use, that you do a familystyle learning, which I love,

(03:41):
that.
What does math look like onyour family style learning?
You know days.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
So well.
Math inspirations comes withfour different parts.
It comes with a unit that isindividually based, based off of
what level your child is at.
But then it also comes with abook of math games and the math
games can be played with.

(04:08):
I mean, even my husband and Iwill join in because they're fun
and my four-year-old can playwith us, and so everybody can
play the games.
Not all of the games, becausesome of them are higher level,
but she has games that can beplayed with everybody.
But then it also comes withlogic puzzles.

(04:29):
It comes with it's 52 differentkinds of logic puzzles, so one
for each week, and it just hasseveral examples.
So if one child needs my helpon their individual unit, I
might have the others work on alogic puzzle or play a game
together.
Sometimes, if everybody's stuckon their unit, we'll just all

(04:53):
play a game together and usethat for math for the day.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
Okay, I have so many questions, all right.
So is this kind of like gameschooling that I've heard of?
No, that's another episode allon its own.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
All right.
The games are specificallycreated to supplement the
different math ideas thatthey're working on.
So as you're going through theunit, it might say these are
some good games to play to helpthem figure out this concept.
No-transcript.

(05:40):
And so if they're stuck andthey're getting frustrated
because obviously they have tospend time thinking about it,
which is really an importantskill but does not come
naturally to us, right, right,so you can say to your kid hey,
let's just put this away for alittle bit, and why don't you

(06:02):
and I play this addition gamewhile you're thinking about it?

Speaker 1 (06:07):
it has, oh well, over 50 games that it has based and
recommended so how do you knowif you're not teaching, I mean,
I guess, how do you know, likeall right, what you go to the
next like?
So the book has a guide on whatshould be done next.
Yeah, you're just kind ofsaying to them how would you

(06:29):
divide like 10 into 20?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, so each new math principle that they're
being taught it will start withit has the definition creation
page.
It will start with it has thedefinition creation page, but
then it goes through it.
It's probably about 10 pagesand it walks them through
discover and then observe andthen hypothesize and then prove.

(06:56):
So during the hypothesis wherethey're creating how do I do it?
They will write out step bystep oh, this is how I did, how
I added 44 and 56.
And step by step.
And then at the prove page itwill have a list of double digit

(07:26):
addition problems with theanswers and it says I want you
to work through this onlyfollowing the steps as you wrote
it down, and if it ever doesn'twork, you need to go back and
rewrite your hypothesis of howto solve these problems.
But then after that it saysokay, now go find somebody to
teach how to solve this.
And so I sit down with them andthey go mom, mom, I figured it
out.
I know how to solve doubledigit addition.

(07:49):
Now Let me teach you.
And so it does walk them stepby step how to figure it out on
their own.
But they still have to figureit out on their own.
I don't sit down and say, well,you add your ones first, and
then you carry to the 10, andthen you add your 10s.
You hand them your base 10blocks and say, here, figure it

(08:11):
out, wow.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
How's it going?
They're like liking this.
I mean, I can imagine in myhouse 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 agame.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
So it's a lot slower than a traditional math program
and it's not broken down intolessons, so there's no.
You have to finish lesson onetoday and lesson two tomorrow.
So it's just, they work on it alittle bit and sometimes it's
sometimes a project, yeah, sosometimes my kid might work on

(08:49):
it for 15 minutes and then beready to move on.
And sometimes they're like I'mso close to figuring it out, I'm
almost there and they'll sitfor 45 minutes, because you know
that feeling when you're like Ialmost have it, I almost have
it.
So it really just depends onthe child on the day what

(09:13):
they're working on.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
What a way to solidify, though, like what they
have learned when they're theones that figured it out.
I mean, when we think of justthings in our life like that we
really learned.
Was any of it in school,sitting at a desk reading a
textbook, like no, it wasprobably the thing that we
messed up on and then had tolearn how to do.

(09:35):
Or the trying to create apodcast and watching all these
YouTube videos and like, wow,that is so cool.
I had never heard of anythinglike this curriculum before.
So, okay, so you have all thekids kind of do their own thing.
You can do some together withthe games and stuff.
How, uh?
You already talked about howlong it takes to complete it,

(09:56):
which could be anything.
It could be 10 a night, butwhen do you move on to like the
next year?
Year?
Does it cover a full year?
Is it different for every kid?

Speaker 2 (10:07):
It's not at all broken down.
In years she has it broken downinto eight different units.
At the back of it she does listwhere it lines up with the
common core standards, but it'sso different.
It's so different that itdoesn't translate well to this

(10:32):
is grade one, this is grade two,this is grade three.
Yeah, it's very, very different.
It does come with, though sheincludes a parent course when
you buy the curriculum, and thatwas absolutely phenomenal and
so fascinating.
She was a math teacher beforeshe started homeschooling her

(10:54):
kids and kind of startedevaluating, well, like, why are
we doing it this way?
What am I doing?
Why am I bothering to teach youmath?
Am I just wasting my time?
And so she created thiscurriculum from that.
But in her parent training sheuses and references so many

(11:14):
different fascinating studiesabout how children use
mathematics and the purposebehind learning mathematics and
how we learn math in Americaversus other countries, and
really fascinating.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Maybe I can get her on the podcast.
If I had a dollar for everyteacher who left to homeschool
their child and came on thepodcast, I'd have like 10 bucks.
But no, but it's great.
I never sought out to findteachers that left their

(11:49):
profession to homeschool theirkids, right, but like there I
get.
I hear from so many of themthat it's like wow.
At first I was like, well, youcome on my podcast.
Now I'm like, yeah, anotherteacher, all right, but it's
just a testament to like.
These people are in theprofession and they're like, why
are we doing it this way?
And I have a better way to doit.

(12:11):
But oh, no, no, you can't dothat, because somebody made the
decision that never stepped footin a classroom.
That this is how it has to bedone.
You know it's, it's justridiculous on top of so many
other issues.
But that's really interesting.
What you don't know her nameoffhand, do you?

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Emily Put you on, do you?
Emily Dyke, d-y-c-k.
So that's another thing that'sreally cool about this
curriculum.
So it was a little pricey atfirst.
It's $200 and you get the logic, the puzzles, the games and two
of the units which lasted mykids about two years, and then

(12:53):
the parent training.
But then you also get phonecalls with the creator of the
curriculum and if you're everstuck or confused you can just
request a phone call and she'llschedule it and you can ask her
your questions.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
That is so cool and that kind of leads into who did
I just have an interview withthe other day, craig Hayne, with
Triad Math.
I don't know if you've everheard about that.
To go into your high schoollevels he has.
He was the creator of TriadMath and he was a teacher as
well and was like you knowthere's just.

(13:31):
Basically, when I had thepodcast with him, he said if you
were digging a ditch in 1800,what would you use?
What tools?
And, uh, you know, okay, maybefind a shovel if you could, or
something you know, make ashovel, because if you were
building one tomorrow, whatwould you, what tools would you
use?
Oh, okay, well, backhoe, he's.
Yes, so why are we still usinga shovel to dig a trench when we

(13:54):
have backhoes today, like.
So there was this wholecalculator that he like I I
don't know, it's on the marketbut it's not really used much.
But he's like this is I don'tknow, 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 alot of sense.
These would go really welltogether, because you both agree

(14:15):
that the way it's being done inschools is not the best way,
and when would you use the stuffthat they are teaching you in
school?
There's probably more logicalthings that we would need to
know, like how interest works.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, I know that that's covered in the higher
levels, but my kids are still onfractions so we're not there
yet, but she does cover that inher curriculum.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Is there any other supplements that you would need
with this?
It sounds pretty complete.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I don't think so.
There have been a few timeswhere 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 togo online and find I'm looking
for double digit additionproblems and print out a free
sheet.
I haven't needed to buyanything extra.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
That's awesome.
Yeah, I think that coverseverything with this curriculum,
so this is called MathInspirations, correct?
Thank you so much, erica, andif you haven't listened to our
other episode with HomeschoolMade Simple, erica explained all
about that, so check that oneout as well.
Thank you so much for joiningus today, erica.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Thank you, I had a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
Please consider sharing thispodcast or my main podcast, the
Homeschool how To with friends,family, on Instagram or in your
favorite homeschool groupFacebook page.
The more this podcast is shared, the longer we can keep it
going and the more hope we havefor the future.
Thank you.
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