Thursday, May 2nd 2024

Longevity Publishing Blog

Visits to Knowledge Bound and School Crossing

This past week, I visited two educational supply stores. I drove south to School Crossing in Colorado Springs, and finally had a chance to meet Sherrie, owner of the very busy store that was filled that day with lots of teachers and parents. Later in the week, I drove north to Windsor, CO to Knowledge Bound, another successful teacher and parent supply store. This was my third visit to Ginger’s store. During past visits, I had given presentations on teaching math facts, and individualizing a math facts program.

I had a chance to talk with many teachers, math coaches, and parents from public, private, charter, and home schools. I always enjoy showing off the strategies and tricks to teach math facts, and signing copies from two of my books, Two Plus Two Is Not Five and Five Times Five Is Not Ten.

Teacher Created Resources, the publisher of my first book, How to Teach Math Facts, was also present for the two stores’ customer appreciation days.

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The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine Posted A Review for Five Times Five Is Not Ten

The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine has posted an online review of Five Times Five Is Not Ten. Reviewer Courtney Larson uses the workbook with her own children, and some of her comments are posted below in red.


“After a new strategy is taught, there is plenty of practice. What I like most about this practice is that it incorporates previously taught facts, and then it mixes the multiplication facts with addition and subtraction facts so that the child really has to pay attention and apply what he’s learned.

I have been using this book with my 9 and 7-year-old sons. They both understand multiplication but have had trouble remembering the facts without counting or a lot of thought. We are only about a third of the way through the book, and I have already seen a lot of improvement with my sons’ multiplication fact recall. It only takes minutes a day, and the payoff at our house has been huge. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a child who is struggling to remember multiplication facts.”

Read the complete review at The Old Homeschool’s review site. http://bit.ly/9GK9vx

As I have mentioned numerous times before, before using any of the memorization strategies, please be sure that the students can demonstrate what the math facts mean. Children need to understand numbers, and the value of tens and ones. Many of my earlier blog posts give lots of teaching tips for math. Try out sample worksheets from both this book and Two Plus Two Is Not Five. The website has tips, sample pages, and more. www.TwoPlusTwoIsNotFive.com.

These workbooks are different from other practice books because they give children tips and tricks to learn the math facts and offer a lot of written practice as well.
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INVOLVE CHILDREN WITH MATH DURING THE SUMMER BREAK

Just like anything, practice makes perfect. Keep children involved with math during the summer.


If your child already has memorized addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts, and is still in elementary school:


1. Give some written practice a few times a week, and also
use flash cards to keep those facts quickly and correctly answered.


2. Practice with word math in your daily environment. Make up math questions that are applicable to you and your family.
For example:
Have your child keep a running count of how many pages he or she read each day.

Ask questions such as:
It’s 1:00 p.m. and swim practice is at 4:30 p.m. How much time before swim practice starts?

We have one hour before we need to be at the baseball field, and it takes 15 minutes to drive there. How many minutes before we need to leave?

My six rose bushes each have five buds. How many buds are there in all?
We are having 18 people over for dinner. There are 12 chairs in the dining room. How many more chairs do we need?
While at the grocery store:

Have your child estimate the cost of a few items. Make it a game. See how close the estimate is to the total bill. Practice rounding to the nearest dollar is an important skill.

Ask your child to estimate the change from the amount paid.

If math facts aren’t memorized yet, there are lots of earlier posts in this blog that tell how to teach, and also many strategies to help your child remember the answers.

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NEW ADDITION and SUBTRACTION WORKBOOK -Request sample pages

For the last two weeks, I have been on track working hours and hours on the practice pages for the new addition and subtraction workbook. I don’t have a name for it yet, but the catalog number will be LP 250.

This new workbook will provide practice pages for children who are learning to add and subtract two and three columns of math. Regrouping, or exchanging, 10 ones to a 10, or 10 tens to a 100, a 10 to 10 ones, and a 100 to 10 tens will be introduced and reviewed at various points in the book.

This new book does not have to be used with Two Plus Two Is Not Five, but if you are using Two Plus Two, you will appreciate that LP 250 will have six coordinated sections of practice. The first section will provide practice using only facts that are taught by the end of Tier 1. The second section does the same for facts that are taught by the end of Tier 2, and so on. A few word math problem pages will be included in the book, and will also be based on the fact knowledge at that point in the book.

If you are using Two Plus Two, and would like to try out some pages from the new workbook, please email me from the website: www.TwoPlusTwoIsNotFive.com with which page your student or class is currently working on, and I will send you some pages to sample.

Today, I was designing two-column math pages that used all the facts through Tier 5. I spend a lot of time noting how many of each fact is used, so that there aren’t a lot of, for example, 5+5, but only a few of 6+8. However, when a new set of facts are being introduced, there will be more of them at that point.

This afternoon, I asked a 2nd grader I tutor to try out one of the pages. (I always tell the children, if there is a fact they don’t know, they do not have to solve it. This is because I know that the page WILL have only facts they know. But, once in awhile, in error, I type a fact that has not been taught yet. The students love to be able to point it out to me, and of course, that is beneficial to me as well.)

Since this student has recently learned all the math facts through Tier 5 in Two Plus Two Is Not Five, he was ready and very able to do the mixed addition and subtraction with and without regrouping on this page. I watched him as he worked, and every so often, when he paused, I asked him if he knew a strategy, and he’d say, “Oh,” and name how to get the answer. (Lots of 4s, Looks Like Middles.) This is a student who used to mix-up addition and subtraction within a problem. Today, 36 problems, and he had 35 correct! I asked him for feedback, what he thought about the page. He said,”It was easy.” That’s because he didn’t have to count to get answers, and he properly learned how to regroup.

Knowing math facts is precisely what gives children ability and confidence to complete higher level math. Not having to count out answers, struggle with number lines, charts, fingers, dots or lines makes a world of difference!

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Books Used in School Districts

During the years that Two Plus Two Is Not Five and Five Times Five Is Not Ten have been available, a number of teachers and school districts around the country have purchased books.

In the fall of 2008, Lee County Schools in North Carolina purchased a book for each of their 1st-3rd grade teachers, and in December, 2009, the district made another purchase of books. I hope to hear from some of those teachers about how they like the books.
Schools or districts can buy directly from www.LongevityPublishing.com , but books are widely available through national school catalogs, many online stores, 100’s of school and educational supply stores, and major booksellers. If you want to find a store or book seller near you, please contact me.
Visit www.LongevityPublishing.com to try out free sample pages!
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11th REVIEW POSTED for TWO PLUS TWO IS NOT FIVE

Visit this Amazon.com link, http://bit.ly/bUAzYS or read below to see the latest review of Two Plus Two Is Not Five. By the way, the multiplication book the reviewer mentions, is called, Five Times Five Is Not Ten.

Remember, before expecting students to memorize math facts, make sure they can show you what the math fact means. This can be done by using counters, drawing a picture, or telling a story.

6+8 can be drawn as six dots and eight dots.

The student can tell a story such as: There are six large dogs and eight small dogs. How many dogs in all?

Or, give the student a box of counting cubes or other items to show 6 + 8.

Finally, the student should be able to count the total of items to get 14.

The reviewer who purchased Two Plus Two Is Not Five wrote, “I have ordered so many items from Amazon, but this is the first time I felt strongly enough about the product that I just had to write a review.


I ordered this book last year for my first grader and I’m happy to say that as a second grader he knows his math facts! Your child isn’t going to learn them on their own; you have to work with them. So if you’re going to hand him/her the book and walk away. You should save your money. However, with your help your child can learn them as easily as mine did. One thing I didn’t allow my child to do is count on his fingers or use a number line. There is a trick for every fact or a different way of thinking of it. When my son would bring home his rocket math practice sheets, I would stand over him and say the tricks as he took the practice test. Once he started doing it on his own, if he got stuck, I would ask, what’s the trick?

I love, love, love this book and it is the BEST $$ I have ever spent. I’m so proud of my son as he is breezing through his rocket math tests with no problems! Now I’m back looking for that awesome multiplication book.”


Thank you to whomever wrote this review!

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Homeschool Blogger Posts Recommendation for Two Plus Two Is Not Five

Another blogger posted a nice review on my book, Two Plus Two Is Not Five, on her Cordova Academy blogsite. This is a homeschooling mom, and she wrote, “Wow! We were sitting here, doing math together at 9:45 P.M. for fun.”

I loved reading that. It put a smile on my face.This is why I went to the effort to publish the math workbooks. Children are learning, and enjoying math!

Melissa, who has four children, discovered this book through HelpingWithMath.com. This is a another wonderful website with lots of good information about math.

Check out and see what else Melissa has said about Two Plus Two at her blog: http://bit.ly/aW2FZZ


If you are using, or have used Two Plus Two Is Not Five, would you be interested in a workbook that follows along with the tricks, and gives practice with addition and subtraction in two or three columns. This book would include with and without regrouping into the ten’s and hundred’s places. I am considering this to be the next book I write, and I would like to have some feedback. Email me with your response: susangreenwald@q.com
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New Review on Five Times Five Is Not Ten at Amazon.com

Number sense and prerequisite skills are so necessary for learning higher level math skills.


Automaticity with addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts is also very important, but before asking children to memorize a math fact, make sure that they can demonstrate what the fact means. Some of my earlier posts address how to do this.


When students are ready for memorization of math facts, there are a lot of tricks and strategies you can use from both Two Plus Two Is Not Five and Five Times Five Is Not Ten. A variety of the strategies are explained in earlier posts.


I often check the Amazon.com pages of my books to see what each is currently ranked. Some days, or even weeks, are better than others. While it is fun to watch the rankings improve, it is hard to watch as they fall down to a higher number. That sounds strange, but a ranking of 1 is best, so as the books fall in rank, the number gets higher.


It is exciting when both Two Plus Two Is Not Five and Five Times Five Is Not Ten are ranked in the low ten-thousands. That means lots of teachers and parents are buying books, so more children will be learning to be fluent with math facts.

Today, when I visited the Five Times Five Is Not Ten Amazon.com webpage: http://bit.ly/1fD2EW, I saw that my book finally received a second review.


The reviewer noted that the math facts are presented both in horizontal and vertical format eliminating the possibility of recognizing questions in only one format. She also mentioned the absence of pictures which works for the kids who are having difficulty with math facts. This prevents them being easily distracted with images they would rather color or play with rather than concentrate on the task at hand.

It does not matter which math curriculum is used, children need to be fluent with math facts so they will have the tools to succeed in higher level math and science. Actually, think about it, everything in life can be tied into numbers or math in one form or another!


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Using Known Math Facts to Teach Other Ones

Once children have memorized them, you use the addition Doubles facts, 1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, 6+6, 7+7, 8+8, and 9+9, to teach other facts.

1. Number in the Middle: 1+3, 3+1, 2+4, 4+2, 3+5, 5+3, 4+6, 6+4, 5+7, 7+5, 6+8, 8+6, 7+9, 9+7

2. Doubles +1: 2+3, 3+2, 3+4, 4+3, 4+5, 5+4, 5+6, 6+5, 6+7, 7+6, 7+8, 8+7, 8+9, 9+8

3. Doubles with multiplication: 2×2, 2×3, 3×2, 2×4, 4×2, 2×5, 5×2, 2×6, 6×2, 2×7, 7×2, 2×8, 8×2, 2×9, 9×2

4. 4 Fingers: 4×3, 3×4, 4×5, 5×4, 4×6, 6×4, 4×7, 7×4, 4×8, 8×4, 4×9, 9×4

Remember to always first make sure your student can show, by using counters or drawing lines or dots, what the math fact means.

Number in the Middle is explained in an earlier post. Basically, ask the student, “What number fits between…?” For example: Once the student automatically knows 7+7 is 14, you can teach 6+8 and 8+6. Ask, “What number fits between 6 and 8?” 6,7,8. 7 fits in the middle. Double 7. 7+7 =14. 6+8 and 8+6 is 14.

Doubles +1 is demonstrated by showing the facts with counters or cubes. For example: After the student already memorized 4+4 is 8, teach 4+5 and 5+4. Line the 4 cubes next to the 5 cubes. Show that 4+4 is 8, and 1 more is 9. By doubling the lesser or smaller number, and then adding 1 more, the student will get the correct answer.
After the student memorized 8+8 is 16, show how 8+9 and 9+8 is 17. Line the 8 cubes next to 9 cubes. 8+8 is 16, 1 more is 17.

Doubles with multiplication is very simple after the addition Doubles are memorized. If you student only knows 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, 8+8, then you can teach: 2×2, 3×2, 2×3, 4×2, 2×4, 5×2, 2×5, 8×2, 2×8.
I like to show this with two hands. For example: Have the student show two groups of 8. Ask them to place one group in each hand. Ask them to put their hands together and think about how much they have. 8+8 = 16. Two groups of 8 is the same as 8+8. Later, show that 2×8 is the same as 8 groups of 2, 8×2.

4 Fingers is fun to teach. Once your student memorized the Doubles facts, 3+3= 6, and 6+6 = 12, have your student show 4 groups of 3. Separate two of the groups to the left, and two of the groups to the right. Ask how much is on one side, (3+3 =6) and how much is on the other side, (also 3+3=6.) Then push the two groups together together. 6+6 =12. 4 groups of 3 =12. 4×3=12. Then show that 3 groups of 4 is the same answer.
Another example using 4×7. 4 groups of 7. Students must first know 7+7 is 14, and 14+14=28. 4×7 and 7×4 =28.

To see some sample pages that give written practice for math facts, visit: www.TwoPlusTwoIsNotFive.com

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HeartofTheMatterOnline.com posted a Review for Five Times Five Is Not Ten

A homeschool website, Heart of the Matter, has posted a review about Five Times Five Is Not Ten.

http://heartofthematteronline.com/five-times-five-is-not-ten/#comments

“The key to this workbook is the strategies suggested for each math fact. They are impressive! I wish I had been taught my multiplication facts in this manner when I was a child, I might have actually enjoyed math. Susan Greenwald’s book is compatible with any math curriculum you may be using but should not be used until your child has successfully mastered addition and subtraction. This workbook should be on every homeschool parents shelf. This is a purchase you will not regret.
”

Go to the link above to read more about what Review Specialist, Karin Taylor, said about this book.

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Testimonials

Longevity Publishing
This is such a great series. My special needs child used both the Addition/Subtraction and the Multiplication/Division books and mastered the skills by doing one lesson each a day. The lessons are relatively easy and progress the student very slowly and systematically. There was almost no frustration. We tried a lot of approaches, and this was the absolute best.
02/07/2022
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Longevity Publishing

Longevity Publishing's books are perfect for differentiation. Lessons can be easily individualized for different learning abilities.

Parents, teachers, special education and math resource teachers, and homeschool educators will see that the clean design will appeal to both younger and older students.

If you are interested in any of our books for your school, catalog, retail or online store, please email Longevity Publishing for information: Info@LongevityPublishing.com.

Bookstores: Partners Book Distributing distributes our books too.

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