how is it going? and jellybean math

Caution:  long post ahead

Now that I've been homeschooling Annika for 3 months, I've had a lot of questions about how it's going. And the easy answer is that it's going really well. She's happy, I'm happy, she's engaged in doing some cool stuff. But I have this nagging feeling that it's not an adequate answer. Each of us has in our own mind, an idea of what "school" means. We were visiting Gunnar's school (formerly her school) last week and she was chatting with one of her favorite staff members, who asked how school was going. Annika replied "you mean homeschooling?" and she responded "sure. It's still school, right?" Annika looked puzzled. We left after a bit more chatting and a promise to come back for a lunch, since lunch with Kathy is the only thing she really misses about school. 

A few minutes after we left, Annika stopped and remarked "well, it doesn't feel like school." She's right - it doesn't. Purposely so. I've made a real effort to break from the chopped up schedule of school that wasn't working for her and do things in a more organic, flowing way. We also don't use much packaged curriculum. We read a lot, write, work in the garden and talk about its progress (and research when needed), raise the chickens. The farm project is very hands on right now with the chickens and the veggies and visits to "real" farms, and will become more research oriented again as we evaluate what's working and what isn't and figure out why. We play and explore with friends. We cook, we draw, we paint, we knit. Some days fly by and we're not even sure what we did all day (but we sure were busy!) and others feel very slow and purposeful. Some days are better than others. But every day, when I look back, I can look back and see what we accomplished even if it didn't feel like much at the time. 

It occurred to me that I haven't talked a whole lot about what we're doing here, and therefore, I'm not talking a lot here. It's time to change that. I'm going to spend more time documenting what we do, so that people who are wondering how it's going will know. And maybe what we do can give you some good ideas too, whether you homeschool or not. 

Annika's non-farm project is the Jelly Belly Project. I know that a lot of classrooms will do math with m&m's, looking at color frequency, etc., and it's a lot of fun. But it's done only once. So how do you know that the color proportions are the same in every bag? You don't. Unless you test more bags. And more bags. That's probably not going to happen in school. The beginnings of jellybean math came to me when we were in line at Trader Joe's. Annika was begging for the box of Jelly Bellies at checkout. I was about to say no until the lightbulb came on and I realized that the jellybeans were perfect for a homeschool math project. We bought a box. We brought it home and opened it up. Here's what happened:

Annika's first statement was "wow! that's a lot of jellybeans! I can't count all of those." 

Then she noticed that there were hot colors, cool colors, and neutrals. So she grouped them and counted each group. She added them together to get the total. 

She saw on the box that there are 4 calories per bean (just fyi) and we multiplied the total by 4 to find out how many calories are in a box (don't ask). 

She separated the groups into their colors, and then into their flavors. We wrote down all of the flavors and how many of each were in the box. We speculated on whether this was the same in every box or if it was random. 

We came to the conclusion that we would have to try another box the next week. 

She looked at which flavor had the most beans and which one had the fewest, and calculated their percentages of the total. 

We divided the jellybeans in half, by flavor and she ate hers, saving the others for her brother (really!). 

From here, the project took off. Now there is a spreadsheet for tracking the bean count each week. As she gathers more data, she can graph her results, compare flavors from week to week, and see if trends are developing. In May, she will do a final report on her findings, which we will deliver to Jelly Belly when we tour it this summer. 

There is one more important component to her jellybean research. We have noticed that the flavors we favor are not usually the most prevalent flavors in the box. She thinks Jelly Belly should be made aware of this issue. In order to see if this is a problem that is unique to us or one that is common to most Jelly Belly eaters, she is putting together a simple survey of favorite flavors that occur in the 20 flavor box sold at Trader Joe's (for the sake of data consistency of course). She will be surveying our friends and neighbors, and present those findings with the data from her jellybean boxes. I'll also post the survey on the blog once I figure out how to add a survey to the blog without messing everything up. 

This has been a fun and delicious way to explore a variety of math concepts and look at how math and data analysis can be applied to real life decision making. If anyone decides to join us on our quest to convince Jelly Belly that we need more tangerine beans, please let us know. We need all the help we can get to conquer the buttered popcorn flavor. Bleah. 

UPDATE: A link to the survey Annika created. Thanks for your help!!

Comments

[thea]

This is awesome and hilarious. At the same time. Glad it is working out so well and that you are both having fun!

don't to the jellybean project with the Bertie Botts beans -- the nasty ones are VERY true to flavor, and plentiful.

[cheryl]

What a wonderful post, and please, we'd love to help with your jelly belly flavor analysis. We were just there earlier today and I was eying up those great little boxes, but I managed, somehow, to convince myself to let it go. If only I knew I would've been helping an educational cause!! And yes, I for one would love to hear more about your homeschooling adventure. Because my husband is thinking about taking a job in another city, we've been discussing the possibility of doing a little homeschooling ourselves while we split our time between two locations. I'm always immensely curious how other people create learning opportunities for their kids...

And I thought I might mention that there is a great survey building site called surveymonkey.com... you can join for free and it's quite easy and simple to set up a survey like you would need for this project. I've used it quite frequently for the research I've been working on for the past few years and am always happy with how easy it is to use.

[Sarah]

Yes, what a wonderful post! I can see this type of project expanding to buttons. You could sort them by color, number of holes and diameter. When all completed you could group them and put them up for sale and she could photograph them, price and package and mail them out.

Can you tell I'd like to buy some buttons?

[Courtney]

HOORAY for homeschooling! I'm so, so glad to hear that it's going well for *both* of you!

[Erin]

hello! this is fantastic!
i'd vote for more toasted marshmallow, just in case you were wondering.

[renee @ FIMBY]

I would love to do jelly bean math! So would my homeschooled kiddos - but I think I'll keep it secret for now (smile).

[beki]

Wow, so cool! I've been wondering how things are going. I'm going to pass this jelly bean math on to my math teacher husband, I'm sure he'll be interested :)

[emily]

This is such a great post! I love your thought process and how well you explain it here. I am so glad that it is going well for you both. Keep up the good work!

[Tracy]

This actually sounds alot like what my current job is, only not nearly as fun and interesting because my analysis is about insurance billing instead of jelly beans. hm.

And I quite like the buttered popcorn flavor. Just sayin.

[Ansley]

I'm excited to hear your progress. We have started homeschooling our 3.5 yr old and he still doesn't get the concept. What school....at home??
Not to mention, he can count in spanish, garden, count in english, do a great many things by himself!! Those count, right??

[Sarah Jackson]

Those absolutely count! Learning and education don't have to look like
"school" to be valid. I think the kind of experiential self-driven learning
that she's doing now is giving her so much more.

[Patty T]

Juicy pear! Yum! If you haven't been there before, hit the Jelly Belly factory during the week when the workers are there actually making the beans. On the weekends it isn't as active there and you end up just watching the movie screens as you walk around the factory. I wish I had Jelly Belly learning when I was a kid! Cool mom!

[melissa s.]

i'm so impressed. this is exactly what i love about homeschooling.

[Rachel]

What a fantastic project! Too bad we don't have a Trader Joe's around here!

[Jodi]

Wow - what an amazing & fun math project. If math had been more practical and applicable to real life like this when I was a kid I'm sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more. But then I suffered through the public school system...I'm going to remember this project for my own son when he gets to the age of learning about math.

I use exactly this kind of math and analysis in my daily work - unlike algebra which has never served any purpose for me (most likely because I'm not an engineer)!

[chris carleton]

This is so awesome, Sarah... What a cool "un-school" school project!! Exactly what I love about homeschooling... bravo, momma!

[Anne]

I would love to hear more details of your day. It's about being excited to learn and she is, so you are doing a great job.

[molly]

believe it or not, buttered popcorn is the third most popular jelly belly flavor (first is cherry, i think bluberry might be second, but i'm not 100% sure). you'll love love love the jelly belly factory. my kids wish we could go every time we visit grandma (who lives about twenty minutes away from JB headquarters). i vote for the juicy pear too, though peach is right up there in my book. this project reminds me of the "pie" chart avery and i did a few years ago when she started homeschooling (half way through first grade).

[Sarah Jackson]

In Annika's preliminary results, the favorite is cherry and the third
favorite is buttered popcorn. What is even more interesting is that buttered
popcorn is also the least favorite. So people either LOVE it or they HATE
it. Whereas no one hates cherry. So so interesting!! The data is consistent,
even with our smaller sample. Does Jelly Belly ever publish what people
don't like?

[Katharyn]

Teaching opportunity:

I bought some Brisket at Food Center on 91st, and noticed that it had a per pound price, and a total price - but did not separately list the poundage.

I remembered my mother trying to get me to do the division with meat at the store just to prove I could, but how I hated it because the math had already been done for me. Why should I double check the butchers math? I thought to myself "gee, my mum would have loved this packaging when she was trying to teach me mathematical application in the real world", then I thought of you.

[Katharyn]

never mind - my husband found the missing number for me. That said its still a good learning opportunity - thought it can be susceptible to "but the numbers right there".

[Knittindiva]

What a fabulous idea! A great way to make math fun for the kids, and to keep them interested. Outstanding!