Hellobee Boards

I plan on sending my kids to Kumon!

I like this resource, and similar: http://www.livingmath.net/LearningIdeas/LearningMathNaturally/tabid/270/language/en-US/Default.aspx I find that teaching anything too aggressively can create more problems than it solves, assuming that the child is not an engaged and willingly active participant. Now if they are begging you for more opportunities to learn about whatever it is, that's a totally different story. Much of early math comes from the environment. Household tasks like shopping, cooking, folding clothes, putting away toys, etc. offer many rich opportunities for building math skills like counting, sorting, and measuring. Often learning in these organic, or environmentally intrinsic, ways are the most powerful because they link visual, auditory, and often kinesthetic, inputs.

We do 60 minutes of differential calculus or algebraic topology every morning before breakfast. Roaarrr! (Tiger mom reference, in case that wasn't clear...)

Just kidding. LO has a numbers book that is Montessori-esque that he likes. The numbers are tactile, so you trace them in addition to counting the pictures of surfboards or ducks or whatever. We also count everything we see--birds in the sky, crackers on the plate, cars on the road, bumps on LEGOs, etc. And we sometimes just count out loud for the heck of it while in the car, a practice that we spice up by shouting some numbers and whispering others, saying some in a funky accent. LO repeats them after us. Cooking and baking are really good ways to count stuff too.

We also do a lot of shape-finding as we go about our day: Where's the sphere in this picture (in a non-geometry book)? What shape is that sign? (I end up answering most of my own questions while we do this, but I figure he absorbs the information.)

Not sure if this technically "counts" (har, har), but we also do a lot of origami. (By which I mean, I do a lot of origami, and LO watches and then plays with the stuff I make.)

I sometimes add/subtract things for him as we go about the day, too.

@spaniellove: oh,, interesting! my nephew goes and loves it! He talks about it all the time. Maybe they've changed things?

@spaniellove: Good to know! I never went but DH and his brother did and they both excel at math. I 'm sure it doesn't have anything to do with Kumon!

@autumnlove: @spaniellove: I agree, I hate kumon! It's all skill and drill and rote memorization!

@Andrea: I would just count a lot -- the stairs; the cars on the road; the trees in the park; the number of slices in a clementine; books in the basket, etc. and give her a purpose for counting so she can understand 1:1 correspondence -- count out 3 forks and 3 spoons to set the table; put 5 toys in your bag to bring to grandma's, etc.

If she likes reading, read books about numbers. Amy and Ivan is one of my favorites, chicka chicka 1 2 3 is also good, and you can find counting books about just about anything.

Also, patterning and sorting are really good for building number sense and mathematical thinking which will be the foundation for addition, subtraction and beyond.

@Mrs. Cowgirl: Thanks for your suggestion. LO is only 13 months but I'm going to start applying some of the principles you mentioned above.

Fractions don't alway have to be circles. You can use bars sandwiches and Hershey bars etc. you can also use discrete objects ( five stickers out of the ten are pink). Something else I thought of that uses numbers is time.

I would recommend talking about different types of numbers too. Telephone numbers (nominal numbers) vs ordinal first second third vs counting numbers.

If you want to know more about the developmental stages of counting and some other areas in number sense elementary teachers look at let me know.

@littlepenguin: we have hi ho cherry o as well! Great counting game for my DD (buy we have to keep it away from DS since The pieces are so small.

We pay games like UNO, candy land and zingo. The are all great for math concepts.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-7703-ThinkFun-Zingo/dp/B0032UKTXI

@littlepenguin: ah I should have said we use sandwiches for 1/4s!

I want to try Candyland too! If you let LO watch tv, you can stream Team Umizoomi. Awesome math reinforcemng geometry, patterns, real counting, even measurement.