Sixth grade math makes wednesdays the best day of the week for me.
Wednesday afternoons are happy days for me.
I tutor a sixth grader in math. Talking to another volunteer yesterday, we were discussing how easy math comes to both of us. He had to help write a social studies paper yesterday while I got to do math. I have always partially thought in numbers. When I am running or watching tv, I do counting/math problems in my head. I find it calming and I am more of a visual thinker when it comes to problem solving, something I have discovered in the past three weeks isn’t easy to teach. But I specifically asked to be a math tutor because math is fun.
Unfortunately, my little protege is a guesser. (and she’s not very good at math.) She will call out numbers until she thinks (based on some look I have on my face) she is right. Ha! I have gotten better at the straight face, instead I make her explain to me in detail why she chose each answer. Which can get pretty funny because she will then divert to comments like “what?! you don’t know the answer.” and “because it is.”
This battle of wits usually goes on for an hour and 15 minutes and leaves both of us laughing the whole time.
Honestly, do you know what the greatest common factor of 48, 72, and 108. The answer is 12, but have you ever had to work out this bad boy of a problem? It involves trees and multiplying common factors. I have to stop myself weekly from saying “these steps are meaningless, you won’t have to do this in real life”.
Its especially taunting that she is doing basic math problems that people use calculators for (she doesn’t get one of those till next year). I realize we can’t all be mathletes but its been interesting to relearn the correct way to do basic problems I have done in my head for years.
Yesterday’s homework was easy, so we played hang man till the end. She couldn’t guess “My cat is fat” so I then tried to teach her the “Wheel of Fortune” guide to guessing letters. I thought it was RLSTN and vowels, though I haven’t seen the show in a while, I may be wrong.
