Mini Math Monday

Last weeks Mini Math Monday wasn't terribly inspiring, sorry, but sometimes life's like that :)  Today Chicky and I got busy.  We started with the Brainy Baby Left Brain Book looking at patterns.

You can see that the patterns they present are very basic, but that is exactly what i was after.  I have tried introducing patterns to Chicky before without success.  This time i was hoping she would be ready.  We chatted about the patterns presented and predicted what would come next.  Then we moved on to the counting bears.

I set up patterns for Chicky to add to.

We started off very basic just like the book.  She coped really well with that.

Then we took it up a notch adding a 3rd bear.  She did hesitate wanting to go blue, red when adding her own set, but quickly realised the error and went blue, blue, red.

Then we mixed up some more colours, yellow, green, blue and Chicky's attention span was starting to wander.  She completed her set but we left it at that.  I was really pleased with how well she grasped the concept this time and look forward to working patterns with increasing difficulty.

Mini Math Monday

Chicky has been busy building steps with the c-rods and the AL abacus for a few weeks now.  This week we used the Duplo to build steps and reinforce 1-1 correspondence.

Chicky is ready to begin the transition into more formal math so we will begin Miquon Orange shortly.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to?

Living Maths

Have you seen this speech by Dan Meyer?  If not you must stop and take a look.  What he has to say about maths instruction is powerful and may change the way you teach maths forever!




Living maths is essential!  Memorising algorithms is not the solution.  Children need to be taught the deeper understanding behind their maths.  That is what i strive for with my own children.  We don't achieve it perfectly, but i feel we are well on our way.

You can see our Math Progression here.  I love that Miquon is discovery/inquiry based.  It doesn't spoon feed the children the algorithms.  That can sometimes lead to frustration but with a little encouragement i find it ultimately leads to them figuring out the solution all by themselves and truly knowing and understanding what they are doing and why.

By adding living maths books such as Life of Fred and Charlesbridge Math Adventures i'm trying to help them see maths in everyday situations.  I've also just obtained Kitchen Table Math (it literally just arrived in the box, can't wait to look at it!) and i'm hoping that will inspire us for Mini Math Monday.

I whole heartedly agree with Dan Meyer that problem solving is the heart of maths.  We incorporate plenty of word problems into our daily maths and will be doing more hands on problem solving moving forward, especially where we can incorporate it into a STEM project.

What do you think about what Dan Meyer has to say?

Amber

Mini Math Monday

Today Chicky and I used dice to reinforce the relationship between c-rods and numbers.  We rolled 2 dice, found the corresponding rods, added them together then found the c-rod that matched their sum.  We only had one roll which added to over 10.  My aim was to stay within 10 but i'm always happy to walk my kids through concepts a little above their ability.

 Chicky deciding which c-rod she needs.

Chicky joining c-rods.  You can see the completed ones we left on the table.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to?  We would love to try out some of your living math ideas so please share :)

Amber

Mini Math Monday

Chicky has been doing so well over the last few weeks, really getting to know her numbers.  Today i thought we would take it up a notch and see how she went.  We've been using various manipulatives to 'play' with the numbers so today i wanted to look at 1-1 correspondence and see how she was grasping it.

The task was simple.  I'd drawn 10 boxes on a clean sheet of paper and labeled them 1 to 10.  The idea was to use a dot marker to place the right number of dots in the box.  Simple enough but when your only 4 and REALLY like to use the dot markers and have a tendency to get carried away, this was a exercise in self restraint too.

Chicky making dots on her chart.

The completed chart, perfect :)

Chicky showed great restraint, carefully making sure that she only put the right number of dots in the box.  She got them all right, yay!  All our playing is coming together.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to this week.  We'd love to take a look, please share a link in the comments.

Amber

Mini Math Monday

This week Chicky and I cracked out the c-rods.  She built steps using the rods and we talked about their size and gave them numbers.

Chicky completing her steps.

Chicky using Raspberry Tort to climb up and down the steps.

Chicky used Raspberry Tort as a helper because she was just the right size.  She climbed up and down the stairs and we counted the steps as we went.  When counting down from 10 to 1 we pretended Raspberry Tort was about the blast off like a rocket ship :)

What have you and your 'mini' been up to this week?  Don't forget to leave a link in our comments to we can take a peek.

Amber

Mini Math Monday

Today Chicky and I were looking at odd's and even's.  The task was to put out number cards from 0 to 10 and then put some counting bears under each card.  Everytime there were 2 bears they held hands.  The one left over was the 'odd' one, so that number was odd.  When all the bears had friends to hold hands with it was an 'even' number.

Chicky was not very impressed that i wanted to photograph her work today :(

See how the bears held hands to make a pair.  The pics only show 0-4 but we did work all the way to 10.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to this week?  Please leave a link to your blog in the comments so we can check it out :)
Amber

Mini Math Monday

I'm starting something new!  My challenge is to post something mathy for my 'mini' (that would be Chicky) on Monday's.  It will just be a brief post to let you know something we enjoyed over the week.  I'm hoping a few people might also blog what they are doing with their 'mini' as i love sharing ideas and being inspired by others :)  Please leave a link to your post in the comments section so people can check out your blog too.

Mini Math Monday

First Chicky put all the Rightstart craft stick cards in order.

Then we put our own craft sticks underneath, following the patterns of making gates and fence posts.  We talked about how many fence posts made a gate and how many extra fence posts we had for numbers like 6, 7, 8 & 9.

Chicky completed all her gates and fence posts.  Bugsy (the class clown) was watching on.

For me it's important that my kids have a deeper understanding of what a number actually represents.  I want them to know that 7 is 5 and 2 or 4 and 3 or 6 and 1.  I want them to automatically recognise that.  If they have that deeper level of understanding then when it comes to addition and multiplication it is so much easier to break off a chunk of one number and add it to the next to make a 5 or a 10 which will ultimately assist you since 5 and 10 are much easier units to work with.

Hope you enjoyed our first 'Mini Math Monday'.  We look forward to seeing what you and your 'mini' are up to.

Amber