Was Adam Alive To See Noah Born? A Math Lesson

Yesterday we started back homeschooling after a Hanukkah/Christmas/New Year break and began reading the Bible Chronologically from Genesis using a book called The Daily Bible In Chronological Order 365 Daily Readings. When we got to Genesis 5, the homeschool mom in me took over with excitement as I asked the kids to get their math notebooks and a pencil.

Our mission: To discover if Adam was alive when Noah (the one who built the ark) was born.

According to our calculations based on scripture, Noah is Adam's great great great great great great great (that's 7) grandson.

In Genesis 5:3, it begins to tell us about Adam's children, grandchildren, etc. It begins with Seth, Adam's youngest son. It gives us the age of Adam when Seth was born and continues from there. If you want a fun math experiment, open your Bible and begin. To get the full math lesson effect, you need to take Adam's age when Seth was born (130) and add to it the age of Seth when he had Enosh, etc. Get these numbers directly from Genesis 5.

To give you a Teacher's Edition answer and make it easy on you (provided we figured it right - It was, after all, the first day back after a long break), here's a summary:

Adam lived to be 930 years old:

Adam was 130 when Seth was born (son)
Adam was 235 when Enosh was born (grandson)
Adam was 325 when Kenan was born (great grandson)
Adam was 395 when Mahalelel was born (great great grandson)
Adam was 460 when Jared was born (great great great grandson)
Adam was 622 when Enoch was born (great great great great grandson who walked w/God)
Adam was 687 when Methusaleh was born (g-g-g-g-great grandson - Old as Methusaleh)
Adam was 874 when Lamech was born (g-g-g-g-g-great grandson)
Adam would have been 1,056 when Noah was born (g-g-g-g-g-g-great grandson)

Conclusion: No, Adam missed seeing Noah be born by 126 years. But, he lived to see Noah's daddy turn 56.

TOS Review - CTC Math

I was thrilled to get a chance to review the 12 Month Family Plan for the online US curriculum from CTC Math.

What is the 12-Month Family Plan for the US curriculum from CTC Math?

CTC Math is an online program that presents short video lessons followed by tests, called questions. The questions are also in an online, fill-in-the bubble style of on-screen test. Though, there are some features that are printable, such as the lesson summaries, as well as test results. Also included are Speed Drills. The lessons are presented with visuals of the math concept being learned for that specific lesson - Not a teacher standing in front of a classroom lecturing.

The 12 Month Family Plan allows you to use it with up to ten children. There are diagnostic tests and also Speed Skills games. Lesson Summaries and Test Results can be easily printed for record keeping or reference. The program also generates weekly updates in the form of an email that comes directly to the parent/teacher's inbox.

The program covers Kindergarten through Trigonometry, Algebra, Geometry and Calculus, with family plans for up to ten children.

I thought that allowing the program to be used for up to ten children was wonderful for many homeschooling families who have several children to teach. Since we don't have ten children, I will share how two of my children put the 12-Month Family Plan to use in learning math.

How Did We Use It?

I was most excited that my oldest son was offered the opportunity to use this program. Not only because he is an online learning junkie, but he also is now in high school and I am looking for curriculum to give him proper higher level math instruction. My son is unique in that he really excels when unschooled rather than following textbooks. So, my main concern was where to place him. The Algebra seemed to be almost too easy, bu then the Calculus was almost too challenging. Thankfully, there are diagnostic tests that paint a clearer picture of what the student knows before deciding on where to place them. In the end, geometry was the winner for where to begin, which was perfect since he loves, breathes, sleeps and eats computer coding and especially dealing with 2D/3D on-screen animations.

I also checked out what CTC had to offer for my youngest, who is 8 but has a birthday that falls in late September. This technically put her in 2nd grade this year, but she has been doing some 3rd grade work. So, I was excited to see where she actually placed.

I first had her complete a diagnostic test for her grade level, and she mastered it. So, I was confident to know that starting her off at the next grade level would be ok.

The graphics for my younger daughter's level were so wonderfully colorful, and the short lesson presentations work so much better for this little antsy, can't-sit-still, easily bored learner. The way the lessons are presented in very short, 2-minute or so snippets, made these online math lessons so much more appealing for her.

What Did We Think?

I like how the lessons are usually just short, presenting only the facts that are needed to master that particular lesson, a little bit of information at a time, so as not to overload the student. On a side note, we also love the instructor's voice and accent - So pleasant to listen to that you almost forget you're learning a somewhat complicated core subject.

I love how you can print out the test results and also are able to print out the lesson summaries of each lesson. These printouts provide an at-a-glance resource for learning. I love that some of the high-school level lessons also have printable worksheets.

I appreciate how it gives the student three tries to achieve higher scores on the tests if they didn't get everything right the first try. It then averages the total percentage from the three tries to provide a final percentage, which can so easily be translated into a letter grade for the transcripts. The final averaged grade really reflects the child's true ability.

Find CTC Math on Facebook.

Read what other members of the TOS Review Crew thought by clicking on the picture below:

Life of Fred Apples Review

A friend of mine graciously let me borrow her copy of Apples from Life of Fred, and I'm so excited about it that I decided to do an unsolicited review.

SEE FOR YOURSELF - A SAMPLE LESSON

Each book is designed to take approximately one month to complete.

Life of Fred is a series of books that presents math in a unique way. It is the work of Stanley F. Schmidt, Ph.D. who admittedly gives all glory to God for his inspired curriculum supplement idea. Each book in the series retails for approximately $16. It starts with the elementary series book, Apples.

There are 10 books in the entire elementary set, 3 in the middle school set, and 5 in the pre-algebra set, 4 in the high school algebra set, one for geometry, one for trigonometry, and 6 in the college level set, for a total of 17 in the entire upper level set.

Apples begins with a 5-year-old college math professor named Fred. Don't ask how a 5-year-old can become a professor. It's all part of the unique approach to teaching math. See, math doesn't have to be frustrating or boring.

It's not your typical worksheet style math instruction book. Instead, it weaves in math facts that are appropriate for each level of book intertwined within a fun story. Also, The book progresses with 18 chapters, and with each chapter the story builds using a sort of unit study format and opening up math class to concepts of every day life, historical stories, science facts, and other fun useful, real-life learning.

The first chapter, and many subsequent chapters, cover math facts of the number 7. It seems everything equals "7". And, then pictures of clocks begin to show up within the story as Fred casually mentions time in 5 minute and hour increments as he tells his story.

Geometry concepts are also introduced, showing shapes and names of shapes in a really fun way. My elephant-loving daughter really loved that the ellipses was explained as a circle that an elephant had sat on.

The chapters have a story that are each about 6 pages long, followed by a "Your Turn to Play" which asks questions and has the child perform activities related to what they just learned in the chapter.

The answers to each "Your Turn to Play" section are on the reverse and following page.

Screenshot from Sample Lesson

The chapters cover:

Time
The 7 Fact Families
Circles
Ellipse
Days of the Week
Facts about February
Temperatures
Deciduous treet
How to make 20 by adding 10 + 10
Counting by 5's
Ordinal numbers of First, second and third
Concepts of algebra finding the value of "X"
Archimedes
The meaning of a.m.
One hundred explained in rows and columns
Before photography was invented
Best Mathematician who lived over 500 years ago
Ocen liners in Kansas
Square
Pacific and Atlantic oceans
Whales
Fish
Concepts  of Zero
Sets of up to 17 members
subtraction facts of 7
Triangles
Herbivores
Carnivores
Chess facts - What checkmate looks like and how the Rook moves on the board
How to spell yacht
The story of the Titanic
Truth and lies using a silly duck
Letters of the Greek alphabet
Drawing circles inside of triangles and triangles inside of circles
Counting by hundreds
Movies verses real life
rectangles
octagons and stop signs
five-sided shapes
Reading books and research facts of how to
money concepts using a dime
drawing comic strips
.
OK, I'll be completely honest and admit that before I sat down with the book and my child, I wasn't sure I really understood all the hub bub behind Life of Fred. I like humor, but found it sort of strange that the curriculum focused on a 5-year-old math professor named Fred. My very logical 8-year-old had the same reaction at first as she had difficulty getting past the idea that a child could teach math as a profession.

So, we sat our serious selves down and decided to delve into the book and see what was at the bottom of the Life of Fred. It really only took me a few chapters to decide that this book was amazing. Silly, yes, but that's what makes it unique. By being silly in having it all presented by a 5-year-old math professor named Fred, it takes the edge off of the stress of learning and allows the child to settle in to enjoying the story.

Instead of freezing up and hating math, what happens is that the child begins to want to know what happens next in the story. What they don't realize is how much math and other facts they are learning.

And, they really are learning so much more than math.

Everything is woven throughout the story to fit together and make sense in a nonsensical way. When we had finished the Apples book, we understood what the difference was between a deciduous and evergreen tree, how many days are in specific months of the year, how many days are in a week, how to tell time down to the 5-minute mark, who Archimedes was, a bit about the history of the Titanic, how to draw a circle inside of a triangle, and whenever we envision an ellipse now, we will picture an elephant squashing it. Not only that, but concepts of algebra have already been introduced in a way that almost seems mysterious and spy-like. The book ended by having the child draw a cartoon comic strip and segues into wanting to read the next book.

Math Mammoth Grade 1 Complete Curriculum Light Blue Series Review

 

My elephant-loving daughter and I have enjoyed having the opportunity to review Math Mammoth Grade 1 Complete Curriculum from the Light Blue Series which I was asked to review as part of the TOS Review Crew.

This is my daughter on a mission to find and rescue all of the elephants in the world, living and toy!  Needless to say, she was excited about a math program with a mammoth on the cover.

I realize that ordinarily math has absolutely nothing to do with elephants, but the name of the program is Math “Mammoth”.  A mammoth is the name of a prehistoric elephant.  I was curious as to why the curriculum is named Math Mammoth, and after searching the site to find out, I'm still not absolutely sure.  Though, I could speculate and come up with many clever reasons why it's named after a mammoth.  Regardless, any elephant, prehistoric or modern, makes my daughter smile and jump up and down, so she couldn't wait to get started studying math.

The name of the curriculum and the picture of the cover was enough to get my little one interested and overly excited.  My daughter noticed the mammoth elephant on the cover of the worktext right away, and got so very excited every time I would say it was time for Math Mammoth.

   

It also helped that the curriculum even has a mascot plush mammoth for sale on Amazon to sit next to your child and help encourage math learning.  His name is Mathy.  We didn't buy Mathy because she already had her own Mathy look-alike.

There were also free coloring pages and dot-to-dot activities that featured Mathy, the Math Mammoth mascot!

 

After plunging past the cover art and curriculum name, the meat of the Math Mammoth program was more than complete. The lessons included student worktext/worksheets and teacher guides that also included guidelines and suggestions for games to make math fun, as well as several links to online games and sources for further learning adventures. I also liked how they integrated word problems and a puzzle corner throughout the lessons. See sample pages here.

 

Of course, it didn't hurt that there were even an occasional elephant within the actual math problems:

I received the curriculum in the form of a pdf downloadable to my laptop that runs Windows 7.  While it is not necessarily intended to be used on a mobile device, I used an iZip app with a pdf reader and Evernote to also send it to my iPhone.  I did this because my computer was having technical issues, and I wanted to make sure I had access to the materials, and also so I could view it on the go.



The creator of Math Mammoth, Maria Miller, wrote the books because she saw something lacking in homeschool  math curriculum.

The math program I have been accustomed to using presents material in what is referred to as a continual spiral, or step-by-step, where each new concept is introduced with tons of review questions from previous lessons. Math Mammoth differs from this approach by presenting the lessons in a way that focuses on a few major topics at one time to study each one in detail and to conquer them before moving on.  In other words, students actually learn the concepts.

Math Mammoth:

• Presents the material in an easy-to-understand manner, with lots of colorful pictures and visuals, so the student understands mathematical concepts.
• Is oriented toward mastery of learning topics as the goal.
• Stresses the importance of mental math with a sense for numbers.
• Makes teacher prep time minimal. 

Both worktexts are written by Maria Miller and are part of the Light Blue Series, which is a complete curriculum composed of several topic units.  The package includes:

An answer key for each worktext
Tests
Cumulative Reviews
The curriculum also comes with links to tons of helpful online math games and a Soft-Pak, Worksheet Maker to generate extra practice, as needed. An internet connection is required for this feature.

They offer placement and year-end tests as well.

The first grade curriculum focuses on:

• Addition and subtraction
• Whole numbers and place values through Number 100
• Measuring units
• Geometric shapes
• Clock and time Money

The Grade 1 curriculum includes:

Two student worktexts: Worktext A is 145 pages, of which 129 are lesson pages, including 8 pages of Kindergarten level review.

Worktext B is 144 pages, of which 125 are lesson pages.

I looked over the materials and printed off only the pages as we needed them. Though, the pdfs are apparently interactive with a function called a “Typewriter” setting that allows you or your student to type answers directly onto the pdf from a computer keyboard.

The full Math Mammoth Grade 1 Complete Curriculum Light Blue Series costs $34 for a download version, or $39 on a CD.

You have the option of buying just Set A or Set B, each of which include the student worktexts, answer keys, tests, cumulative reviews, worksheet maker, and Soft-Pak, as follows:

-Set A only - $16.50
-Set B only - $17.50
-Supportive materials only - $7.95. This option does not include the worktext, only includes answer keys, tests, cumulative reviews, worksheet maker, and Soft-Pak.

Please note: If you buy the full curriculum, or individual sets, these supportive materials are included.

If you prefer, you can buy printed copies of the full curriculum, or individual worktexts, that are spiralbound:

-1-A worktext - $17.95 spiralbound
-1-B worktext-$17.95 spiralbound
-Answer Keys - $13.95
-Tests & Cumulative Reviews - $15.95

 In addition to the curriculum, Math Mammoth recommends a few manipulatives for Grade 1:

-A 100 bead abacus
-An old fashioned alarm clock or analog clock with hands the child can turn
-A ruler that measures inches
-A ruler that measures in centimeters

Please read reviews on this and other Math Mammoth products from the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew, here, or click on the picture below:

Schoolhouse Review: Math Rider Intelligent Horse Riding Arithmetic Game

I received Math Rider , "The Intelligent Math Facts Game”, for review.

   MathRider runs on just about any of the newer computers that are available. It uses the Adobe AIR runtime (which is a free download from Adobe), so it can be used on either a Windows or a Mac. It requires 80mb of hard disck space and a monitor with graphics card that supports at least a 1024X768 pixels resolution.

The MathRider computer game is $47, which includes free software updates for life. It comes as an instant download to your computer.

I really like that you can create a new separate player for each member of your family, up to eight players. MathRider presents addition, subtraction, multiplication and division questions, using number 1 through 12.  You or your child chooses the difficulty level, and the game automatically keeps track of what skills have been learned. 

The game is designed for children 6 to 12 years of age. I used it with my 11-year-old 5th grader who, overall has a good handle on math concepts, but often struggles with certain numbers in the multiplication table and hates division.

She was excited that the game allowed her to ride a horse, even if it was only in a virtual world.

The game has an underlying fairy-tale-like story line that keeps the student’s mind focused on completing levels until they master success.  However, the whole time, they are really performing mathematical calculations.

She went through various lands, an enchanted forest, and rescued a princess. To get to the end, she completed numerous math problems.  I allowed her to start out by choosing the level she wanted to work on, hoping that she would gain the confidence needed to tackle more challenging quests.



The speed of the game and the problems that were presented were based on her own skill level and accomplishments. It is not just a game, it is an intelligent game. I like that the game somehow calculates what your child has mastered and only presents problems for them that they still need practice on solving.  It reveals an easy-to-read chart that shows you and your child what they have mastered and how they have improved.  You won’t waste your time going over and over problems they already know.

Read what other Schoolhouse Review Crew members thought, or click on the link below: