Tag Archives: counting

Go Fish with a Math Twist

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Each year my son’s school throws together a night to celebrate math and play games. We always come home with a new handful of games that we love to play and that encourage him to practice math. The added perk is that his little sister gets a lesson in math, too, as she tries to join us in all the games. A game we have been playing recently is a version of Go Fish with a math twist.

What You Will Need:

  • Deck of cards with numbers (UNO, Phase 10, Regular face cards – remove any cards with letters because that may get a little confusing)
  • At least 2 players that know their numbers 1-10

Directions:

Go Fish

To be able to play this version of Go Fish you must know how to play Go Fish itself first. I would hate to assume everyone knows how to play and leave them hanging. So if you already know how to play, skip to the next section below. 

Object: Collect pairs of matching cards (two 4′s, two 9′s, etc. Having two spades or the same of any other character does not count. For this game the numbers matter)

How To Play Go Fish: Each player is dealt 5 cards. The remaining cards are place in the middle face down for a draw pile. Each player takes a turn asking one other player for a card/number they currently have in their own hand. (The goal is to get matches, so if you have a 4 in your hand, you would ask one of your opponents, “Do you have a 4?”). If the player asked has the card, they must hand it over. If they do not have it, they respond “Go Fish” and the player who asked for the card must pick from the draw pile and their turn is over. Continue play until all matches are made. Common instructions say that a turn keeps going if a match is received, but for my sanity match or no match it is the next player’s turn.

Go Fish With a Math Twist

Object: Collect pairs pairs that differ by a certain number (i.e. if you choose that they differ by one, then a 2 and a 3 are now a match because 2+1=3).

How To Play Go Fish With a Math Twist: Choose what number you want your pairs to differ by. Follow the directions above for Go Fish except instead of each player asking their opponent for a card that matches one that is currently in their hand, they will ask for one that differs by the selected number (i.e. same as above: if you choose that they differ by one, then a 2 and a 3 are now a match because 2+1=3). Keep going until no more pairs can be made.Go Fish with a Math Twist

This is a great way to practice math and have some fun together. As I mentioned above, my soon to be Kindergartner loves to join in with her big brother and although she needs to ask for help, she catches on pretty quick. We have been practicing plus 1′s for now because she is playing with us, but as we get more comfortable or if it is just me and my son, we can start doing subtraction only or numbers differing by 3 (just for example). The sky is the limit on the amount of variations you can have with this fun and simple game.

“Secret Missions” – Sneaking Reading and Math Into The Day

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Making Chores fun

Just using the phrase “Secret Missions” spike curiosity in my two young children and they eagerly want to be a part of whatever it is. Every now and then we all need a change of pace. That is where “Secret Missions” come in! Give some variety to your regular routine and sneak in some number, letter and letter sound recognition, along with some writing and reading practice. You can even sneak in some math for an added challenge, if you want. Right now we use “Secret Missions” as a part of our chore routine, hence the lovely hairdos my kiddos are styling with in the picture above.

What You Need:

  • Paper
  • Pencil or pen (or markers, if your children are obsessed with them like mine are)

Directions:

Step 1: Create an encryption code. Keep it simple or make it as complicated as you like. I recommend starting simple and making it more complicated as needed. For now, we assigned a number to each letter of the alphabet in numerical order. It is a good review for my almost 1st grader and a little bit of a challenge for my 4 year old. The 4 year old gets a chance to practice her letter/sound recognition and is able to put a name to some new numbers. She can currently go to 12, so going to 26 is fun little push for her. Plus, she loves to do what her older brother is doing and he loves to help her.

Ideas For Variety Or To Make It More Challenging:

  • Assign each letter a number not in numerical order like the above example.
  • Add math to the code. Instead of 1, 2, 3 for each letter make it all addition for the code or a variety of addition and subtraction. (i.e. 0+1, 1+1, 2+1 or 2-1, 1+1, 5-2, etc.)
  • Add shapes to the code. For additional options you can use patterns (star star or square circle, etc.)
  • Or use a variety of above.

Step 2: Create your secret code. This can be whatever you would like…a list of chores, something fun to do, a place you are going, a list of items to pack for a trip or a day out, etc.

Step 3: Decipher the code!

Like I said above, we are currently making our morning chores into “Secret Missions”. We have started with only 3 Missions for now and the current reward is 15 minutes with their favorite computer game. Each child deciphers one mission at a time, then they sound out the words (with help, if needed) and complete the job before they can work on the next Mission. Even though my 6 year old grumbles at the idea of chores and always starts grumbling through the start of figuring out his mission (because that is work for him, too! =-) ), I am amazed at how fast he runs off to do his job and comes back to the table to conquer the next Mission. Even my 4 year old cleaned up her room without me reminding her and did it without asking for help. That never happens!

This is what my son’s final mission looked like when he was done. The next time I write the code I need to make it in lowercase letters, so he does not get in the habit of writing in all caps. (His teacher did not like that last year. =-))

Enjoy!

Fun with math

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Math game for beginners

Everyone knows that learning is easier when you can make it a game. This is a fun and easy game to practice addition, subtraction and later multiplication and division. All you need are a few basic supplies and a child who needs a little math practice.

My Kindergartner quickly picked up addition once he understood numbers. It has been fun to watch and I am always trying new ways to challenge him. So, as soon as I saw that he was learning subtraction we pulled out some dice to have a math practice session for his homework. Seeing the dice immediately made it more fun for him and the great thing about using the dice is that the dots are visually there for him to add together or subtract from.

What You Need:

  • pencil
  • sheet of paper
  • 1 – 2 dice

Directions:

Step 1: On a piece of paper draw a few rows of this:
Math equations with blanks
Depending on the child, some may get overwhelmed with too many rows to do at a time. I started with four and then would add more on alternating addition and subtraction as needed.

Step 2: Have your child roll one die and write that number in the first spot. Then have them roll the second die (or the first one again if using one die) and write that number in the second blank on the line. If the row they are working on is subtraction and your child does not understand negative numbers, yet, make sure they put the larger number in the first spot. It is just easier that way. =-)

Step 3: Let your child solve the equation. I know it is hard as a parent to not jump in, but let them figure it out. Remind them that they can use the dots on the dice to help them.

I’ll admit that my son was a bit frustrated with the game the first 4 or 5 rows, but once he got the hang of it he was asking for a “few more lines” and was eagerly trying to teach his 4 year old sister how to play. I also learned that when it came to subtraction, it helped if I said “take away” in stead of “minus” or “subtraction”. (i.e. “What is 4 take away 2?”) We will work our way up to understanding those other terms.

Alternative: Once your child understands the game have them teach you. We have had some fun with him telling me what I should do and helping me figure out each equation.

Question: What is your favorite way to practice math?

Numbers, counting, and place value with Cheerios

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cupful

Sure. Kids can count. If they’ve memorized really well and “get” the pattern, they can count to a hundred! But do they know what all those numbers mean? When I realized that my son was easily reciting his numbers without the knowledge of place value (tens, hundreds, thousands) I pulled out the Cheerios (our favorite counting food) and several plastic cups.

Counting by tens

We placed a handful of Cheerios into the first cup and estimated the number of cereal pieces.

To find out how many Cheerios were in the cup, rather than straight counting, I challenged the boys. “Each cup can only hold 10 Cheerios. Let’s start by filling the first cup with 10.”

After we added 10 Cheerios to the first cup I explained that it was time to move on to cup two. We counted out another 10 and found there were 6 left over. Then we counted by tens: 10… 20… plus 6 is 26 Cheerios!

What is 100?

Of course, the boys wanted to get to 100, so we continued to add Cheerios to each cup in groups of 10. They realized as they counted by tens that we’d need 10 cups to have 100 Cheerios. Quickly they could envision “how much is 100.” They also quickly mastered counting to 100 by tens.

Moving on to bigger numbers

counting bigger numbers

Of course, they weren’t finished yet, as they next wanted to envision one thousand. Rather than putting out 100 tens cups, we counted by hundreds to 1000. Realizing that we’d need 10 more groups of 10 cups, we opted to pour all 100 Cheerios into one larger cup (in our case, a pitcher) and called that our hundreds cup. We traced the hundreds cup onto paper 10 times to show 1000 Cheerios.

Next, we added a few more Cheerios into the hundreds cup without counting! (oops!) We estimated our Cheerios again and divided them into tens cups. Because we had a few more cheerios this time, we knew we’d need more cups and added them until we found we had 142 Cheerios, needing 14 cups with 2 left over Cheerios.

There are endless ways to learn math through cereal pieces (and other small foods.) What are some ways you use food to teach and learn?

Surprising Milestones

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All-by-myself

Do your kids ever do things that surprise you? That make you ask, “where did you learn this?” As much as I try to be active with my children and involved in their education, sometimes they really say and do things that make me proud and surprised at the same time.

With my oldest, I was constantly monitoring her progress against the recommended milestones. I read to her, played with her, created flash cards and took her on educational outings. I was able to because I had time.

Now I have a 5-year-old, 3-year-old and a 14-month-old. My time is split every which way and I am not able to give my son’s education the same kind of attention I gave his sister. At first I felt guilty. Then I was scared he wouldn’t learn as well as his sister or stay on track.

Boy was I wrong!

He learns so much from his older sister! I also take him to play groups with older children and he picks up things from them. I take him to the library so I can play with the baby while he enjoys story time. Little things that give him the education he needs and give the baby the attention she needs.

Another thing that is really convenient for me and saves me time is the Rusty and Rosy Reading software. It emails me David’s progress as he completes games! I look over his shoulder and see him clicking letters and learning sounds, very content with his play time and what it is teaching him.

Yesterday, out of the blue, he told me he can spell. Shocked, since I have not even begun to teach him his letters yet, I asked him what he can spell.

L-I-Z-Z-I-E! He said proudly!

His sister’s name. What she spells constantly. I took that opportunity to tell him how proud I was of him and we reviewed the alphabet. Then he went immediately to play with his trains. He counted all of them. When did I teach him to count?

A sigh of relief. Having three children was not the educational tragedy I thought it would be.  As long as I am active in their education, provide them activities that stimulate their minds, and build on what they already know, they will be just fine!

Garbage: The Counting Game

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Fun Number Game

Garbage is a fun game my five-year-old son learned at school and helped teach his sister. It is a fun way to reinforce the numbers 1 through 10 and help practice number recognition. I have also created a short video below to help demonstrate it.

What You Need:

  • 1 pack of playing cards
  • 1 eager player

Guidelines:

Ace = 1
2-10 = the number on the card
Jack/Queen/King/Joker = Garbage
10 cards will always be in front of the player
You will need 1 draw pile and 1 discard “Garbage” pile

Directions:

Set up 10 cards face down in front of the player. All extra cards become the draw pile.

Draw one card from the Draw Pile. If the card is 1 through 10, place the card in it’s specific number spot and then pick up that card and place it in it’s number spot until a card is needed to go to the Garbage; then a new card is drawn. If at any time a Jack, Queen, King, or Joker is drawn, or any other number that has already been placed, it goes into the Garbage pile.

For example, if a 2 is drawn, pick up the second card of the 10 cards face down. The 2 card takes its place face up. Then the card in the 2s spot is picked up and becomes the next card to be placed in its specific place. If the card is a number that already has a card face up in its appropriate number spot, it will go to the discard pile and a new card is drawn from the draw pile. Continue on until all 10 cards have been turned.

Once all 10 cards are turned, the game is won!

Here is our short demonstration video. It should give you a good start.

Playing with Food In the Name of Math

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I hope I am not the only parent with children who love sweets and love to play with their food. I’m pretty sure I’m not!

My oldest is in kindergarten and is starting to learn addition and subtraction. I am always on the look out for new ways to engage him in his homework. And the best thing for my four-year-old daughter is that she gets to learn with her brother.

What you need:

  • 1 or more boxes of gelatin (variety of color is fun)
  • Small pot
  • Dishes/pan for setting gelatin
  • Plastic wrap
  • Food coloring (optional)

Directions:

Prepare gelatin. Using multiple colors makes it more fun, but not necessary. We used 1 box of red and 1 box of green, and we used blue food coloring to turn half of the green into a teal. If you line the pans with plastic wrap prior to pouring the gelatin in, it will make removing the gelatin easier later. Let it set in the fridge according to directions on the box.

Once the gelatin is completely firm, cut it into squares and start having some fun! You can keep it as simple or as advanced as needed. With my four-year-old we did basic counting, and with my Kindergartner we practiced his addition and problem solving.

We added little cards with a “+,” “-,” and “=” sign to demonstrate math principles.

But the best part for everyone was the clean up!

“If Sissy ate one square and Brother ate three squares, how many squares did we eat?” Yum!

This is definitely an activity we are going to have to do again.

Extra Ideas: Making the gelatin one inch makes it easier to move around. OR making the “Jiggler” method gelatin will help make the play last a little longer.

Beans and Straws Make Counting Fun

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Game for the whole family

We have a favorite family game that we have played for a few years with M&Ms and shake straws. The only problem with this game is that younger children do not have the lung strength to play. It was not until I visited my son’s kindergarten class that I learned an alternative. His teacher taught me a similar game that we could play at home that used beans and regular straws, which is easier for the younger children to use. Genius! We have been having a lot of fun with it over the past couple of weeks.

Supplies Needed

  • Dried beans
  • A cup for every person playing, or one for each team
  • 1 straw for each player (regular sized straws)
  • 1 die/dice (optional)
  • 1 pie tin for the die to roll in (not pictured, but highly recommended to keep the die contained)
  • 1 large bowl for the beans (especially helpful when playing with a large group, but not necessary for smaller groups)

Object

Using the straw, suck as many beans from the pile as possible before another player rolls a 3. Once all the beans are gone from the pile, the player with the most beans wins.

Rules

  1. No touching anything other than the straw and your cup when sucking the beans up (i.e. do not have one hand holding the beans in place while trying to suck up the beans).
  2. You must roll a 3 (or other chosen number) in order for your turn to start sucking up the beans with the straw.
  3. The only way to transfer the beans from the bowl to your cup is by sucking with the straw. (NO HANDS!)

Directions

First, let the younger children playing get a chance to practice before the game begins.

Once you are ready to begin, pass around the pie tin with the die to the left. Each player rolls. The first player to get a 3 can start sucking beans with their straw.

The person to the left of the “Bean Sucker” then gets the die. Each player keeps passing the die along to the left until another player rolls a 3, and then it is that player’s turn and the current “Bean Sucker” stops sucking. The “Bean Sucker” does not roll the die while it is their turn to be snagging beans.

Keep repeating until all the beans are gone!

Once the game is over, it is fun to let everyone count their beans. A little practice never hurt anyone, right?

One of my favorite things about this game is the faces…

Love it!

This is not a fancy video, but if you are a visual person, this will help!

Build and Learn with Everyday Toys

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Learning with Lego

My son is five and he absolutely loves Lego®. We all know that Lego is fun to play with, and I’ve been known to sit down with the kids and spend a whole day building masterpieces with them. Lego, like many toys, can also be used as an educational tool by using it for counting, making patterns, and enhancing fine motor skills, to name just a few things.

We were reading the Lego City: Fight This Fire! book recently when I remembered that he had been given a Lego City: Fire Off-Road Truck Set for Christmas last year by his grandparents in Australia. Of course, over the course of the year the pieces had been mixed up in our large Lego box. After finding the instructions, though, my son was more than happy to help me track down everything we would need to build this together. This was a great activity for him, as it was teaching him to match the pictures with the building pieces we needed, and he had to collect the correct quantity of each piece, too, by reading the number required.

Once we had collected all of the pieces, I set to work building the boat while he built the fire truck next to me. We went through each step one at a time, and he counted the number of bumps, on each picture, of the building pieces needed and then counted the bumps on the actual piece to make sure they matched before putting them on. Then he read the words or numbers on each sticker before attaching it, to make sure he had the correct one.

This was the first actual Lego set my son has built. He builds planes, cars, cities, and parking lots for his cars frequently, using his imagination. But the sense of accomplishment I could see on his face when he built an actual fire truck was wonderful. He now sees that by following the instructions one at a time, he can build some amazing things.

What creative toys or tools does your family play with that also teach exploration and/or reading or math skills?

Help Ease That Anticipation By Counting!

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Christmas Countdown

My children count down the year by big events. They know that Thanksgiving is after Halloween, and after Thanksgiving is Christmas. They also know that if they ask when Christmas is coming (back in September), I give them the run through I just gave you! But now Christmas is here and they are so excited. They are getting the idea of when big events come, but they still do not have a complete grasp on the concept of  ”in three weeks” or “in 14 days”, etc. In fact, my five-year-old son woke up just the other day and, before opening his eyes, asked me, “Mom, is it Christmas morning?” I had to laugh when I told him it was not even December, yet!

I am betting I am not the only one with kiddos excited for Christmas! One way I have discovered to help alleviate the “How much longer?” questions is to create a countdown until Christmas. I also find it is a great way to practice counting and number recognition and build some fun memories all at the same time.

I try to start this on December 1st, but sometimes it is a little later. Even if it is the 15th of December by the time you are reading this, just start it today. It is super easy to put together, and your children will love it!

Step 1

Create a list of fun activities to do together. Some ideas are to

  • Watch a Christmas movie
  • Sing Carols to neighbors
  • Bake a treat and share with some friends
  • Leave an anonymous gift at someone’s door and run
  • Take a drive at night to look at the Christmas lights
  • Drink hot chocolate
  • Read a Christmas story
  • Attend a concert
  • Make a snowman as a family

And the list could go on and on! I like to ask each of my children to give me five things they would like to do. This helps transfer their anticipation for The Big Day to the daily activities instead.

Step 2

Decide on what your Countdown will look like. You can do a paper chain with an activity written on the inside of every link and a number on the outside. Or write your activity for each day on a small piece of paper and wrap each up with a treat or surprise.

Our first countdown was a couple chocolates for each family member wrapped up in tinfoil to create these little balls. We kept them in a bowl on the kitchen table.

Last year we made little bags with date tags and stuffed each bag with a handful of our favorite candies and our activity for the day. We hung these on the wall in the shape of a tree.

Step 3

Create your Countdown and start using it right away. Also, make sure your children are part of the creation process so that they feel like they have some ownership in counting down every day. For example, even though they may be too young to write all by themselves, it doesn’t stop them from trying. Sometimes it is just a picture.

 

Here are a couple more suggestions that may come in handy:

  • You can leave the activities up for chance or you can schedule them based on your schedule. If you write them down you will know what is coming and will be prepared with the right supplies.
  • It’s okay to do an activity more than once. I sometimes find it hard to think of 24 things to do.

However you decide to make your Countdown, make sure it is right for you and that your family is enjoying the experience!

What do you think your favorite or your family’s favorite Countdown activity would be?