I’m teaching math to second and third graders at our co-op, Excelsior, for the next ten weeks.  The focus will be specifically on multiplication, understanding what that means, and learning their times tables through the use of various manipulatives.  Montessori’s approach to the times tables will be incorporated as well as other methods of learning.

I’m also a big fan of the students learning about historical figures in whatever subject they are studying.  Last semester in science, we spent a day on Dr. Marie Curie and her contributions to the field.  I’ve chosen Pythagoras as our mathematician for this semester of study, and I will have to study him myself at great length prior to that class!

I’ve run across a couple of sites that seem worthy of sharing here:

http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/2012/02/montessori-at-home-multiplication-manipulatives.html

(hoping to make my own bead boards using the vinyl bath mat homemade approach)

http://www.classicalconversationsbooks.com/cycle1audiocds.html

(Classical Conversations has great sing-alongs for various subjects areas including math times tables)

http://www.tjed.org/resources/classics/math-classics-kids/

(TJEd has a nice list of living math books for both kids and adults. I’ll be using What’s Your Angle, Pythagoras? by Julie Ellis when we study him. Our library has most of these books, so you don’t have to spend money at Amazon).

Hope you can find some benefit from these..