Egg Carton Math

I would like to vary LM’s experience with numbers and, inspired by Numicon, I came up with this idea of recycling egg cartons:

As you can tell, omelettes have featured extensively on our family menu recently!

Well, although these are far from the nice and sleek Numicon shapes, and they certainly do have limitations, I think they can do the job of providing a mental reference for numbers. There are a few activities I am going to do with LM and, if these go well, I may splash on the real thing.

My current list of activities, starting with the most basic, are:

1.   Sequencing the “shapes” from 1 to 10 and backwards;

2.   Matching number symbols to “shapes”;

3.   Odd/even numbers;

4.   Larger/smaller numbers;

5.   Understanding two-digit numbers (place value);

6.   Exploring number bonds for different numbers, e.g. 10 can be made of 1 and 9, 2 and 8, etc;

7.   Basic arithmetic, e.g. adding one more to each “shape” to get the consecutive one, or doing subtractions by covering some of the cups.

8.   Using the "shapes" as frames and practicing counting and arythmetic with small objects (placing them in the individual cups).

I suppose, I could stretch these further. If you have more ideas, let me know!

LM's Mum

Calendar Time – October 2010

Here is a short update on our calendar time (you can read my previous calendar post here).

Apart from the new header, I have now added cards with the words “yesterday”, “today” and “tomorrow”, which we attach to the bottom of the corresponding number card with the help of tiny decorative pegs.

It was LM who gave me the idea: the first couple of times after we had put up a new number on the board, she would take the next one from the hook at the bottom of the board and attempt to pin it in the following cell. I explained to her that that was something we would do “tomorrow”. So now every time we put up the new date, she would point to the following card on the hook and say, “That’s tomorrow!”

This month I also started using our calendar time for doing some simple math activities. We count forward all the number cards we have so far put up and then, more importantly, we count them backwards, as it is something I haven’t done with LM so far. This has been quite painless so far as we have started with just a few numbers and will be gradually increasing them to 30.

I also decided to let LM choose the colour of the pin with which we attach the card to the board to create a pattern. For example, this month we have started with the easiest ABAB pattern and we alternate red and green pins.

That’s all for now but I will be adding more activities to our calendar time as it has so far been a big hit with LM.

DIY Pattern Blocks

I managed to procure a few magnetic foam sheets quite cheaply at HobbyCraft and made a set of pattern blocks. These are a great math activity and help strengthen visual skills, shape and pattern recognition. LM is now using these to build patterns and to recreate images on a baking sheet:

The magnetic backing is very helpful as it stops the blocks from moving around, so LM does not get frustrated and can show the end result to her daddy!

There are many pattern block mats available for free downloading on the web. I have printed and laminated the above and a few more from http://www.prekinders.com/ (by the way, you can find many more great ideas there!). Each mat can be printed either as an outline or in colour for a younger learner.

LM is very confident playing with these so I removed all the lines inside the images and gave her only the silhouettes, just to make it a bit more of a challenge. So this now also became a great activity to develop logic and spatial reasoning.

I guess, tangrams would be a good next step from here!