Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Math Review

We have not started the official school year yet, but Zach has been doing math, english, and spelling through his few weeks off. I recently used a gift certificate I got a year ago to a teacher's resource store on some math manipulatives. We love Singapore math, and it is working great for both student and teacher, but as we start learning multiplication and division I am finding that 'fingers' are not all we need. I found these Unifix cubes (great fun for my Lego loving boy) and got them out today to explain dividing by twos. Talk about seeing the light bulb go on! He is having so much fun "showing" me each problem on his worksheet.

I also got a pair of dice which we used to make an addition worksheet. Throw the dice and add up the numbers. I think I will be getting a few more dice next time I am there.

The other game I got was a "war" card game with addition and subtraction problems on the cards. We had so much fun playing with those last week. I am going to have to keep an eye out for multiplication and division ones too.

Math was not a subject I enjoyed in school. I wonder if that is because I got in my head that I just wasn't good at it? Looking at it now, I love to solve things, and solving number problems shouldn't be that different.

So... here's to breaking that mold and trying the best I can to make even math fun for my kiddos. Did I just say 'math' and 'fun' in the same sentence? Yes... I think I did ;-)

1 comment:

Larae said...

yay for math! so glad that you found some things to make it fun and more understandable for both of you!