Ones, Tens, Hundreds

Number Line Up

I modified this game I found at Mathwire to make it age appropriate for our kids.

It was an easy after dinner game that the kids had fun playing.  I wrote out four numbers on paper and gave one number to each child and one to their Dad.  I would call out a number like '842' and and the person designated the 'number maker' {in this case, their Dad} would move the human game pieces around to form the called out number.  This game was easily modified to the kids level of understanding.  For example, Matthew could make the number 2, Jillian could make an 84, and Sarah could make a 428. 

The kids loved moving the human game pieces around to create the correct number.

Place Value Game

Sarah enjoyed this game and it was a great way to help her understand larger place values.  The goal is to make the biggest number that you can with your digit cards.  Each player gets 10 digit cards (0-9) and turns them face down on the table.  Then each player takes a turn picking up a digit card and decides where they should put it in order to create the biggest number.  Sarah soon learned that the best strategy was to put the low value numbers in the one and ten slots and the high value numbers in the hundred and thousand slots.  

More detailed instructions, variations on the game and all the printables for the game can be found here at Mathwire.

Math is fun!

Counting to 100

It's way past the 100th day of school but I thought I would still talk about this fun book.  It's filled with great pictures and ideas to encourage kids to count to 100!

After reading the book Sarah immediately wanted to try a few of the ideas.

The first one she wanted to try was the snack.  She picked out 10 different snacky items from the pantry and counted out 10 of each.  A great way to practice counting by 10's.

And a very yummy reward for her efforts!

The kids also wanted to try making the playdough hedgehog with 100 toothpicks in it.  They actually became quite attached to their prickly little friends which were displayed for a few days before I tossed them into the garbage.  Naturally, Jillian asked where her 'Hedgie' was later that day.  There were even tears when she learned that Hedgie had been tossed, but as you can see it was quite a dangerous little 'toy' to have around!!!

Shared at Sun Scholars

Domino Parking Lot

This is a cute little way to work on counting and number recognition and only requires dominoes and some paper.  I thought that this would be appropriate for Jillian, but Matthew showed more interest moving the domino 'cars' into their parking spaces.

We would count the dots on the dominoes and then look for the corresponding parking space/number on the paper.

I need to try this activity with Jillian again so she can work on number recognition and with Sarah so she can work on her addition skills.

Matthew really likes driving the dominoes into the wrong spaces so that Chris or I will say,

'Move that car!  You're in the wrong space!'. 

Idea from Mathwire.

The Corner Store

We have played 'Corner Store' a few times now.  The kids LOVE IT!  They help pick out what will be in the store and then take turns purchasing their items.  We usually fill the bowls with a combination of food and non-food items.  The items in the store today were: fruit snacks, granola bars, marshmallows, squinkies, gumballs, crayon erasers and stickers.

It is so interesting to see their little personalities come out in this activity......Jillian will use up all of her $2.00 to the very last penny.  She would also buy all gumballs if I would allow her - I enforce a strict 5 gumball rule.  {The gumballs were left over from our gingerbread house building at Christmas, in case you are wondering why I even have gumballs in the house!}

Sarah, on the other hand, is our healthy eater and often forgoes the sweets and usually has a bunch of money left over.

Once the kids have picked all their items I have Sarah add up the total and then count out the change - a sneaky way for her to practice her math and money skills.

Sarah also read {and really enjoyed!} the following 2 books by Loreen Leedy.

This is a great book that introduces money concepts such as: buying, selling, earning, saving, investing, donating, budgeting and interest!  It has 'kids humor' too which had Sarah laughing out loud. 

This was a cute book about a quarters adventures at the mint, bank, store, vending machine, garage sale and more.  It held Sarah's attention and was another way to help her learn about money math without knowing it.  Love that!

Marshmallow Math Fun

Let's build with MARSHMALLOWS!

I was inspired by The Artful Parent who gave her daughter marshmallows and toothpicks to build sculptures and by Almost Unschoolers who built a great structure of fractal tetrahedrons.  Since Sarah is participating in Odyssey of the Mind this year I decided to put a slight twist on the activity and turn it into a challenge.

I challenged the kids to build a structure out of the marshmallows and toothpicks that was as high as they could build.  It was so interesting to see how their ideas started to change and evolve as they went along.

Be sure to use stale marshmallows - ours were out for about a day before we used them.

You can see Jillian and Matthew starting to build their structures.  Sarah, however, was using her Odyssey skills and trying to come up with a group solution before tackling the problem - Jillian and Matthew didn't want to discuss and just dove right in!

{I don't usually let the kids sit on the counter but they were so excited for this challenge I let them go for it!}

Jillian decided to start with a cube but then realized that it would lean and was not very stable.

And Sarah, who started with a cube as well, began to realize that her structure was more stable using triangles. 

After talking about their two different structures {and Jillian running off because her cube was not as stable as what Sarah had built} I showed them how to build a tetrahedron.

Here is the super stable building block!

Then we started connecting lots of tetrahedrons together! 

Check out this link for step by step instructions.

And here was our final product!!!

Sarah had so much fun with this!  She was determined to finish it and was so proud of the result.  I was impressed with how long it held her attention {which is always a challenge} but also with how versatile this activity is.  As Sarah was busy building tetrahedrons I had Matthew putting basic squares and triangles together and Jillian working on hexagons and octagons.

A great way to make learning math - FUN!



Fraction Penguin Craft

 Here is great math activity {disguised as a craft} that I found at Almost Unschoolers. 

First cut some large black and white circles for the body and wings and then some small orange circles for the beak and feet.  You can have your child trace and cut our their own circles for practice.

Cut one whole black circle in 1/2 and then into a 1/4 for the wings.

Cut one whole white circle in 1/2 and then into a 1/4 for the belly.

{while cutting you can be chatting to your little ones about the fractions you are creating}

Repeat by cutting the orange circles into 1/4s for the beak and feet.

Add some googly eyes and you have a ....

Fraction Penguin!

Sarah called her penguin 'Quarter'.

Jillian insisted on adding eyelashes to her penguin and making a little baby penguin too!

And here is our sweetest little penguin - Nathan!

Penguin Math!

I'm going to make the next week of posting all about PENGUINS!  There are so many penguin related books, activities and crafts that I figured I would dedicate a whole week to that cute little bird in a tuxedo!

365 Penguins is really a math book.  It was a lot of fun to read, and if I can make math fun it will engage Sarah.  We both enjoyed this book.

Continuing with the math theme, I sat the kids down with some great penguin math and activity printouts.

As anyone with more than 1 child knows, it can be next to impossible to get a picture with all involved children looking and smiling at the camera.  I tried and tried and here is what we got!

Once the kids settled down they enjoyed the math sheets.  Sarah needed a little help to figure out the concept of Pascal's Triangle......

......but once she understood she was thrilled!

Matthew worked on counting the 'goldfish' in the penguin's belly.

Until Jillian changed the game and helped Matthew eat all the goldfish!

See you tomorrow for more PENGUIN fun!

What is my Rule?

When I told Sarah that we were going to play 'What is my Rule' she was SO excited!  Apparently she had just played a version of this game at school. 

I thought of a 'rule' in my head and then had Sarah think of a number to put IN the machine.  She would write the number under the IN column.  Then, I would tell her what number would come OUT of the machine and she would write that number under the OUT column.  After 3 numbers she had to figure out what the 'rule' was and write it on the machine.

The third machine shows Sarah's rule that she had me figure out.

You can make this game as easy or hard as you like.  For example, the 'rule' for older kids could be

'multiply by 5 and subtract 2'

or

'divide by 2 and add 4'

It was great to see Sarah having FUN with math!

Snow Day

It's our first SNOW DAY of the year! 

We were unpleasantly awakened by an automated 5:45am phone call from the school announcing the school closure.  I knew last night that we would probably have a snow day so I was ready with snow related activities and books for the kids.  Usually I only have Nathan on Friday's - the prospect of having all 4 kids at home all day had me scrambling for activities to keep them busy.

Snowman Glyph

Have you ever heard of a glyph?  I had never heard of one before until Sarah started bringing them home as homework.  You use a legend (key) for what different parts of the glyph mean (like what kind of hat the snowman will wear, color of the scarf, how many buttons and what kind of footwear).  

Shaving Cream Snow Painting

The next craft we did was so fun!  I took some sky blue cardstock and drew a tree with brown marker.  Then I mixed good old Elmer's glue and shaving cream together and gave the kids Q tips and spoons to dot and smear the 'white snow' on their picture.  The results were great!  The 'snow' dried to a soft marshmallowy texture and the kids loved applying it to their winter tree.

You could also add food coloring to the 'snow' and decorate a Christmas tree with snow or make snowflakes on a dark blue piece of cardstock.

Then we sat down to read some snow themed books. 

Coffee Filter Snowflakes

The books reminded me of another craft I was thinking of making - snowflakes!  I filled small bowls with water, tinted with food coloring, and had the kids use droppers and Qtips to color coffee filters.  We let the coffee filters sit on paper towels to dry and then cut them into snowflakes to hang on our kitchen door.

And here is the little sweet baby that so patiently sits, watches and observes while we craft.