EmilyGF Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 I'm (sort of) enjoying some of the discussion on the Better Late than Early thread. I'm in a different place; my oldest three kids (11, barely-10, and 8) are all on track to be in AOPS algebra in 6th grade. I have a ds4 (the crazy one) and, by his age, I was doing RightStart with my older three. Now we just play a board game literally three times per day. Frankly, I think it is better than most K and 1 math programs. Actually, when advising some other moms, I've suggested they purchase Patchwork in lieu of a math curriculum for K/1 under certain circumstances. What other early math-that-isn't-a-curriculum have you enjoyed? We hate "math games". Patchwork works because it doesn't feel like math. Same with HeckMeck for an older crowd. (DS plays patchwork 3 times a day; against parents, siblings, friends, and himself.) Please, let's not make this an argument. Thanks! Emily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 They look like a laugh. I think my dd would like them, thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 (edited) For your 4 year-old? At that age, I just let mine play with manipulatives--Cuisenaire Rods, counting bears, scale, Base 10 blocks, Pattern blocks, a geared clock (so that the hour hand moves appropriately as you move the minute hand), etc... I usually had a 10-20 minute block of time (unless they wanted more time, which did happen at times) for a math bin, and rotated what I pulled out. Have fun! Edited November 3, 2016 by MerryAtHope Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted November 3, 2016 Author Share Posted November 3, 2016 For your 4 year-old? At that age, I just let mine play with manipulatives--Cuisenaire Rods, counting bears, scale, Base 10 blocks, Pattern blocks, a geared clock (so that the hour hand moves appropriately as you move the minute hand), etc... I usually had a 10-20 minute block of time (unless they wanted more time, which did happen at times) for a math bin, and rotated what I pulled out. Have fun! Well, he's almost 5, but really, I'm just thinking of neat things families might do that build relationship and include math. For us, that has happened to be lots and lots of games of patchwork. It appears that is his current love language. And very few people have heard of it, but it seems better to me than the vast majority of math games. Emily Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotherGoose Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 At that age, my dd loved the freee printable cards that someone put out to go with the cusenaire rods. We played war with them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 Well, he's almost 5, but really, I'm just thinking of neat things families might do that build relationship and include math. Card games, dice games, and board games can be great for building number sense and hone addition skills. Somebody has to add the points. And being on square 31, having thrown a five, kid will eventually just add instead of counting out the five steps. Building things, especially if measuring is required, doing origami, making pattterns, doing crafts are really good for developing spatial reasoning. Think of stuff like folding a square corner to corner gives an triangle, two sides being side length of square, long side diagonal; it does not work for the rectangle because you cannot match the diagonal corners; fold rectangle over to make square.... all this goes a long way to make plane geometry easier because kids develop a feeling for different shapes. For older kits, fiber arts are great. Knitting a diagonal pattern by moving x over and y up in each line - that's analytical geometry for line with constant slope. Crocheting in the round, increasing number of stitches each round because circumference is proportional to radius.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 We played a lot of store. We measured things. We sorted things. We played hopscotch (with numbers and colors and letters and even addition problems on them). We played "I spy" and "20 questions" - even for math. We did oral math problems. When my dd was older we got the Your Business Math "game"/book from Simply Charlotte Mason and dd "opened" a sports store and a pet store. Besides keeping the accounts like the book suggests, we also figured out how much carpet we needed to recarpet the store and how much it would cost. And we designed special sales and made pie charts to keep track of her progress. In other words, we added more math than simply the four operations and percents to the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted November 4, 2016 Share Posted November 4, 2016 (edited) nm Edited November 5, 2016 by cathey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted November 4, 2016 Share Posted November 4, 2016 DS's favorites included playing with real money, especially if it was HIS, and making muffins--not measuring ingredients, though we did, but counting the little wells (12 are empty and 0 are full; now 11 are empty and 1 is full, etc... halfway, 6 and 6!, etc., or starting at 24, if it's the mini-muffin tin). Anything that looked like it was an intentional practice game (like Sum Swamp) was a flop. He'd rather do Miquon or Singapore than do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Posted November 4, 2016 Share Posted November 4, 2016 RightStart's games were almost all flops for us because DD saw right through them. If she's going to practice math, she wants it to be quick and to the point. Some of the games that she likes/has liked: - Gobblet Gobblers (or Gobblet) is a twist on tic-tac-toe where bigger pieces can cover smaller pieces - Yahtzee - Zeus on the Loose because she loves getting to steal Zeus from me - Sleeping Queens - Qwixx is a fun dice game with a bit of logic and risk-taking - Fill or Bust was a favorite in my family when I was young, but I haven't played it much with her - Rat a Tat Cat - Swish Jr is fantastic for spatial reasoning - Qwirkle - Blokus She also loves piles of living math books. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted November 4, 2016 Share Posted November 4, 2016 (edited) If I could go back, I'd have done more of the Right Start games with my boys at that age. I didn't really discover them until first grade. We read so many books when my kids were little. I felt like those were the best. Especially the Anno books. Oh, and when they were small, the Tana Hoban ones as well - both were so open ended. I loved the Anno's Counting House because you could do so much with it. And More, Fewer, Less was a favorite (that's a Tana Hoban one). But others too. The LivingMath,net lists are really good. They turned me on to the I Love Math series, which you can find really cheap. ETA: This is More, Fewer, Less, which I think is the best 4 yo (or maybe 3 yo as well) book about math and it's not even OOP but it's not well known: https://www.amazon.com/More-Fewer-Less-Tana-Hoban/dp/0688156932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478222163&sr=8-1&keywords=more+fewer+less She has a lot of others about shapes as well. Edited November 4, 2016 by Farrar 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.