Rounding up and rounding down

Jory and I once again sat down and I was ready to go the distance. We did a few problems, I used the explanations given. I said a line that I love courtesy of Deborah, “Five or more go up to the store.” I love catchy math statements like that.

We had stopped by the library on the way home and he got his favorite Danger Ranger dvds and I told him that if he could do five rounding problems by himself, he could watch his beloved DVD.

We went over a few then I wrote down some numbers.

He said, “Mommy, you do these and I’ll do these.”

“Okay. Do you want to try them all by yourself?” I suggested tentatively expecting to get shot down.

“Yes.”

I checked my email and before I knew it he was done. Only half of the answers were right. He wasn’t rounding the right way, but praise God he was getting the right multiples of ten.

We went over why he rounded the way he did. We reviewed the number line at the bottom of the paper showing him when to round up or down.

He wanted to try it again. He only got one wrong. We talked over and then he said he was ready to try again. This time he wrote his own numbers and this time he got them all right. Praise God! Go Jory! You rock my world!

We did a few more to make sure he had it down, and all systems go. I decided we’d let it go for the night and he could watch his movie which somehow morphed into Strawberry Shortcake, because the movie wouldn’t work for the girls then I finally got it to play.

The upside to homeschooling, if Jory had been struggling like this in school then he would have had me and his teacher helping him, but his teacher would have to move on to the next lesson pushing Jory even further back, possibly even making him frustrated; but because we’re homeschooling, I had the luxury of stopping everything else and concentrating just on math at home until he got it. Eureka! He got it. And now we can move on and get back on track. I think the next lesson on double digit addition will be a breeze, he was doing that back in kindergarten.

I am one blessed chick. I’ve been given the ability to homeschool my little man and have this awesome support system of wise women who I can reach out to when I feel like I'm sinking.