How to Teach Static and Dynamic Addition to Kids
Monday, July 7, 2014
PH Math for May
Saturday, May 3, 2014
I've been assessing my Mavi's progress in mathematics for the past days. Math is the least of his interest as of the moment. So during our Math hiatus, I was checking my list and so far he knows and understands everything on it. In fact he is way beyond his years according to his teacher.
Now as summer vacation is approaching I'm thinking that we should be a little bit more serious with Math this time by being religious to our schedule :)
So for May here's what we're going to have for Math:
Skip counting. We started with 2's and next will be of 5's and 10's.
Here we are using the beads in our Decanomial Bead Bars with Box and the number tiles from our Hundred Boards for the label. He pointed out "Mom, it's just a pattern!". Of course, he's referring to the 0,2,4,6,8 :) And that's what I wanted to instill in him... that in Math some concepts is all about patterns!
After the beads and label activity, I made him skip count all the way through 100 and counting it backwards as well.
Number Symbol and Quantity (Tens)
Here we're using the same materials. My objective here is for Mavi to master the identification of number symbols and its equivalence in quantity.
Activity 1: Place the correct number of beads, given the number symbols.
Activity 2: Identify the number symbols, given the quantity.
Activity 3. Writing the number symbols. Mavi has no problem writing the numbers from 1 to 100. But it's a different story when it comes to hundreds and thousands :)
Number Symbol and Quantity (Hundreds)
The same activities with the tens but here we are using our Bead Material and Wooden Small Place Value Cards 1-9999 .
Activity 1:
Activity 2:
Activity 3. Mavi is still confused writing the hundreds and thousands. When he wants to write 321, he writes it like 300 21, similar with 1100... he writes it 1000 100. Now this is pretty normal but I just think that we needed to practice more on this during our spare time.
Hundred Board with Control Chart. I am still on the process of exploring hundred board games. I have collected a few ideas from fellow homeschool Moms and I can't wait to try it with Mavi.
PS. This post includes affiliated links
Golden Beads Addition
Thursday, April 10, 2014
On days that we're not doing any "themed" activities, we work on our bead materials and lately the golden beads has been a favorite in the house. Technically, this activity is good for 2 or more participants but since we have no other kid at home that can participate I volunteered for that position :)
So this is a simple addition "game" as I always tell my son. Using our small number cards, I would create a random 4 digit number for both of us and we're going to fetch the equivalent of that number using the golden beads.
Then someone has to add or combine them all together to determine the total. But since we don't have a third person to do that, my son and I did this together. We combined our beads and counted them. I made him identify the number of thousand cubes, hundreds, tens and ones.
Using the small number and large number cards, I made him add the numbers to check whether our counting with the golden beads is correct. Here I showed him that we can add quantities by combining or manually counting, but it always easier to do the addition using the technique below.
Here's the layout of our work.And we did a few more. I also made him use the activity sheet (Stamp Game sheet) from Montessori Printshop so he can practice writing 4 digit numbers.
Though it's a good activity for addition, it is quite overwhelming for one child to do. After a few work on numbers he complained that its tiring.
Next, we'll attempt to have a Stamp Game. We'll see how he'll react to it :)
The Golden Beads Layout
Monday, March 3, 2014
Just wanted to share our recent work with the golden beads material. I've been contemplating on purchasing these for a long time and I was convinced by fellow Mommy Montessori bloggers that these materials are worth a try. Actually, I was convinced because now I have two kids to home school. So definitely these are worth-it!
I am using KHT Montessori Math Album in our schooling.
In a nutshell, I introduced the beads (unit, tens, hundreds and thousands) with their corresponding number symbol. My son loved this. He was able to tell the difference between the quantities of each number symbol. He's like "The thousand is soooo heavy!"
We also learned how to compose and read bigger numbers! I made a printable of this but my son showed no interest. However when he saw this large number cards, he can't stop using it! He loves creating his own number.... but somehow still confused on how to read it :)
Well there are a lot of ways to practice composing bigger numbers and one of which is simply writing it down on a paper and have your child recreate the it using the number cards.
Because the beads arrived in the time that my son has a better understanding of quantities (we previously practice making ones and tens), he was able to create this massive layout on his own. I swear, I just left him and he did all the work in one sitting!
Completing the units...
Working on the tens...
Then the hundreds...
And thousands. Unfortunately, I only have 9 wooden thousand beads so he finished it till 4000 :)
It was impressive indeed! How I wish I purchased this early on. But anyway, there are still a lot of work to be done with the golden beads. We'll be exploring those in the days to come.
This is so exciting!
Linking to:
Montessori Monday
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Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
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Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky
The Short Bead Chain (Squaring Chains)
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
I've been searching high and low for affordable bead squares here but unfortunately, there's none. So I decided to make my own square chains using our decanomial beads. Supposedly, I'm going to form them using connectors like suitable tie wire but again, none is available.
So what I did here was to use the ever reliable contact paper. It was tricky though. What I did was lay the beads flat on the table, attach a strip of contact paper and then I carefully turn them on the other side to completely cover the other side of the beads with the rest of the contact paper.
And this is how they turned out! So far so good :)
Surprisingly, they were sturdy LOL.
Here, I am presenting to Mavi how to identify the square of a number (because they will form a square). He's more interested in the skip counting rather than identifying the square of a number.
The next time we tried, we worked on squares of 1 to 5 and we use the bead chain paper we got from Montessori Print Shop (free) to record the square of the numbers.
This is a good introduction for skip counting and a wonderful visual exercise for squaring. But for now, we'll just proceed with the skip counting disregarding the squares as Mavi isn't interested on it yet.
Happy counting!
Linking to:
Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky
Perfect 10 Snake Game
Thursday, January 30, 2014
We are doing a lot of snake game for the past few days. My son is now loving it unlike the first time he encountered it wherein he kept on complaining how tiring it is to count. This time, he loves transforming his "jungle colorful snake" to "tiger snake". For those new to Montessori,
Materials we used here are:
- Decanomial beads
- Black and white beads
- A mat
- Melissa and Doug Magnetic Alphabet box
So here Mavi made his own. I made sure that the beads will make a perfect 10 just to demonstrate that the two numbers when combined will make 10.
So here, we are replacing the colored beads (beads that makes a 10) to the golden beads. The picture on the right is for the control of error. I am showing Mavi that the bead combinations form ten. In this case: 6 (violet) and 4(yellow), 1(red) and 9(dark blue), 2(green) and 8(brown), 5(light blue) and 5(light blue), and 7(white) and 3(pink) all makes a 10 (golden bead).
As I mentioned earlier, we've been doing this multiple times this week. Here, I focused on two combinations only: 8(brown) and 2(green), and 7(white) and 3(pink). Because the snake is composed of repetitive combination of those beads he immediately memorized that those combinations make a 10. In the middle of the snake, he did not bother counting... he just replaced the designated combination with the golden beads.
Same goes when we tried 9 and 1, 4 and 6 and, 5 and 5. At the end of each activity, I showed him the equations that we can form out of those combination. But of course, we will explore more of this "addition snake game" as we progress.
We are now starting our random snake game, and that's where the black and white beads will be useful. They are basically used as a placeholder for the remaining beads after you have counted 10 beads (see the picture below). So here, we replace the colored bead into a ten bar (remove the blue and yellow beads) and add the 3 black beads to represent the remaining yellow beads (unaccounted).
This is just an overview of how we play the game. There's more into it actually with the snake game and we'll explore it one step at time. I am not really good with words, so if my post is not enough, and if you need demonstration or an album, there are lots of it in the web.
All in all it was very effective, effective in a way that you will get the child to come sit with you and play and at the same time learning without getting bored.
Now, who says math is boring?? Happy Friday to all!
Linking to:
Montessori Monday
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Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Intro to Number Bonds
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Here's another bead work we did the other day. The aim of the activity is to identify the two beads that would form the number in the number cards (2 parts and a whole).
First we laid out the number cards from 1 to 10.
Then we placed the bead correspondence of each number cards. After which, we started 2 and identify smaller numbers that would make 2. It was difficult for Mavi at first to grasp the concept. We went on slowly and I did most of the presentation.
In between, I would take 1 part of the bond and ask him for the other part. Say for 5, I put number 3 (part) and asked him the other missing part that would complete the number 5.
As you can see he is using his fingers to calculate the missing part.
I also encouraged him to count the beads instead of using his fingers.
I love how this activity ended. This will familiarize the child that bigger numbers can be formed by putting small numbers together (in different ways). This is also a good introduction to fractions, addition and subtraction.
We will be doing this again and again though as enjoys the mystery and the challenging of finding out the other part :)
Linking to:
Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!