My son Alab: “Math please..“

and this is how we do it…

We are using MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programme) Reception Math and so far we love it. MEP is from Britain but the program was originally developed in Hungary. What encouraged me to try their method was a video documentary of Hungarian students doing math. A short version can be viewed here.

There are no worksheets. It is mostly oral math using a lot of manipulatives/counters. We only do this 2-3 times a week and I keep the lessons short. My priority is his habit of attention and love for learning. So I take it away when it starts frustrating him (just like the other “lessons” we do) and just bring it out the next day. It works like a charm! He literally begs me to do math or homeschool in general. 

I am looking into Singapore Math in the future but for now I am very pleased with the pace and method of MEP.

I am also educating myself in using a “Living Math” approach to learning and came across old (very old) arithmetic resources that I might use as a supplement late-next year. These are basically guidebooks for oral math. I love the idea of conversing “in math” in the primary years. Here are the resources that I’m looking at:

First Lessons in Numbers by Henry Maglathlin and Benjamin Greenleaf
Ray’s Arithmetic (Primary Lessons for Young Learners) book 1

NOTE:
** We do short lessons now and then but I prioritize time spent outdoors over math and other “lessons”:

“…The chief function of a child – his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life – is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that therefore, the endeavor of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with nature and natural objects… ”

Second in priority is habit formation (This is the hardest!). Such habits such as obedience, attention, imagining, cleanliness etc.