Need math skills activities for 4 year old

[BellinghamCrunchie]

DD needs something a little more advanced than the preschool math workbooks I've been able to find. I've ordered Singapore 1A (not knowing anything about it - on recommendation from the homeschool forum) and we'll try that. She learns best when its fun and relevant and isn't one for sitting much.

Anyone know of any good online games that target math skills, computer games, or other fun math activities for her? I guess she's at about a kindergarten or 1st grade level. If the activity is too dry or formal she'll start getting silly and giving wrong answers.

[carmel23]

we've enjoyed the Family Math book published by the Berkeley Lawerence Hall of Science: http://lawrencehallofscience.stores....amilymath.html

It is all kinds of games, with levels for advancement if you or your kid want to make it more complex, or not. All you really need is stuff you typically find around the house.

[Roar]

My suggestion would be to skip the computer and focus more on math thinking try cards, dominos, board games, dice, etc. Use tools - stopwatch, ruler, scale. Peggy Kaye has a fantastic book called Games for Math. It is K-3 and the games are very easy to get ready and they really will help with math understanding. Check your library and if not cheap copies are widely available. http://www.amazon.com/Games-Math-Peg.../dp/0394755103

[Ceili]

I haven't used it or even really looked at it much, but one of my friends uses http://www.dreambox.com/ with her youngest and really likes it.

[sapphire_chan]

How about baking cookies? And figuring out how many you can send for a given amount of postage to Indianapolis, IN. And whether sapphire_chan will get more cookies if you use the flat-rate priority boxes. And whether if she gets slightly less cookies, is it still okay because the cookies arrive faster?

Brownies are also an excellent math opportunity!

[clipfish]

My son loved Yahtzee at that age. He would use the calculator at first, and then quickly moved to adding scores on his own.

We also liked Rainforest Maths (web site) alot, so much in fact that we paid for the annual subscription recently. It used to be free. ):

[sewchris2642]

I second dominos as a great way to learn addition and substraction. We used the Math It games, starting with Pre Math It. http://www.christianbook.com/Christi...item_no=934927

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan

How about baking cookies? And figuring out how many you can send for a given amount of postage to Indianapolis, IN. And whether sapphire_chan will get more cookies if you use the flat-rate priority boxes. And whether if she gets slightly less cookies, is it still okay because the cookies arrive faster?

Brownies are also an excellent math opportunity!

DD decided that if she baked sapphire_chan one dozen cookies with ten chocolate chips in each cookie, then ate 12 of them, DD would have eaten 120 chocolate chips and sapphire_chan would have eaten zero chocolate chips, and that would make sapphire_chan sad, so DD needs to bake 24 more cookies; its the only solution to the problem. DD also says the chocolate chips would probably melt on the way to Indianapolis so she would have to eat them for sapphire_chan, so sapphire_chan doesn't get a messy mailbox, which would make sapphire_chan sad (DD is very concerned about sapphire_chan's feelings).

[VanessaS]

Good suggestions already. We're using CTC's Mathematical Reasoning workbooks (which are more advanced than comparable curricula and Kitchen Table Math. We also do a lot of board games, card games, dice games, baking, etc.
Make it more hands on and she'll find it much more interesting and fun (workbooks can be dry).

[RiverTam]

We play an addition game with Uno cards. DS2 is 4 and can read his numbers.

We take some Uno cards (with the big numbers on them) and a bunch of pennies. We put two cards side by side and count out the number on each card. Then we count how many we have when we add them together to find out how many 9 and 4 together make.

Example: DS2 picks out a card with a 9 on it and a card with a 4 on it. He then counts out 9 pennies and piles them on the 9 card. He counts out 4 pennies and piles them on the 4 card. Then we put the pennies in one pile and count how many we have, when we put 9 and 4 together.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

Originally Posted by RiverTam

We play an addition game with Uno cards. DS2 is 4 and can read his numbers.

We take some Uno cards (with the big numbers on them) and a bunch of pennies. We put two cards side by side and count out the number on each card. Then we count how many we have when we add them together to find out how many 9 and 4 together make.

Example: DS2 picks out a card with a 9 on it and a card with a 4 on it. He then counts out 9 pennies and piles them on the 9 card. He counts out 4 pennies and piles them on the 4 card. Then we put the pennies in one pile and count how many we have, when we put 9 and 4 together.

This sounds perfect. This is just exactly where she is at right now. She might be willing to do this activity.

The biggest problem I have is matching the activity to her learning style. She does not do board games very well. She can follow the rules when she wants to, but usually we end up with an elaborate fantasy about how Mr. Licorice took all the candy canes or how we have to build a house out of dominos to save the mermaid from the poisoned dice. She won't play the card game Memory with me (the cards become fantasy play objects) but she whizzes through memory games on the computer. Which is why I was thinking she'd enjoy some math activities on the computer over table activities with me. I want to respect her preference to play more fantasy-type activities with me.

She seems to like workbooks, though, and will ask to do them for fairly long periods.

[kgianforti]

Originally Posted by VanessaS

Good suggestions already. We're using CTC's Mathematical Reasoning workbooks (which are more advanced than comparable curricula and Kitchen Table Math. We also do a lot of board games, card games, dice games, baking, etc.
Make it more hands on and she'll find it much more interesting and fun (workbooks can be dry).

I just received Beginning Mathematical Reasoning (for 3 and 4 year olds) in the mail today!! It's colorful and looks great to help them "think". Some of the stuff is easy but the instructions tell you to ask the child "why" they reached their answer.

[VanessaS]

Originally Posted by RiverTam

We play an addition game with Uno cards. DS2 is 4 and can read his numbers.

Hey, good idea! I've got to try that.

[kgianforti]

We play Hungry, Hungry, Hippos and dd has to count her balls herself then tell me who won based on who has more.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by BellinghamCrunchie

DD decided that if she baked sapphire_chan one dozen cookies with ten chocolate chips in each cookie, then ate 12 of them, DD would have eaten 120 chocolate chips and sapphire_chan would have eaten zero chocolate chips, and that would make sapphire_chan sad, so DD needs to bake 24 more cookies; its the only solution to the problem. DD also says the chocolate chips would probably melt on the way to Indianapolis so she would have to eat them for sapphire_chan, so sapphire_chan doesn't get a messy mailbox, which would make sapphire_chan sad (DD is very concerned about sapphire_chan's feelings).

: virtual :
Seriously though, baking and cooking are such awesome math activities, I had to suggest it when I saw your thread in new posts.

[Fuamami]

I heart RightStart Math, and it is totally easy to modify for all levels/ages. Kind of spendy, but it has tons of fun manipulatives:

alabacus.com

[stlmomof2]

I am so proud of our new math game!
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4hamaSh3EA
We didn't exactly come up with this on our own (there's an exhibit like this at our children's museum, only with a big number line for walking between the numbers and a big spinner). We made the game together. She found the paper to use. She drew the lines while I held down the ruler. She wrote about half of the numbers. I either just say different problems or write them down and she can come up with the answers and sometimes write them down. You could make this harder, I'm sure, by using more numbers, having the kid write out problems, making it into an XY access, etc.

[AAK]

my kids like to play shut the box esp when learning addition

Another number line game to teach greater than, less than, and equals is:
Make a giant number line and two alligators that face each other. Let's say your number line goes from -10 to 10. Start with an alligator on each end. You "think" of a number (like 5). The child will start by guessing a number. . . is it one? You move the appropriate alligator to narrow down the possible choices. So in this case the alligators would be on the 1 and still just off the chart on the ten side. Next guess is 6. You move the alligator so that one is on the 1 and the other on the six. It is fun to see how many guesses it takes. After playing, reverse roles.

My oldest dd did that game in kindergarten.

Amy

[delly]

These are great ideas! I've always hated the idea of just sitting there drilling kids on math, so we've been avoiding that approach, but I'm not too good at coming up with creative ways to make it fun.

[P-chan]

This is a link to the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives website:
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vLibrary.html

My son, who just turned six, has loved browsing through the options here. He is skilled at teaching himself in this way and is focusing on fractions right now. I got this link from the GATE coordinator at his school.

I like this site because it is not character-based at all, and many of the "virtual manipulatives" really clarify the underlying concept (I have found that a small portion of the activities are not all that intuitive). Some of them are based on real-life games--I think there's a Mastermind game--but it is not commercialized.