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K math for a 5yo who can't stop moving?


mo2
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Would you be comfortable not doing a curriculum for his K year? Just count things all day long. Have him jump rope and see how many jumps he can do. Play with pattern blocks and Base 10 blocks and legos. Talk about greater/less than, more/fewer, equal, bigger/smaller, etc. Measure things around the house. Sort laundry or buttons or anything you can find. Work on number bonds... "How many people are in our family? How many are girls and how many are boys? How many are children and how many are adults?"

 

If you really want a curriculum, I'd go with Miquon. Let him choose the page he wants to do. Set the timer for 3 minutes and have him stop when the timer dings. Slowly work up to 5 minutes. Then maybe more. Maybe do it 2-3 times per day.

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Would you be comfortable not doing a curriculum for his K year? Just count things all day long. Have him jump rope and see how many jumps he can do. Play with pattern blocks and Base 10 blocks and legos. Talk about greater/less than, more/fewer, equal, bigger/smaller, etc. Measure things around the house. Sort laundry or buttons or anything you can find. Work on number bonds... "How many people are in our family? How many are girls and how many are boys? How many are children and how many are adults?"

 

If you really want a curriculum, I'd go with Miquon. Let him choose the page he wants to do. Set the timer for 3 minutes and have him stop when the timer dings. Slowly work up to 5 minutes. Then maybe more. Maybe do it 2-3 times per day.

 

I think I would be comfortable not doing a *curriculum* per se, but I would like to find an outline of things to study or list of goals...so I know what to work on and know what he should be able to do by the end of the year.

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I think I would be comfortable not doing a *curriculum* per se, but I would like to find an outline of things to study or list of goals...so I know what to work on and know what he should be able to do by the end of the year.

 

This one looks good (except for using fingers to count)...

 

http://www.utdanacenter.org/k12mathbenchmarks/elementary/k.php

 

You can find more if you google it, but they should all be pretty similar. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with ways to teach these concepts without worksheets/curriculum.

 

Even if you don't use Miquon, Cuisenaire Rods would be good to get. They are my absolute favorite manipulative and I use them all the time even for advanced concepts. It would be good to get a small group set to play around with together. They encourage understanding of number bonds without the temptation to count.

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One of my favorite quotes - which could well be from SWB - "Kindergartners have the attention span of a gnat and a bad case of the wriggles". So don't feel badly that your 5yo isn't ready to sit still and concentrate!

 

Personally, and this is very personal because Sniff, my 6yo ds, has ADHD, I would not expect much concentration from a 5yo unless they were really interested in what they were doing. Even then, there would be no pressure for anything if he/she had had enough.

 

When Sniff was a K'er, we clapped our way through his multiplication tables, jumped two by two along a chalk line in the yard, and shouted the numbers backwards from 20 as he bounced on the trampoline. We had a math manipulatives box, and he played with the balance, the clock, and the linking cubes and we drew numbers with our fingers in sand and mud and with paint on paper. It was fun and I don't think he even realised that I was actually teaching him.

 

He will be 7 in the summer, and these days, we do more seatwork. He is able to sit and concentrate for respectable periods of time, provided that he's had an hour or two in the yard after breakfast and before we attempt anything cerebral.

 

HTH some!

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I need ideas on how to do math with my son. He really CAN'T sit still for more than about 3 minutes at a time. Where can I get some ideas on how to handle kindergarten math with a child like this?

 

 

I'd do math games, personally. Kiddo could only do 5 min. at a time at the beginning of K4 AND K5, but was up to 15 minutes as he turned 6. By doing a few minutes a day, we got through EB A and B and well into SM 1 A. As soon as he was done with is sit down work, he got to go outside or to the gym, and this was a HUGE motivator for sitting down for 5 minutes.

 

Here is an idea for an active game. You throw a big (2 inches) foam dice and kiddo runs by and shouts the number. Then kiddo, circling back, stops to grab the same number of sticks (or beany babies or marbles) and runs them to a bucket on the other side of the room. Once kid is good at this, add another dice.

We chanted ordinals hopping up and down the stairs. FIRST stair, SECOND stair, etc.

Can you do fridge magnet numbers for optimal standing and wiggling while thinking space?

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You might want to just google montessori math activities. A lot of them involve activity that incorporates movement, and it's manipulative heavy which is more interesting for most kids. I used Shiller Math with my ds for this reason, and my only complaint with it is he is going to get through the entire 3 books in the first set in one year, so not worth my money! But he just catches on to things super fast and has placed out of over half the lessons.

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... do any math you want to do, do only 1 problem at a time, have the child run loops or jump off the couch or circle the driveway -- whatever -- in between. For fact review, we did jumping math: I'd hop across a crack in the sidewalk, or something on the floor (edge of carpet, line in flooring) when I asked the question and he hopped when he answered.

 

This is how we did phonics, too. Run somewhere every couple of minutes. If you are quite pregnant, it's easy to let the child win :D!

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Games.

 

You read up on what a Ker needs to know in math. Present lessons as play...or ordinary life. There is very little that can't be learned this way in that K year.

 

 

 

Miquon and Montessori :iagree: Read the books, and incorporate ideas into your day.

 

 

Any way that you can incorporate a trampoline, racing up and down the driveway, running up and down stairs, jumping, crab walking, and any other movement that he particularly likes is going to be to your benefit.

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My 5 yo son will sit still a little, but is very wiggly. I'm currently using a mix of Miquon & MEP, but we keep the lessons short. And he enjoys the lessons more if he can write on the whiteboard (rather than boring old paper).

 

Like some of the other posters, I like to integrate physical games.

 

His favorite is throwing his stuffed Angry Bird back & forth while we do skip counting or while I throw out a math problem that he needs to answer before he can throw it back.

 

Also, I laid out a bunch of flash cards in one room, with a bunch of small sheets of paper with numbers in another room. He has to run into the other room & can get only one answer at a time to bring back & place by the correct flash card. I time him with a stop watch, and when he beats a certain time, I let him move to the next "level". (As an Angry Bird fan, he's all about advancing to the next level, so it's really more for his enjoyment.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I highly recommend Mathtacular! We purchased the 1st cd with the Manipulatives kit at a convention last year. My son is almost 5 and he loves it! The videos are great, but the manipulatives are key for us. (my boy is BUSY!) He enjoys it and learns so much. He told his dad last night what the difference is between area and perimeter!:lol:

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Mathtacular videos?

 

I highly recommend Mathtacular! We purchased the 1st cd with the Manipulatives kit at a convention last year. My son is almost 5 and he loves it! The videos are great, but the manipulatives are key for us. (my boy is BUSY!) He enjoys it and learns so much. He told his dad last night what the difference is between area and perimeter!:lol:

 

Going to check this out, thanks!

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