Playing Math Every Day – November 28 – Dec 4, 2011
Math games can be played any time anywhere. Here are some ideas for each day of the week. These games require very little, if any, advance prep. Give them and feel free to change them to make math more interesting for your children.
November 28 – Spots and Dots Day
This is a perfect day to play subitizing games, playing dominoes or any board games that including throwing dice. If you have simple dot stickers and 3×5 cards, you can create subitizing cards. To make the game easier, keep the number of dots small and/or arrange them in an easily recognizable pattern (i.e. like dots on dominoes). For a harder game, increase the number or dots, mix dots of different colors and sizes, or place them on the cards randomly.
Quickly show the card to your child. Your child should have just enough time to estimate the number of dots, but not enough time to allow your child to count them. Then, depending on the age of the child, you can either ask how many dots were on the card or ask to show the number of dots on the card using some other manipulative (i.e. bear counters, beads, etc). For very young children, you can show the first card briefly, then display two cards – the first one and another one and ask your child to point to the one she just saw.
November 29 – Louisa May Alcott’s Birthday
Louisa May Alcott was a big-time journal writer. Help your child start a math journal. You can make it a daily tradition of making an entry into the journal. The questions don’t have to be from worksheets (although they can be). You can ask your child to build a pyramid with 6 blocks, then sketch it out in the journal. I love searching Pinterest for great pre-K and K math journal ideas.
November 30 – Mark Twain’s Birthday
Do you remember The Great Jumping Frog of Calaveras County? Let’s make cute origami frogs today. Origami is surprisingly mathematical. On the surface, it’s a lesson in shapes and symmetry. But as you start folding, you’ll notice a lot more math opportunities. For example, do you have to start with a square? What if it’s a rectangle? Can I make a frog if I start with a Post-It note square? What words should I use to explain each fold?
If you start with a rectangle of paper, you can make a whole family of proportionally smaller frogs and a leftover rectangle of paper too small for frog making. Ask the “what if” question: “what if we could continue folding ever-smaller frogs”.
December 1 – Let’s Play Ball
And after all the running around, you can explore a type of fractal called Apollonian gasket. You can print it out or draw it (get inspired with this video). Depending on the age of your children, you can ask them to decorate, trace or draw the circles. If you have a young child, you probably have a collection of balls of various sizes, from basketballs to tennis balls to marbles to pompoms. See if you can arrange this collection into a gasket.
December 2 – Map and Measure
If you are planning a holiday road trip, then get the map out and see how long the drive will be… in origami frogs from November 30th. Measure it on the map, then measure distances to other interesting points just to compare. No road trip in the plans? No worries! You can measure a room in jumping frogs, then create a map using these measurements.
December 3 – The Rule of Three
Today’s game is noticing the number 3 in your daily activities and surroundings. Record the findings in the math journal. You can start at breakfast with figuring out how many meals (not counting snacks) we have every day.
December 4 – Reindeer Day
Explore odd and even numbers by talking about Santa Claus’s flying reindeer. Can we tell, just by looking at Santa’s sleigh, if Santa has an odd or even number of reindeer? How can we tell? What if Santa had more or fewer reindeer?
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Surprising Shoe Math
Something totally unexpected and wonderful happened a couple of days ago and it has to do with multiplication.
I’ve been struggling with teaching my almost 5-year old to put shoes on properly – right one on the right foot and left one – on the left foot. He kept getting them mixed up until a week ago a friend put two stickers inside my son’s shoes. As you can see on the picture, the stickers are of a sheep. I was too busy to take a good look at them and thought that each sticker had a sheep on it.
So a couple of days ago, as my son was in a hurry to get to the playground, I reminded him to take his time and put the shoes on right. I said “take your time and make sure that both sheep are in correct positions”. His response was absolutely fantastically mathematical. Here’s what he said after just a tiny pause: “But Mama, I only have one sheep. You don’t think I have four feet, do you?”
This might not seem like much, but consider the reasoning behind it – if one sheep “covers” two shoes, then two sheep would surely require four shoes and hence four feet.
Kids do say the most amazingly mathematical things!
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Playing Math Every Day – November 21 – 27, 2011
Math games can be played any time anywhere. Here are some ideas for each day of the week. These games require very little, if any, advance prep. Give them and feel free to change them to make math more interesting for your children.
November 21 – Thankful Hearts Day
Valentine’s Day is far away, but we just can’t wait to share with you this fantastic Magic Heart math game from Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks. History, math, and art are combined in this wonderful activity.
November 22 – Important Day
Picking up last week’s idea of gradients, how about asking your child to assign the levels of importance to various activities. First, write down various daily activities, including silly ones. If you can sketch them out, that’s even better. Next, ask the “How important is it to…” question. The level of importance can be indicated using numbers, symbols, words (not at all, a little bit, a lot, very, etc), even lengths of yarn. Once the importance is assigned, let the child line up the activities from least to most important (or the other way around).
November 23 – Family Day
How about playing a family game of math today? If you are tired of the usual board games and ready to try something new, how about going on a scavenger hunt. But not just any old scavenger hunt. Instead, we’ll be looking for iconic numbers. Iconic numbers are objects that represent a particular number in an easily recognizable and significant way.
For example, what number comes up when we say “eyes”? Bet you it is 2. But if we were to say “mouth”, the number is 1. Cat’s paws? 4! Rub-a-dub-dub men in a tub? 3! This seems simple enough, but actually iconic numbers are rather hard to find. We are so used to them that we simply don’t pay any attention to them until something goes wrong (think of a trike with two wheels instead of the expected three or a cat with two tails).
Can your family find iconic numbers 1 through 10? And don’t cancel just because the weather outside is frightful. So many iconic numbers are hidden in our houses!
November 24 – Thanksgiving Day, but also a Game and Puzzles Day
Searching for iconic numbers can get addictive! Take it a step further hunting for the real multiplication tables. Making your own tables can quickly turn into a game of art, craft and math! Don’t forget to take lots of pictures. And Happy Thanksgiving!
November 25 – Black Friday
If you are not participating in the Black Friday madness or if you get home early enough and aren’t totally exhausted, then why not play a hide and seek game. Of course, it’ll have a math-y twist to it. First, come up with a math rule for your game. Next, make the game pieces using 3×5 cards. For example, you might have a Fibonacci sequence on the cards (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc), use simple doubling (1, 2, 4, 6, etc), or any other rule.
For younger children, you might use stickers or draw dots instead of numbers and set up rules that govern how number of stickers, their colors, shapes or arrangement change from card to card. Now hide cards around the house and let the kids search for them (but tell them how many cards are there total). Once they find a card, they bring it to you and try to re-build the sequence. At some point they might try to guess what would be on a not-yet-found card. If they guess correctly, they can finish the entire sequence and win the game. If not, it’s back to searching for clues.
November 26 – Charles Schulz’s Birthday
Watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Part 1 and Part 2. Then talk about proportions in real life and in cartoons and comic strips. How tall is your child when measured in his arm lengths or head heights? How does this number compare to Charlie Brown’s proportions? Do Peanuts look funny because their proportions are so different from the real life?
Can you create your own strange cartoon character. How about creating an entire cartoon strip with it? For younger children you might want to use stickers or cut-outs of their favorite characters. Here’s the link to download and print blank comic strips. Find out even more about learning math with comic books on the Natural Math website.
November 27 – Thinking Day
This is not exactly a game, but a fun question to ask your children – “What is math? What do you do when you do math?” Whatever their answers will be, they will sure make you think.
Have you tried any of these activities? What other games are you playing with your children this week? Let us know and do share your children’s answers to “what is math” question here in the comments.
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Playing Math Every Day – November 14 – 20, 2011
Math games can be played any time anywhere. Here are some ideas for each day of the week. These games do not require any advance prep either. Give them a try this week and feel free to change them to make more interesting for your kids.
November 14 – Claude Monet’s Birthday
Monet would often paint the same subject at different times of the day as the light changed. Let’s create a color gradient collage today. All you need is a bunch of paint chips from your home improvement store. Suggest arranging different shades of the same color from lightest to darkest. Now try it with other colors. In case you don’t have time to run to a home improvement store, you can modify this game. Replace paint chips with liquid food coloring and give your child a dropper and several clear containers filled with water (glasses, clear jars or white ice-cube trays all work great).
November 15 – Children’s Book Day
There are quite a few wonderful children’s story books that go beyond basic counting and shapes. We are going to be reading Spaghetti and Meatballs for All by Marilyn Burns and Anno’s Magic Seeds by Mitsumasa Anno. If you or your child prefer to make up your own stories that include math, nothing beats another great book by Mitsumasa Anno, called Anno’s Counting Book.
November 16 – Talking Turkey Day
For this game you’ll need a marker, a piece of paper and a bag of bird seed. If you don’t have bird seed, a mix of 2 or more different pasta shapes or dried beans will do. First, trace your or your child’s hand on a piece of paper – that’s your turkey. Now, decide on a pattern, but don’t tell your child what it is. Let him guess which seed (or pasta shape) the turkey would like to eat next. Start with something simple, such as ABAB pattern. Then move to more complicated ones. Then let your child decide on a pattern and you’ll try to guess it.
November 17 – Bread Baking Day
Ah, kitchen is a perfect place for math! Let your children do all the measuring. Then let them experiment with estimating (i.e. how many tea spoons make a table spoon). The result is going to be some delicious math. And if you don’t have time to bake bread from scratch, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with picking up a muffins or cupcakes mix at the store.
November 18 – Mickey Mouse’s Birthday
Let’s watch a Disney cartoon today. How about this one – Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land (all three parts are available on YouTube). You can even try some of the math activities Donald tries during his adventure, starting with playing tic-tac-toe.
If you would rather stick with the Mickey Mouse’s theme, then how about revisiting November 14th idea of gradients, only using Disney Paint Chips.
November 19
Let’s start getting ready for the Pie Day!
November 20 – Pie Day
Nope, not the “pi day” which happens on March 14th (you know, 3.14). Instead, today is all about baking and enjoying pies! So why not do some more kitchen math. You can also cut a few pie shapes out of construction paper, let your child decorate them, then ask to share it with her toys (hello, fractions!).
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