More Math Games

Raise your hand if you like doing math in your jammies.  Ahem.

Today's math was a variation on the Around the Circle addition game.  I taped numbers to the floor and we practiced multiplication facts.  He hoped, skipped, stepped his way through twenty minutes of drills.  Well, maybe more like 15 but it seemed like 20.  Just sayin'.

At one point my son wanted to make up his own games with the numbers on the floor.  I followed along.  Hey, as long as we're thinking about numbers, it's progress, right?

His favorite was "Twister Math."  I would call out a sum and his body parts would touch numbers that added up to that sum.

 The baby enjoyed refining his pincer grasp cleaning up.

Competitive Math Games (without batteries)

Even though Comm. Central is on Christmas break, the Majors are still doing math, handwriting and a few other fun things. Complaining to my husband that I wanted our son to work harder in math, my dear man said, "Can you figure out a way to make it feel like a competition to him?"   I am not a competitive soul - I don't understand the need for competition.  I'm here to tell you this worked for us.

Draw a huge circle, put numbers around it and one inside (see below).  Then add around the circle.  For example, 7+18=25, 7+12 =19, etc. Time yourself and try to be faster each time.  I gave him a minute each round.  Then put a different number in the center.  I think this will work too for subtraction, multiplication or division.  Today we only worked on addition.

Once he finished going around the circle, I told him how many seconds remained.  For even more math, he told me how many seconds it took him to complete the task.  We did it again to see if he could beat his time.  (On more than one occasion, he lost several seconds arguing with me about the correct answer…)  Below is the tally sheet.  You can see after the third try on his 8s he was fatigued, taking over a minute to complete the circle.  I had him to (change speeds) write three words in cursive then back to math.   This proved to be enough of a distraction to make it the best round of 8s.  I didn't want to end on a frustrating note.

The idea for this game came from Strayer Upton Practical Arithmetics, book one (originally published in 1934).  We've borrowed books one and two from a friend and my understanding is book one is for third grade and book two is for fourth.  I really like their emphasis on figuring in your head and the many, many, many practical word problems.

 Here is another addition game.

 I'd love to hear your ideas for making math competitive - or at least fun.

-Julie

Math for Spring Break

1.  If Louisville is beating Michigan State 31-25, by how many points is Louisville winning?  How many three-pointers would Michigan State have to make to be the leader?

2.  Your grandparents live in eastern Kentucky and have tickets to see the University of Kentucky play in CAT-lanta.  If the cities are 389 miles apart, how long will it take for them to arrive (assuming they can drive an average of 60 miles an hour)?

3.  The University of Kentucky has had 14 Final Four appearances.  University of Arkansas has had six.   University of Louisville has been there eight times.  How many more times has UK made it to the Final Four?

4.  Momma ate a half pound of Dove chocolates today.  How many calories did she consume?  Please don't answer.

5.  If it rains a half inch an hour, and rains for 12 hours, how many inches of rain did we get?

6.  A kid's meal at Chipotle costs $4.  How many kids could go with us if you had $20?

7.  The play place at Rock Creek is free.  How long can your mother endure little girls screaming inside the glass entrapment?

8.  A loaf of bread has 20 slices of bread.  Two slices are heels.  Daddy used 2 pieces for toast.  How many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can we make without using the heels?

9.  Momma did laundry everyday.  Monday she did one load, Tuesday was 3, Wednesday was 2, Thursday was 3.  How many loads of laundry will she need to do on Friday if she needs to do 10 loads a week to keep up?

10.  Bananas are about $0.50 a pound.  About three bananas make a pound.  If you have $1.50 in your pocket, about how many bananas can you buy?

GO CATS.

Easy and Fun Math Game

The following was originally posted at What Do We Do All Day.  Mom & Kiddo graciously allowed us to re-post it here.

As soon as Kiddo found the book, Games for Math, in the library bag he dove for it. Really. I love that I have not even had to look at the book, he has been reading it cover to cover and detailing instructions for the math games he would like to play with me.

Here are the instructions for a simple game we played last night called "Make 10":

After removing the face cards from a deck of playing cards, each player chooses 5 cards. Using the 5 cards create as many equations as you can in which the sum equals 10.

For example using the cards in my hand you see above:

9+4-3=10

9+3-2=10

Once I was able to use all five cards at once: 8+5+3-5-1=10. Kiddo thought that was terrific. You don't necessarily have to write the equations down but Kiddo enjoyed doing that as part of the exercise.

Keep a deck of cards stashed in your purse and this would be a great travel/waiting/restaurant game.

This is probably not the last time you will see games from this book on this blog!

Hands-on math: Ice Cream Shoppe

 My kids have liked playing Ice Cream Shoppe for math lately--and it has a lot of variations for different skill levels. I cut out a variety of construction paper ice cream "scoops" and a handful of brown "cones." (If you need a pattern, this link may help.)

(Our Ice Cream Shoppe is casual: No shirts, no shoes, who cares?)

The kids get to make their own ice cream cones with whatever and how many flavors they like. We can practice

1) addition: how many of each color; how many scoops on two or three cones

2) counting money: one cent for each scoop, ten cents per scoop (for counting by tens), etc. Somehow using real money makes it feel more fun for us!

3) colors, for pre-K students

4) role playing

5) number writing: we keep a dry erase board nearby to write our addition problems, number of scoops, etc.

6) making patterns using scoop colors

For a little more variety, we switch places and I buy the ice cream from them!

My daughter, paying for her ice cream

Orion in 3-D

We completed the three-dimensional Orion project from PBS today, and it was a great exercise. We used foil instead of cotton balls (because that's what I had, and it looked like stars), and simply squeezed the string into the foil balls. It was good practice for measurement, reading fractions, and spatial understanding, as well as learning some stars' names, like Betelgeuse.

Can you see Orion?

Money Math Game

This game was borrowed from Sherry at Living and Learning.  She got it from the book The Penny Pot.

John Isaac (first grade) loved playing the game.  We played multiple rounds at his request.

Sherry wrote on her blog:

 ...a game listed in the back of the book:


"Construct a mat for each player. Collect one die and a pile of coins with lots of pennies.  Each player rolls the die and then receives that number of pennies. Trade 5 pennies for a nickel.  Keep playing and trading up for nickels and dimes. The first player to get a quarter wins."

We happened to have a fancy die that was eight sided and allowed us to reach a quarter quickly.  Eventually we upped the stakes and went to fifty cents.

-Julie

Perimeter for kids

Here's a little interactive session on perimeter with Amy and Ben who are building a new pen for their dog. Your student has a chance to check their answers, move a virtual ruler around more polygons, etc. For more online practice, perimeter lessons start in the geometry portion at the second grade level at ixl.com.

One teacher had his students measure the perimeter of candy bars! If in your mind that encourages bad habits (or makes the teacher in your home crave chocolate), you might try cereal boxes and others in your pantry.

Geometry/math practice online

At some point I'd like to post an extensive list of educational websites, but until that day comes...if you'd like to practice our recent geometry math facts, you might visit www.ixl.com and select your child's grade. You can choose online practice for geometry or a number of other math disciplines, which I imagine is great test practice, too!

Math practice: "mad minutes"

When I was in elementary school, we typically started out math with a "mad minute": a sheet of simple addition (or subtraction, or multiplication) problems, attempting to finish as many as we could in one minute.

I've been trying to replicate this for my son, and though I've found some mad minutes on the web, I've found it much easier with the large wipe-off placemats--addition and multiplication--at Mardel right now for $.99, available in their educational bargains section (they also have handwriting practice). It's a daily workbox at our house.

For my first grader, I give him two minutes rather than one to complete as many as he can of the 50 problems; he doesn't have to do them in order. (That's for the addition facts of 1-5; he gets three minutes for the facts of 5-10). Once I found what his average and his "best" were, I give him small rewards for completing 25 problems or more accurately, for example. Often, my little competitor wants to try again to best his record!

The wipe-off placemat makes it a little more convenient, not to mention green--and more fun for him. And his fluency in basic problems is certainly improving!

Multiplication practice that's FUN

There are a lot of great online multiplication games out there! But so far of all we've tried, this one, Timez Attack, is my son's favorite; he couldn't wait to show his dad last night. Seriously, how many educational games have their own trailer?

Big bonus: it actually teaches the facts, too--it's not just review. It starts with a pretest to gather the facts your child knows (which for my first grader, wasn't many), and then in the game, has them collect giant snails to throw at a door to skip count to the right answer that opens the door. Cool.

Note: This game is a lot like a video game, so it's cool graphics and soundtrack take a long time to load and especially cache (at least 15 minutes). You may want to install it the night before. One of my computers had too high of security settings to allow it to download.

Hopscotch Math

I printed multiples of 8 on card stock (or you could just hand write them on index cards), shuffled them and asked him to put them in order.  Also in his workbox drawer was a piece of chalk.  The instructions were to make a hopscotch grid with multiples of eight.

Good thing about the chalk: the more the child steps on the numbers, the fainter they become - helping to commit multiples to memory.

Watch a video below or click here to see it.

Multiples of Eight: Song

Sung to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame":

Do you know the mul-ti-ples of eight?
They're easy to sing, you will see!
8, 16, 24, 32!
4-0, 4-8, 56!
64, then 72, 80
88, 96!
And that's all...the...multiples of eight
if you're in a fix!

Parents' note: ...If you guys get tired of the cheeseball songs, just let me know. :)

-Janel

Math multiples idea

As you're probably picking up, my kids do a lot of their memorization through song, which seems to be even easier than poetry (we all remember the songs of our childhood!). Music seems to have so many benefits across the intellect, and it's a natural way to incorporate music training about rhythm, pitch, and more. Some of your budding musicians might be able to play these tunes on their instruments!

That said, we've been memorizing our math multiples to music these last two weeks. This week, we'll use the tune of B-I-N-G-O.

The multiples of four
to forty-eight
Are easy, can't you se-e?
4, 8, 12, 16
20, 24, 28
32, 36, 40
44, 48!

-Janel

Jumping Math

Janel has so many good ideas. I like that she gets her boys moving. Spring-boarding from her stair jumping activity idea, we used movement this week to learn our 3's to 36. Video below.

Julie

Telling Time Games

photo source

Janel let me borrow her file folder game, "Whooo knows what time it is?"

My first grader has only worked on basic time telling. The file game was a bit frustrating for him.

When he played this time telling game on-line, he gained confidence and improved quickly.  The best part?  Mom wasn't correcting him.

Tomorrow we will play the file folder game again and I think he will be more proficient.
Julie