Living/Unschooling Math

As I start budgeting for the new school year, I am struck by how expensive and space consuming Montessori math material can be. One big contemplation is the big and super expensive bead cabinet. Anyway, long story short, I have been doing some reading on unschooling math and wanted to share some interesting links. Whatever you might think about unschooling philosophy per se, I think their ideas about immersing children to all kinds of math naturally but consciously during the day, make math real and living. I really like LaPaz Home Learning's posts on her search for better math, Math: how hard can it be?, and Strewing Math. Fascinating also is Xia of Grillos y Canarios' s math posts here and here (Some of it is in Spanish and can be easily translated by clicking the upper-left button. Trust me, her blog is worth translating!) and how she incorporates Montessori math material with other math curriculum.

If you google "unschooling math", you will be faced with a mountain load of information. I sifted through some of the material, and here is a list of some books and articles that piqued my curiosity.

Books:

How Math Works
Family Math Series
Carol Hurst's List of Math and Children's Literature
Hoagie's List of Books on Mathematics
Fun Math Books


On-line Articles:
Pam Sorooshian on Dice
Just Do the Math

And here's the web page that has oodles of more information on the exciting world of mathematics! Is there a math resource, curriculum, or game that your kids are loving right now? And is there anyone else thinking of buying that expensive bead cabinet?