Six New Math Games & Activities!

Tyler's interest in math-related activities has continued to push forward! Without being able to purchase supplies for even homemade Montessori red rods or a Spindle Box, I've been a bit frozen in fear (if you notice, we did a lot of art projects for a couple weeks!). I really don't want to go too outside of Montessori tradition with teaching him mathematical concepts, but I decided to get over it and keep him learning, doing the best that I can. What I've come up with is fun and he takes all of this off the shelf several times a day to work, so hey, must be I'm doing okay right?!

If you missed the last set of math games and activities, you can find them here.

"Get to Ten!" Caterpillar Counting Game

This is a game I thought of while creating another activity. It's been a huge hit!

The game uses two boards, one for each player, with a caterpillar that has ten circles for its body. There are twenty puffballs and just enough number cards to get two players to twenty. To strengthen his association of quantity to number, you can see that we're using the visual number cards I created for sorting a few weeks ago rather than numbers

We take turns drawing a card, then announce the number of dots on it.

We then place that number of puffballs onto our caterpillar, starting at one and working towards ten. The goal is to fill up your caterpillar. 

Ty took to this game so well! He loved the concept and it was just easy enough for him to enjoy it. My goal is to show him, in a non-obvious way, how adding certain numbers together can get you higher numbers, more precisely, to ten. I've talked about it a little bit "You're half-way to ten!" or "You're on seven! You need three more to get to ten!". If he were a bit older I would have him write down each number and then we could look back to see how the numbers added up to ten.

Another way we may play soon will be to fill up our caterpillars and then subtract rather than add.

For fun, here's a video clip of us playing!

What Number is Missing?

This game is called "What's Missing?" a game inspired by a pin I came across browsing Pinterest. I made cards 1-20 (though we're mostly using 1-10 as that's most relevant to Montessori number line work), as I know he has 1-20 down really well. I place several them in numerical order, with one number left out. His job is to figure out what the missing number is. 

When Ty figures out the number, I give it to him and he then places it in the proper place in line. The first time we played I left a little gap where the number was missing, now I don't. This game is working a bit towards taking a number line work out and lining up the numbers himself, as well as a bit problem solving. 

I was tickled to see that he automatically started checking his work after placing the missing letter the second time we played, counting from start to finish to be sure it was correct.

Dot to Dots

The next activity combines fine motor and counting. Knowing how much Ty loves to both count and use markers, I figured working on dot-to-dots may attract him.

 He did better than I thought he would! We started off doing 1-4 then 1-5 on his wipe board. I liked that we can do this as many times as we like without using up a ton of paper.

Quantity Boards

After many, many months of hiding out in our Montessori-inspired work box, I took out these cards out again. I can't believe how young Ty was when I first tried this (21 mos). He couldn't have gotten as much out of it as he is now! We used pennies then, but gems are more interesting to him at the moment, so we used them instead. His job is to place one gem on each circle which corresponds with the number.

This next work uses caterpillars again. Tyler's job is to put a puffball on each circle in the caterpillar's body, which matches the number beside it. It's much like the gem/number card work above it, though it a better visual for the concept of higher numbers meaning "more". 

Learning Visual Numbers 1-100

One of Tyler's present for Christmas from his Grandmother was this awesome mp3 player, the SweetPea3. While I can't say enough good things about the product, it has also caused Tyler to be interested in learning a lot of high numbers, as all 167 songs that we loaded appear on the screen as numbers, in order. He enjoys being independent with his player so he naturally wanted to learn what numbers his favorite songs were past twenty. While he is able to read many of them, he has been eager to learn them all.

To help him learn to read numbers up through 100, I created a number line by tens for him. He has counted to 1-99 recently and can count higher, but had some trouble remembering a couple of his tens. I know that learning to read numbers and counting high without quantity meaning behind it isn't important in Montessori, but it's important to Tyler, so I have to follow his lead. He literally learned how to count by tens with or without the number line by the next day. I can't tell you how proud he is and how great he does reading numbers on his mp3 player for us now!

Updates & Changes From Our Last Math Post

We continue to play Go Fish with number flashcards 1-20. It is one of Tyler's favorite activities right now for sure! Though I keep switching-up the numbers we play with (we each get five and there are six in the go fish pile), he still knows almost instantly by the back of the cards (which show the quantity of the number on the front) what card is what. Though he thinks he's getting away with "cheating" by finding the match he needs by glancing at the cards in the go fish pile (or the cards in my hand), I'm quite happy that he is connecting quantity with number. The backs of the cards all differ in way of objects or trains, but from what I've seen he doesn't seem to pay a ton of attention to that when looking...it's more about the quantity of objects. 

We continue to do our daily calendar work, crossing off the day before and naming the present day. Tyler knows where yesterday is, names the number that is the present day and counts off the days that are gone, left to right, top to bottom. He enjoys finding random days/numbers that haven't arrived yet and naming them, or finding a specific number. He can be found looking at the calendar by himself doing these tasks! I'm so glad we started this daily work. I feel like he has gained so much with so little "effort". We usually only spend about a minute on this together every day while he explores on his own and gets my attention if he needs clarification or to know if he's correct about something.

In the last few weeks Ty has mastered counting to ten on his fingers, but sometimes wants to count higher. I've shown him how if I add some of my fingers we can count higher together. I'm really working on the concept that he has ten as a base, and that we can add a certain number of my fingers to get to 11-20, which is a  bit of a Montessori bead concept. We also count our hands by 10's and sometimes by fives. He wants to do this often.

Our jumping a certain amount of times game hasn't changed, but I did make him a die so that he could play by himself if my husband and I are busy. I simply taped numbers around the die we have from a Discovery Toys game with packing tape, but there are many ideas on the web for creating your own die if you don't have anything to use. Tyler likes when we give him two numbers to choose from, so each side of the die has two as well. He still almost always picks the highest number!

Math Understanding = Better Emotional Control

With all of this number understanding, I have to say that it's so much easier for all of us when Tyler has to wait for something such as dinner to be done or snack time to start. When we say that something will be ready "soon", he understands, but whining and crying around not getting what he wants that very instant has started recently. Now, if we give him a number of minutes rather than the word "soon", he instantly calms down. He gets that concept. He trusts it. It's much more concrete. We were trying to remember to count down for him every minute as we rushed about doing things, but now we simply set the timer on the stove for him to reference. It has been a fabulous tool!  

Next I hope to make Tyler the Sandpaper Numbers. He tries to trace the numbers on all of his number cards as he's used to doing that with his Counting Boards with Sandpaper Numerals, so it's well past time to make them!

Please remember that this level of math isn't expected of toddlers or some of it even preschoolers. Tyler has a keen sense for math that is unusual at this stage. If your child isn't willing or able to do these activities, they are perfectly normal! Every single child is different. Please follow whatever your child is into. 

Linking-up with 1+1+1=1, I Can Teach My Child, Teach Preschool and Living Montessori Now!

Adult Board Games turned into Toddler Activities

The other day, searching through our family's collection of dusty, lonely, old board games for some dice, a bit of inspiration unexpectedly struck, leaving Tyler with two new independent activities and a new game to play with us! Here's what I came up with:
 

This, as you may know, is Boggle. It used to be one of the few games my husband could beat me at on a pretty regular basis. For now it belongs on a tray for Tyler, who adores placing each cube in the tray (good for fine motor), counting each as he goes. When he shows that he's grown a bit tired of it I may use garage sale stickers to place numbers in the tray, 1-16 (left to right) so that he may place them in order and gain reading prep skills in the process. Though I'm trying to focus more on quantity rather than recognizing numbers, he knows 1-20 plus many up through 100 now thanks to his mp3 player, but that's another post!

This next activity uses Scrabble holders. Though it used to be our favorite game, my husband and I haven't played Scrabble since about thirty minutes before Tyler was born (speed Scrabble was an awesome distraction). When I first created it I used letters that look the same lowercase as they do uppercase (c, o, v etc) and was going to have him simply place them on the holders for fine motor work, then remembered the Sesame Street Memory/Matching Tiles that I made him months ago. Much more fun! He not only works to place the tiles, but decided to naturally match them as well. This activity also works a bit on visual spatial skills as he has to fit all ten onto the holders without much empty space to play with. 

This is the special edition year 2000 Monopoly edition. It's shiny and "new age" and I was thrilled when I received it for my birthday twelve years ago, though it isn't exactly my husband's favorite game to play so it's barely been used. At first I thought I could just give Tyler the little houses to stack for fine motor work, then I developed a bit of a game.

To play, we put one house each on all of the properties and railroads. We put the property/railroad  cards (we excluded the electric/water company as they're a bit challenging to find on the board) in the middle. We choose our pieces (Tyler is always the bike, not surprisingly) and place them on Go.

We take turn picking cards. Whatever card you end up with is the color you move your piece to, but not specifically that property. If Tyler picks light blue, he can move his piece to any light blue property. We then take the house that's on that space. The point is to get as many houses as you can. So if you chose a red card and only one red property has a house left on it, you would want to put it on that one. I figured Tyler would be motivated to get as many houses as he could so that he could stack them and make a tall tower. 

Tyler is still learning this game and we haven't made it anywhere close to using all the cards (not shocking). The most frustrating thing about our game has been the houses getting pushed around accidentally when he reaches to move his piece, but it's fun and is teaching him more of those "taking turns" skills as well as a bit of problem solving.

On a bit of a side note, when at our local library for story time, we noticed that a large stack of games had been added to the children's area. Fun! We played Go Fish (with no numbers on them, a bit to Tyler's  dismay) and I began teaching him how to play Candy Land, but Connect Four was his favorite. While I didn't talk much about putting four of his colors in a row yet, he did get a lot of great fine motor, sorting and turn taking practice!

I would love to hear from others who have adapted games for older children or adults into activities or games for little ones!

Five New Math Activities and Games

I haven't been able to create new posts in twelve days (the others were automatic posts) but Tyler's work and passion for numbers has continued to take off during that time. Before I get into what he's doing, I want to say that he is not a typical 29 month old when it comes to this subject (or a lot of things). Most children his age will probably not be ready or interested at all in the following activities. If your child isn't here yet, they are not all behind! Every child's developmental process is different. [Toddler Early Math Milestones] It is typically a slow process for a child to learn the correlation between number quantity and it's suggested to start with a good deal of 1:1 correspondence work and the sandpaper numerals. If you'd like to see some of our favorite early math activities, you can click on the "math" tag from the subjects in the left panel of my blog to find them.

To backtrack, Tyler has had 1:1 correspondence down for some time and has understood at least how to pick three books before bed time. He knows at least eight shapes, the differences between heavy/light, big/small, long/short, can sort by size, can match objects to patterns and has recently learned to recognize numbers 1-12. He has been counting out up to eight objects in a book correctly since last summer (before he was two years old) as well as up to 12 real objects. He can stack 16 cubes or unit blocks. We have used toys such as shape puzzles, sorters, sandpaper numeral peg work, an abacus, used different sized measuring cups and spoons in sensory play and baking, and I have counted things for him and talked about numbers in a natural way since he was a baby.

As of my last post a couple weeks ago, even though he's been ill this whole time, Tyler is now counting to 29 on his own. Needing help with 30, 40, 50, 60 (as he doesn't know his tens) he counted up to 64 last night before getting bored (a similar video is shown above). He is counting backwards from 10-1, occasionally skipping 4. He is able to look at a number of objects (1-3) and know how many there are quickly. He is.understanding quantity not only with tangible things (objects) but will jump, kiss me, pat my nose or do other actions a certain number of times when given a number. He has also been showing early subtraction knowledge. If he is playing with a number of objects and we ask for one object then inquire on how many he has left, he instantly has the answer. Addition has been easy adding with one, though we haven't done more than plus one. He loves to listen to "The 12 days of Christmas" (yes, still...in January) and grab each number from his numbers puzzle as they go up. To him this is fun. It's what he likes. The following are the activities that we've done in the last couple weeks to keep his passions going!

Go Fish

Since Tyler learned his numbers and was so excited by them, I figured we would try to play "Go Fish".
Though we have a deck of cards, I wanted something with bigger numbers and less distractions for the game. I found these Thomas The Train flashcards in the dollar section at Target and purchased two sets. We used numbers 1-6 the first time and I only dealt four cards to myself and four cards to Tyler so he would have less to keep track of.

My husband and I took turned helping him play. He quickly picked up on finding matches of numbers and putting them down. He needed help learning how the game works and the rules of course, but after several games he got the hang of it. My husband then had to cook lunch so I figured that would be the end of playing, but Tyler wanted more. I didn't really think it would work well, but Ty is always ready to prove me wrong lately! We played for at least half an hour.

Ty had trouble holding the cards when he had more than two, so he lay them on the floor as I kinda expected, though sometimes now he will lay them in his lap or hold them. Tyler took to asking me for certain numbers quickly, though once in a while he asked for a random cards without looking at his own. When he got a match, he asked more for more of the same number. It was cute and he didn't mind being redirected and helped a bit. He was okay with handing his cards over to me when he had them. He sure did like telling me to go fish though! He now fully understands the game and needs very little redirection other than convincing when it's time for him to "go fish". He knows he doesn't want more cards!

The only trouble I can spot with this game is that Tyler quickly recognized the correlation between the number of trains or other items on the back of the cards and the number on the other side. One of the first times we played, he grabbed a card with one train on it from the go fish pile, saying "one!". I often found him studying the backs of my cards as well. For this reason I've started to use some higher numbers so it isn't so easy for him to figure out what he's looking at, though it's good practice for him to recognize quantity too, so I do use a few lower numbers he can figure out!

If your child doesn't yet recognize numbers but knows colors, shapes or letters, you could play with those types of flashcards or make your own! I do suggest buying a true set of Go Fish cards if you're able though.
　
Matching Numerals to Visual Quantity

Seeing that Tyler decided to learn the names of numbers 1-10 from his caterpillar puzzle, I knew I needed to get him started on the important stuff a bit more, learning quantity! We'd been using his sandpaper numeral peg boards, but I wanted to mix it up and get the concept into his brain in several different ways. This is a more visual and less "hands on" way to see that, for example "three is MORE than one or two", but it works and will be important in the future for reading a dice.

Using stickers, I made cards with either one, two or three dots on them. I also made cards with the numbers 1-3 to correspond. Tyler's work would be to match the number of dots or stars he saw on the card to the correct number.

This isn't a work that Tyler is ready to do by himself yet, mostly due to maturity. Though his likes this work, laying out cards to match to label cards isn't something he cares to do by himself. He wants me to make it a bit of a game. So, we lay out the numbers, then I gave Tyler one card at a time, asking how many dots he sees. He surprised from the first attempt by shouting out "one!" and "two" correctly right away. With three he sometimes has a bit more pause and I encourage him to count the dots if needed, though other days he's quite quick.

The only "issue" we had with this work (and I noticed it when we did heavy/light and warm/cold sorting), is that Tyler likes to cover the label or number rather than placing them above or below it, making it difficult or impossible to see where the next item may go. I decided to tape the numbers to cups so that he could put the cards inside next time. Though it's ideal to control things such as cup color (keeping everything the same except what is to be focused upon), following the child meant having to push that rule aside as I don't have three same cups or small bowls to work with! He doesn't seem too distracted.　
　
Number Work with Playing Cards

Just before he showed us that he had truly mastered recognizing 1-10 with his puzzle, I decided to get a deck of playing cards out to see if he was interested. He immediately enjoyed finding the numbers and noticing that some were red and others were black. As I sorted through to get rid of everything but the numbers, he became interested in learning the different suits. I knew I had to figure out a way for him to use the cards.

I soon decided to give him cards 1-10 in clubs (I taped over the Aces with 1's) to see if he could put them in numerical order as he does his caterpillar puzzle. He needed a bit of help with the concept and he got to six or seven before getting a bit overwhelmed and moving on to something else. He also kept getting 6 and 9 confused, even though I suggested he count the clubs. He just didn't want to take the time. I decided we would only work on putting 1-5 in order next time.

After putting them in order the next day, I then had 1-5 in hearts ready to go, and asked if he wanted to match them to the clubs by numeral. He was cool with that.

This is a work he has taken off of his shelf to do a few times, though he it isn't a favorite. I'm not sure what he does with it when I'm not around as I sometimes find it laying scattered on his rug with all of his other number works (he isn't as into putting everything back on his own as he used to be...), but something must intrigue him.

Active Numerosity Games

As mentioned near the beginning of this post, I've done a few active games with Tyler to see what he could do with numbers as well as to practice in different ways. Here are some that you may be interested in trying.

Ask your child if they can do whatever they love to a certain amount of times: Could you eat three Cheerios? Could you put two balls in the basket? Could you give me four crayons?

You can also work on intangible actions, asking: Can you stomp your feet six times? Can you give your doll two kisses? Could you pat your head four times?

While we mix it up during the day, Tyler's favorite thing to do is to jump, so I ask if he can jump a certain amount of times, usually no higher than twelve. He wants to play this game quite often! After a couple days of playing, I then added to choices, asking, for example, "Do you want to jump two times or three?" or "Do you want to jump four times or eight?". The latter game made me realize that he does know which number is higher or "more", as he almost always picks the higher number! He wants to jump as many times as possible!

Counting on our Fingers

Since becoming interested in numbers, Tyler has also wanted to be able to show a certain number with his fingers. He first wanted to count our fingers over and over and to push them down or bring them up while we said the numbers. He then started to work more on his own hands.  He delighted in showing us a whole hand and saying "Five" then bringing out his other hand and telling us "ten!". Though it was tricky work at first, he is getting pretty darn good at showing numbers with his fingers, counting backwards and forwards with them. This is something he really wanted to master, so along with just helping him figure it all out, we worked more on finger plays with numbers to make it fun and get him that finger exercise to help his control. These are the songs we used:

Where is Thumbkin?
Five Little Monkeys
The Crocodile Song
Five Little Ducks
Five Little Speckled Frogs

Near Future:
I now want expand upon Tyler's subtraction (it's all been very casual), understanding quantity with higher numbers, using objects to show quantity, and simple fractions. I would love to create the traditional Montessori Red Rods and Spindle Box as I cannot purchase them right now, but haven't quite figured out a very low to no cost way to do it yet that I'm happy with. Here's to hoping inspiration strikes soon!

Linking up with the fabulous Living Montessori Now and 1+1+1=1!

Homemade Matching/Memory Tile Game

These tiles, which can be used upside down for a memory game, or picture side up for matching, were so simple and inexpensive to make! Here's what I did:

Months ago I bought Sesame Street stickers from the dollar store, with three matching sheets in the package. I let him stick one sheet for a random activity and he just adored them, so I've been saving the others for something like this. I've been on a spending freeze for three months now (I literally haven't bought anything new...just recycling old stuff!), but I received some birthday money this week and decided to take some of it to Hobby Lobby and browse around.

There I found the squares shown above (okay, really that's just the empty package to help you find them). They're a lot like Scrabble tiles but with a bigger surface area. They had several different sizes and shapes, but these were perfect for the stickers I planned to use. They were $1.47 per pack of eight and I bought two packs. All of the unfinished wood is currently on sale so I purchased  these and the tray shown above for $3.29! I simply stuck the stickers on and quickly had a cute, durable game for Ty!

He woke from nap very ready to use his new game! There are only eight matches so he just lay them all out at once and picked at random With a larger number of matches we tend to make a pile with one of each match and lay the other set out in lines on the table or rug.

I appreciated how he lined the matches up at the bottom after he made each to get them out of his visual field when looking for other matches. We used to model this for him and it's nice to see that he picked-up on it.

Last one!

Proud of himself and also enjoying the character pictures!