Vito loves counting. He may not know yet how to count from 1 to 100 but he knows how to integrate math and numbers in daily life. He mastered his 1:1 correspondence early on and now he’s learning how to count beyond ten. I was surprised the first time I heard him counting from 11 and up. I didn’t introduced that to him yet but he already knows. It’s like self taught, but I was thinking that he might have learned it from his brother. And because he might be in a sensitive period on number now, I decided to give him a few exercises to recognize and name numbers from 11 to 20, and understanding what those numbers represent in quantity.
Guide to Math Homeschool Materials for Preschoolers
Sunday, April 2, 2017
The Montessori Number Rods
Monday, March 6, 2017
I love Montessori math materials. They are so engaging and well thought of that the child can easily absorb concepts and retain what is learned. Take for example this Number Rods which I recently introduced to Vito. We are mostly using counters in our math activities, it’s more abstract and quantitative. With Number Rods, counting here is more linear and sequential. My goal was for Vito to learn:
- how to sequence ‘one’ to ‘ten’ (they form a staircase)
- to understand the value of each number
The Montessori Short Bead Stairs: Learning About Quantity
Monday, January 9, 2017
This is a Montessori math activity on teaching the child about quantities from 1 through 9. We’ve worked on this since last year (starting from 1 to 5) and has been doing a lot of extensions. This is a simple presentation of the work and I’m sharing some of the extensions we’re working on as well.
Telling Time Activities
Monday, December 19, 2016
Mavi wanted to practice more of reading the time, especially when it comes to reading and writing “quarter to” and “half past”. He seems to be confused with the positioning of the small hand. So with this, I made a few activities for him to work afterschool. I am sharing these activities as well as the printables were are using (yes it’s free!).
Wooden Counting Pyramid Puzzle from Beleduc
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Montessori Coloured Beads: How We Use It At Home
Friday, October 21, 2016
Introducing Montessori Hundred Board for Preschoolers
Friday, October 14, 2016
So the other day, I was tidying up my storage shelf and Vito saw our Hundred Board. He immediately took it out and excitedly said “Oh numbers! Let’s count!” and that’s what we basically did for the past few days.
October Preschool Math Activities
Friday, September 30, 2016
I am so excited to share with you the fun preschool math activities I prepared for Vito! He saw me printing these materials and he kept on asking if we can play. Of course we did! We started using a few of these materials and will share his progress in the days to come. For now, allow me to present to you our adorable and cute learning materials for the month of October.
Autumn Themed Graphing Game
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
We are loving DIY math games! The boys enjoyed our Race Game a few weeks ago, so I didn’t hesitate to give them our Graphing Game. Not only can my preschooler practise his counting skills and taking turns, this is also a great opportunity to introduce date recording (and analysis) for older children.
A Math Racing Game for Preschoolers
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Vito always wanted to join us whenever we play board games but we don’t allow him because it’s too much for him. Too many cards (and paper money) to scatter, dice which he couldn’t figure out how to use and what to do with it and so much more. So when I was making Autumn-Themed Math Activities, I made sure that I include a game that’s suitable for his age.
Autumn Themed Preschool Math Activities
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Vito is starting “preschool” math this school year and we are not using any curriculum. I guess it’s not necessary in our case. I will be using my experience with Mavi and with the thousand ideas online on setting up “play-based” and Montessori-inspired activities for Vito this school year. So in order for me to be able to organize and prepare materials ahead of time, I decided to come up with seasonal-themes for the upcoming months.
Vito’s Favourite Counting Material
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Vito is 28 months old.
Odd as it may be, but Vito loves numbers and counting more than letters. Yes, I find it odd because Mavi was into letters at his age and started to learn spelling by the time he’s 2.5 years old. It amazes me on how they can be different!
Anyway, I wanted to share with you this beautiful wooden number peg board I recently bought from a local store (materials are from Europe) and Vito loves this! A precious piece of math material that teaches little children to count and practice hand-eye coordination at the same time! I wanted to buy the Montessori Math Spindle, but when I saw this, I knew this is way more better (and a lot cheaper)!
Exploring the Bucket Balance
Saturday, March 5, 2016
I have this bucket balance years ago and was mostly used by Mavi (Measuring Mass of an Object). He’s been using it to learn concepts like mass units and the concept of gravity. I’m so hesitant to let Vito use it for the obvious reason that at his age, he might break it or doesn’t know how to use it. But I was wrong! One day, I ran out of ideas for him so I bravely took our bucket balance and a bunch of Duplos for him to explore. Well, lo and behold! It was a total hit and I didn’t expect that he’ll enjoy using it!
So what did Vito exactly do with the balance and what are the things he discovered?
Practising One to One Correspondence
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
And because of Vito’s interest, I am always giving him different counting activities to feed this interest. One of his favourite is using our counting cards for one to one correspondence. These were Mavi’s and I barely used them with him.
Math Resources and {Learn & Play Link Up}
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Math is one of my favourite subjects, and it always excites me to see math activities in homeschool blogs. Mavi and I are always having a great time working on this subject especially when he was in preschool. I collected all our favourite math preschool activities and you can check them out on the link or image below.
FREE Safari Toob Tree Matching Cards
Friday, November 13, 2015
Vito uses these cards a lot in my post on TREE ACTIVITIES and even in random days, he would pick this up from shelf and work on it.
You can get the Safari Toob Tree miniature objects from here.
Pre-K Problem Solving Cards
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Mavi didn’t like math. When he was around 5yrs old, he would rather read books than work with math. He’s excuse would always be “I’m tired” or “it’s difficult”. I can truly understand him though. I didn’t enjoy math when I was younger. Until I stepped into secondary school and discovered why we need math.
So instead of forcing him to solve arithmetic problems and giving him number activities, I exposed him to real life problems so he can appreciate math. I made him understand WHY WE NEED TO LEARN NUMBERS AND MATH. We would go to the groceries and count our items all together, doing addition and subtraction in between. Of course, he’s not aware we’re doing math, all he knows is that he’s helping Mommy do some groceries. At home, I secretly incorporate addition and subtraction by counting his missing pens, his toys and how many books he has read.
He loves the real life math! He can’t stand arithmetic problems but he enjoys real life problems. So what I did was create a bunch of colorful cards for us to work on, making sure there’s pictures (and we mostly use counters as well) to make it attractive. In the problems, I used his friends’ name so he’ll like it, and of course he finds it funny! He kept asking for more, more questions as he liked solving the problems. And that was the game changer.
Through these problem solving cards, he was able to appreciate math, and could now understand why he needs to practice arithmetic. He loves to solve math problems these days on his own and still loves solving problems.
So I created these problem solving cards for Pre-K students. It contains:
- 1 step problem solving for addition and subtraction
- 12 unique questions for addition within 10 (with pictures)
- 12 unique questions for subtraction within 10 (with pictures)
- 12 fill-in questions for addition to let the parents change the numbers for more practice (for advanced students, based on the questions with pictures). You can use counters for this.
- 12 fill-in questions for subtraction to let the parents change the numbers for more practice (for advanced students, based on the questions with pictures). You can use counters for this.
Mavi worked on these cards when he was 5-6yrs old. Though this is intended for 5-6yrs old children, older or younger kids can still use the cards as a practice material. Hope you like it and find it useful like we do. Thanks!
Montessori Decimal System (Base 10) with Golden Beads
Thursday, September 17, 2015
So without further ado, here’s Mavi’s presentation of how we use the golden beads in learning the decimal system.
Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands
Here’s a short presentation which Mavi and I created on how to use the materials in introducing units, tens, hundreds and thousands.
Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning
Montessori Multiplication Bead Board and Bars
Sunday, July 19, 2015
To those who are interested, I recorded Mavi’s work a few weeks ago on Montessori multiplication using the bead board. We do it occasionally for practice. Whenever he does the bead board, he followed this work with multiplication using the bead bars. Please use the video below as your reference in case you wanted to try this at home.