What Else We've Been Doing: Mathematics and Tangrams

In math, Miriam had a chapter on shapes: similarities, differences, congruency--that sort of thing. Since shapes are a great topic for my 4 year old as well, I checked out several books from the library on shapes. I also found two books about tangrams.

Not too long ago Becky asked me if my children liked tangrams. I said no. A year or so ago I tried tangrams with my darlings and nobody was interested. But this time I introduced them to Miriam using two stories. She was riveted and became something of a tangram junkie for a few days.

Grandfather Tang's Story: A Tale Told With Tangrams by Ann Tompert.

Three Pigs, One Wolf, and Seven Magic Shapes by Grace Maccarone.

kinder math skillz...

well, we're a bunch of oral learners.
we can quiz each other all the day long and be happy as clams.
we can count forwards and backwards (getting there)
and sing about counting by tens,
and twos and fives...
but push comes to shove,
we need to really know what our numbers really look like.



so, when i saw this game on the clearance aisle at target, i had to jump on it.
(normaly $5, which seems pricey for a puzzle game)



first, i had the kids count and piece the two halves of each puzzle together.
they chose to attack this part as a team, each taking a job
which is good for the little one, in that she gets left behind a lot in the flow of a lesson.



and when they were done, i had them put them in order.
i was pleasantly surprised that they pretty much knew all their numbers by sight.
which is a shocker, considering how lazy i've been with them lately.
and luke only forgot "15" twice throughout the whole lesson.
this is good, in that luke and "15" seem to have a weird aversion to each other.

okay, all in all, i can see us using this once a week or so for review
and to encourage teamwork.
would i spend $5 on it?
probably not,
considering you can make this with a stack of index cards and stickers.
but if you ever see it on clearance and you have a some littles of your own to teach,
go ahead and scoop them up.
you'll enjoy it.

well, i should run.
my kids have decided to continue our science experiment this morning and are currently pulling all the condiments out of the fridge and mixing them together in massive bowl of water.
i know, dumb mommy.
but they left me alone for five minutes.
so there!

bye, have a good one.
enjoy what you do for your children,
and be blessed doing it.

A Math Success Story

Miriam and I experienced a little math miracle the other day. In that Miriam begged me to continue doing math after I'd told her she could stop.

I'm sure you remember that Miriam, with my help, learned to dislike math last year. I was too rigid. Taught too much out of the math book. Pushed when I should have eased up, and, in general, did whatever possible to kill all math love.

It was an accident. But still.

This year I've done a few things to try and rekindle in her a love for math. My most important strategy is to use children's picture books to teach the concepts and then only practice until she is proficient and then stop practicing. That sounds basic, but last year I got really hung up on doing all the problems on the page. Big mistake.

Back to the miraculous math day. A few weeks ago, I noticed that fractions were coming up in Miriam's math book. I immediately called my sister and begged to borrow this book:

It is pretty much one of the best math books ever written.

My dad gave it to my sister a few years ago, and it has been a favorite of her family (and me) ever since. I knew that Miriam would love the elves, the info about apples, and the adorable illustrations. It was a must going into fractions.

So the day of "intro to fractions," I told Cowen he was done with school for the day and then told Miriam it was time to start her math. Predictable whining started until she noticed that I was on the couch. With a book in my hand. Immediately, she and Cowen were rushing over to sit by me and see what the book was about. Math is so much more exciting on the couch than at the table.

We read the book together. It took a long time. We giggled over the pictures, counted up how many elves were purple vs. green (etc. etc), discussed the apple facts and our favorite kinds of apples, and also managed to discuss the fractions.

Then, just to keep the reading enthusiasm up, we read this other book my sister dropped off at the same time:

It is not as brilliant as Apple Fractions, but it is a great visual resource for fractions. I was going to completely skip the fractions and decimals, but Miriam liked reading the numbers, so she did.

After reading the books, I told Miriam she needed to do a page about fractions in her math book. Still intrigued by fractions, thanks to the books, she happily went to the table (while Cowen disappeared somewhere--that was good too). She did the page on fractions, then another page on fractions.

Then she saw a page about greater than/less than/equal to that she insisted I explain to her. I wasn't going to at first because I had wanted to get a book to introduce that, but really--how do you say no when your child is insisting you teach her something? You can't. You don't.

So, she learned another new concept. Thanks to the wonderful creators of Mathematical Reasoning from the Critical Thinking Co. all the pages of practice for the greater than/less than/equal to concept were really fun and Miriam loved them. For example, on one page there were pictures of animals. Each type of animal was assigned a number. Then you had to do things like figure out which animal subract two equalled another animal. The answers to the problems included things like: pigs plus three equals dogs. Miriam thought it was hilarious.

After two pages of that, I told Miriam it was time to stop for the day. Before putting the book away, Miriam started flipping through it and found two more pages about fractions. She begged to be allowed to do them.

Amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

I realize this was lengthier than necessary, but sometimes it feels good to be able to write about a true, blessed success--one where you figured out what you were doing wrong and found a few things that work better.

If nothing else, you now know about Apple Fractions and your life can only be better for it.

Math Resource

I've had a few people ask me about the reference book I have that lists all the math concepts and the picture books that teach those concepts, so today I took the time to find out if
you can get it online somewhere.

You can get it! The reference manual (not really a book) is called: Math
Literature: Picture Books that Teach Math Concepts compiled by Barbara Saylor.

The website is http://www.talesforteaching.com. The website even has pages
online for you to "sample" so you can get a good idea of how it is organized and
the info available.

Hope this helps!!

Math Breakthrough

For some bizarre reason, I forgot that my oldest child will learn anything more happily if she's learning it from a story book.

That applies to math. And in fact, I have a resource book that lists all the children's books that teach a particular math concept, listed by math concept. So, when you know you're going to be doing double digit addition you can look that up and find out if your library has any of the sixty odd children's books that teach double digit addition.

It is a helpful resource.

In my attempt to make math more appealing and fun for my oldest, I gathered a variety of resources. However, the major breakthrough for me and her happened because of A Fair Bear Share. A Fair Bear Share is all about place value. I have struggled to help Miriam understand place value for two years now. Yes, they introduce the topic in kindergarten in all the math curriculum I've seen. Yes, I think that's outrageous. Back to the point--trying to teach Miriam the concept of place value has been like beating my head, and her head, against a brick wall. And yet, I never let up. No wonder she started to dislike math last year.

This year, however, I had already decided that we were going to skip over concepts she didn't get easily and revisit them when she was older. I believe firmly in brain development playing a large role in when children "get" concepts and I was bound and determined to not let a textbook decide when Miriam should or should not learn a concept.

So patterns and place value were totally out. I wasn't going near them with a ten foot pole.

But then I grabbed a bunch of math books from the library to glance through and see if I liked them and Miriam found them. When Miriam sees a book she reads a book. She was reading A Fair Bear Share when school was supposed to start so she begged me to read it to her rather than have to put it away until after school.

So I did. And place value all of sudden clicked for Miriam. By the end of the book.

It was amazing.

And it was language arts week so we weren't even going to do math that day.

After the book, when I could tell Miriam was getting the concept, I grabbed a bunch of cubes that come in sets of ten. I piled some in front of her and asked her what the most efficient way of counting them would be. I gave her hints and she carefully counted them into groups of tens and then one group of ones. Then I asked her to figure out how many there were. She immediately started counting them by ones over again. I stopped her and reminded her that she knew how to count by tens. So she counted the groups of ten by tens, and then counted the three or so in the group of ones. When she realized what she'd done and how fast she'd been able to count all those cubes--you should have seen her face. It was priceless.

We practiced that a few more times. Then I got her math book and we flipped through pages and did every single practice problem we could find that had to do with locating numbers in the tens place, or ones place, or hundreds place. We also did all the problems that used base ten squares to have her count things. She got it.

All because she can't help reading books with cute pictures of bears.

Really, it was a little miracle for both of us. A reminder to me that she can get it when she's developmentally ready and it is presented in the right way. A way that matches her and her strengths. And a reminder that there is no need to rush. She'll learn everything she needs to at the right time for her.

A reminder to her that she used to love math.

Here are our other favorite math books so far. One More Bunny has the cutest illustrations. More to the point, it is about adding one. All my children loved it. I had my four year old figure out how many bunnies there would be if you added one before I let the older two say the answer. They nearly burst waiting for Emeline--but it was good practice for all three. Can't emphasize enough how cute the pictures are. I put this on my list of must own just for the picture of the bunny in the swing. You'll know which bunny I mean when you see her.

Quack and Count is about grouping the number 7. So one page will have the duckies in a group of 5 and a group of 2. Another page will have the duckies in a group of 1 and a group of 6. As a little side benefit, there are three little ladybugs hidden on each spread. We had a lot of fun reading this book together and finding the ladybugs.

After we read it, I got out my counting cubes again and Cowen and I practiced making different groups that equaled five. He didn't really get it at first, but was starting to by the end. Miriam already knew this concept, but I drilled her for two days after we read the book on the addition so now she's a pro at 4+3 and 5+2 and 3+4 and 2+5.

Cute book.

Happy math reading.

Hope you are all having your own little learning miracles.