s/o Miquon with children who can't write

[Staceyshoe]

I just read the thread about Miquon for PreK/K age children. My youngest is *thriving* with c-rods. (My oldest would never use any manipulatives, and I'm thrilled that my younger child is really benefiting from them!) We're mostly using Education Unboxed, and it's working beautifully. I would like to add in some Miquon since he is learning so much from using the c-rods. How do you use Miquon with a child who can't write yet? Do you write in the answers when your child tells you what to write? Or do you wait to use Miquon until your child can write well enough?

[Spy Car]

I just read the thread about Miquon for PreK/K age children. My youngest is *thriving* with c-rods. (My oldest would never use any manipulatives, and I'm thrilled that my younger child is really benefiting from them!) We're mostly using Education Unboxed, and it's working beautifully. I would like to add in some Miquon since he is learning so much from using the c-rods. How do you use Miquon with a child who can't write yet? Do you write in the answers when your child tells you what to write? Or do you wait to use Miquon until your child can write well enough?

 

Kids can solve some problems in the lab sheets without writing anything by using C Rods, you could be a scribe when and if you felt it was necessary, you could riff off the lab-sheets (using them as inspirations) and make ones of your own that don't require any writing (more than half the early "Miquon" we did involved lab sheets I created), and there are lots of other ideas in the First Grade Diary that are appropriate to non-writers.

 

It is best, IMO, to treat Miquon as a style of teaching/learning rather than thinking it is a specific set of worksheets that need to be completed. It was the intention of the author, and is very "freeing" in practice.

 

Bill

[Staceyshoe]

Thank you, Bill! I have the First Grade Diary and the books that I had acquired in hopes that my older son would use them. I guess I haven't looked at them in the past couple of years. I'll brush off the dust and see how I can implement this with my youngest. I appreciate your response!

[Spy Car]

Thank you, Bill! I have the First Grade Diary and the books that I had acquired in hopes that my older son would use them. I guess I haven't looked at them in the past couple of years. I'll brush off the dust and see how I can implement this with my youngest. I appreciate your response!

 

 

My pleasure. My son benefited so much from the early fun and hands-on approach in Miquon (and of the sort you see in the Education Unboxed videos) that I enjoy sharing ideas with parents whose children might love it as much as we did.

 

Do you have a set of base-10 flats? They are the same scale as C Rods and serve as Hundred values. One thing I added to our math-lab (that was not directly from Miquon) was working on having my child model 3-digit numbers, initially using a "math name" convention where 363 was 3-Hundreds 6-tens and 5-Units (as opposed to three hundred sixty five) and he could see it with concrete manipulative that showed relative value. And soon he was able to do simple addition and subtraction.

 

As long as you are having fun and make learning like a game this can be an amazing approach to opening up the world of mathematics.

 

Best wishes,

 

Bill

 

 

[K&Rs Mom]

How do you use Miquon with a child who can't write yet? Do you write in the answers when your child tells you what to write? Or do you wait to use Miquon until your child can write well enough?

 

 

I did some of the writing for both of mine at that stage, when it was not the math holding them back but that the motor-skills were still new. I also got some cheap number stamps: they could easily just press it on the page, and it made their pages more colorful.

[Spy Car]

 

 

I did some of the writing for both of mine at that stage, when it was not the math holding them back but that the motor-skills were still new. I also got some cheap number stamps: they could easily just press it on the page, and it made their pages more colorful.

 

 

Good idea!

 

Bill

[jennynd]

 

 

I did some of the writing for both of mine at that stage, when it was not the math holding them back but that the motor-skills were still new. I also got some cheap number stamps: they could easily just press it on the page, and it made their pages more colorful.

 

 

That is a smart idea. I wish I thought of that

[Spy Car]

 

 

That is a smart idea. I wish I thought of that

 

 

Me too. It make me think it would be a cool idea to print up some sheets with place value tables where a child could stamp the correct number of Hundreds, Tens, and Units that matched the values of the manipulatives they were playing with.

 

Bill

[kiwik]

Cheap number stamps don't seem to exist in NZ. We use little white stickers ($2 per 1000) which I write numbers on. And little Christmas stickers for pictoral ones. It works but well but...

 

If any of the NZ mums knows a source of cheap number stamps though I would like some.

[eloquacious]

Cheap number stamps don't seem to exist in NZ. We use little white stickers ($2 per 1000) which I write numbers on. And little Christmas stickers for pictoral ones. It works but well but...

 

If any of the NZ mums knows a source of cheap number stamps though I would like some.

 

 

 

Yes! We've done stickers with numbers on them, too. We did that prior to getting the stamps, and I think my son still prefers it over them. By now he's writing numbers, but we switch it up.