Considering the state of the merchandise, we had a constant flow of customers during our entire shift.  Some people left empty handed while others stocked up on wagon loads of pumpkins.  I guess the latter were going to have a carving contest.  A few even purchased rotting ones for a 50% discount.  We were happy to do our part trying to sell pumpkins.

I was pleasantly surprised how well my daughter did.  Kyla is ten years old.  She is naturally quiet.  Several times a day I have to ask her to speak up over the noise of my boys.  Kyla is obedient, but I did not know she was a go-getter.  Kyla listened to the volunteer we were replacing explain the method for pricing pumpkins, discounting rotting ones, where the money was kept, etc.  When the lady left, Kyla asked if she could be in charge of checking out our customers.  I agreed, but knew that I would be supervising the process.

Shortly after resuming her post at a table under the tent, Kyla received her first customer.  It was a mother and child with three pumpkins.  Kyla looked at each pumpkin and compared them to the priced pumpkins to determine their worth.  It is a very subjective process.  She announced her price for each pumpkin, totaled the amounts in her head, asked for the total, and made change.  All without looking to me for help or guidance.  I was so proud of her.

She was practically applying mathematics, including the occasional 50% discount.  I know she was not doing rocket science, but how many times have you stood in line waiting for the cashier to make change?  Very few know how to do it without the aid of the computer.  Even with the computer, they do not always get it right.  And, here was my ten year old confidently being a cashier with only her brain and the cash box.

My eight year old son, Jake, saw his sister happily at work and wanted to be involved with the money side of selling pumpkins.  He asked me if he could take over Kyla’s job.  I told him that she wanted that job, asked for it, and was doing a superb job.  However, he could help her by doing the pricing, totaling, and making change in his head as practice.  If his figuring did not match Kyla’s he could tell her and they could re-figure.  He was pleased.

As the next customer walked up to Kyla at her table, I stood next to Jake behind her.  “Okay, Jake, what is your price for each pumpkin?”  He told me.  He did very well estimating the prices, but he was $1.00 higher than his sister on one pumpkin.  I pointed out how subjective the process was and that we were sticking with Kyla’s price since she was in charge.  He too added all the prices together correctly.  He was a little slower telling me how much change they needed back, but he was correct when he figured it out.

As the next family arrived to replace us, the mother was completely impressed that Kyla was running the pumpkin patch with at this point very little supervision.  I let Kyla explain the process to the next volunteer.  Then we left.

As a homeschooling mother, I do not give very many exams if any.  The purpose of examinations is to show the teacher what a person knows or can do.  In a classroom with thirty students, you cannot possibly spend one on one time with each student to determine their understanding.  You have to give a test.  When you teach your own children, you can spend that time with each child.  You know if they grasp a concept.  You know their struggles.  You do not need a pen and paper examination.  You do not need scantrons and #2 pencils.

If you want to test your children, find practical opportunities to allow them to apply their knowledge. We stumbled into this one blindly.  It was not pre-meditated.  But what if I had just told her “no” when she asked to be the cashier?  What if I had not wanted to take the time to supervise her?  What if I did not want to give her any responsibility?  I would have missed a great opportunity for Kyla to apply what she knows, learn, gain confidence in her abilities, and shine.

Jake doing his MEP math.

Growing up I never enjoyed math.  It was one of the few subjects I actually had to work at to make a good grade.  So when I began homeschooling, I wanted to give my children a solid understanding of math.  I did not want them to just memorize facts and formulas as I did in school.

There are many good math curriculums available to homeschooling families.  I want to share which one we use and why I’ll be sticking with it.  It is called MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programme).  As you probably guessed based on the spelling, MEP is from Britain.  As far as I understand, the program was originally developed in Hungary, which is a country ahead of students in the United States in mathematics.  In the 8th grade, Hungary is ranked 6th in the world in mathematics with the USA in 14th place.  To see it for yourself, click here.

This of course immediately intrigued me.  Then I find out that the whole program from Year 1 past Calculus is absolutely free.  It is all on-line; you just have to print out the student worksheet pages.  You simply download the year you need and print it out.  It sounds too good to be true.

A video documentary of Hungarian students doing math in class sold me on MEP completely.  The children at all levels seemed to truly grasp the mathematical concepts.  They were trained to do most of their figuring mentally.  I sat back and watched them work complex problems in their little heads with amazement.

I know that we live in a technological world, but as a parent and teacher, I want my children to be able to do math without the aid of calculators and computers.  I want them to be able to function when the electricity goes out or the batteries in their calculator die.

Now that three of my children have almost finished a complete year of MEP math at their own level, I have decided to use MEP all through their schooling.  MEP teaches math differently than how I was taught.  Sometimes I have to refer to the free teacher’s notes in order to figure out what the program is teaching.  I have honestly learned as much if not more than my children this year.  I actually enjoy math for the first time in my life.  My husband is amazed at the way our daughter, Kyla, can figure out math in her head.  The strategies are unlike any I was exposed to in school, including college.

Since it is a British program, it is heavy in the metric system and uses pounds instead of dollars.  Science is filled with metric units; therefore, I feel my kids are getting great exposure to this way of measuring.  Additionally once I explained to my children what pounds were, my children never had a problem with the symbol on the page.  They just pretend the question is asking for dollars.  These “problems” were not problems in my household.

I highly recommend watching the documentary produced by the BBC called “Primary Maths – How Do They Do It in Hungary?”  To view it, you do have to register at teacher.tv.  It is free and easy.  Then download the video.  If you like what you see and want to know more, go to http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mep/default.htm to see what the program offers.  Keep in mind that the program is advanced.  I placed my children a year under their grade level.  This was recommended by the MEP-homeschoolers yahoo group.  As this article could not possibly address all the information, questions, and concerns you might have, feel free to contact me or search out the yahoo groups posts.  They have a lot of information for beginners in their group’s files.