Need some math ideas!

[TwinMom]

Help! I am planning a class for our homeschooling co-op that begins in (eek!) six days. Yes, I am disorganized. It's a math games class for 5-7 year olds. I don't want to do any kind of worksheet type of activity, I want it to be hands-on, active, etc. But I am having trouble coming up with ideas, so I'm hoping some of you can help me.

My main problem is that there is such a wide variety of ages and abilities. I mean, some of the kids are newly five, can recognize numbers and are just beginning to understand addition. Some of the kids are older sevens and are already into multiplying. I've got to be able to adjust the games for different abilities, but my mind is just failing.

I've GOT to have my first two classes completely planned, because for the six days between classes we will be at Disney World, no time to plan or organize.

Please, please, please....can anyone suggest ideas?

[wonderactivist]

PE Central has a whole scetion of PE games for groups, many reinforce math skills - you have to look through. Also, try the mathy sticky above - loads of ideas there!

http://www.pecentral.org/lessonideas...essonideas.asp

And most libraries have good books for math games. We use Lynette Lon's for older grades and Zoom! the PBS show has some one their website.

Lucie

[Linda on the move]

See if your library has either:

Family Math

or

Games for Math

either will provide you with enough ideas for the length of your session. Family Math was really written for parents to use with children, so it is totally worth buying for your family. Games for Math was written for school teachers, so it might be easier to adapt to your co-op.

[Ravin]

A friend of mine is using this with her boys (now 1st and 3rd grade, I think):

http://www.livingmath.net/

It looks really cool.

[TwinMom]

Wonderactivist--d'oh! I never even noticed that math sticky. Gonna check it out!

Linda--that's funny, I actually own Family Math and have Games for Math from the library. I have several ideas from those books that I am going to use.

Ravin--that site looks awesome, thank you!

I stopped by a store that has a large homeschooling section and found a few books that I think will really help me. One of them is Card Game Roundup and the other...uhh, I forget, but I think it has some good ideas.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[frogguruami]

WAR!! We love that game here. We play by each player laying down 2 cards instead of one, adding them together and then determining which is higher. You can also subtract and multiply for upper level kids. AND you can also make red cards positive and black negative and work with positive and negative numbers.


Giant dice are also fun to play with.

AM

[Roar]

My son was in a co-op during those ages and one thing they did in math was to have free time to play goard games that include math content even if they aren't specifically labeled as math. I'm thinking of Guess Who? which helps kids think about sets and groups, Go Fish for matching, Amazing Labryinth which is about moving objects through space, checkers, Mastermind. You could have a variety of games to allow for the range of development. In his group the kids sort of chose what they were going to play but the teacher did some guiding to get kids of similar levels together too.

Also, I would suggest reading picture books that relate to math. There are so many good ones - see the Living Math website. You can read a story and then the discussion or activities with it can be geared to allow for different levels of work. I'm thinking of things like the Anno books, Grapes of Math, etc.

Any kind of hands on measurement (how tall is the door, how long is your foot, etc.) would be a hit I bet. You could have the kids work in teams and mix up the abilities in each group and give each group a ruler and a list of stuff to measure.

Graphing is a lot of fun too. This book has some great ideas for activities and many of them would work well in a group http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471210609

[Lillian J]

You'll find lots of ideas within the links here:
Go Figure! The Fascinating World of Mathematics. Scroll on through the whole list before you start clicking on things, or you'll be out in cyberspace for hours!

Be sure to check out the link there to the article I put together - it includes lots of fun and useful resource and activity ideas:
The Delights of Exploring Math with Your Child

Lillian

[Lillian J]

I suddenly thought of some things this morning that I'd forgotten about when first reading your question. David Albert wrote a fascinating article - an excerpt from his newest book - called Just Do the Math! That might be reassuring. Another good article he did on math is A Travel Excursion of the Mind.

Also, you can get some ideas and support in the email list I started awhile back. We have a group of supportive and experienced parents, some of whose kids are already in college. It hasn't been a particularly active group as yet, because I've been busy traveling a lot and haven't wanted to publicize it a lot yet. Nonetheless, I think it might be pretty helpful for you: Homeschool to College or Other Goals: Homeschoolers can and do get into good colleges - and this group provides for discussion of all the standard questions about that. However, we're more concerned with the bigger picture of facilitating our kids' own unique journeys into becoming relaxed, confident, competent lifelong learners in whatever form that may take - whether it's through college or other pursuits. Join us for some supportive and thought provoking conversations, and prepare to shed some of your worries.
Lillian

[Wilhemina]

I hope this isn't too late for you to use

NAK
1. Read 10 Black Dots by Donald Crews. Use round label stickers (cheap from office stores) and have kids make their own dot pictures. (or cut out black construction paper squares) If you have kids draw for a number your co-op can make their own version of 10 Black Dots. This was a very successful activity with the storytime crowd I used to work with.

2. Lego structures - Give pairs of students identical sets of legos (in baggies) and something to divide their space to hide their creations from one another (like a book standing up). Have one in each pair build something out of her partner's view, then using words only help the partner recreate the structure. Take turns in the roles.
I used to do this activitiy with middle schoolers - they loved it. It can be simple or challenging depending on the number of legos and whether you build first then describe, or describe as you are building. With middle schoolers I encouraged them to use math terms in their instructions (parallel, perpendicular, plane, intersecting...) maybe there are terms you want to remind the students about (left and right? bigger and smaller? rectangle, square).

Good luck - please report back your most successful games for the rest of us to add to our bank of ideas!