We play math games. They are not the kind of games that can be purchased at the store. They are perfectly tailored to whatever interests happens to capture the attention of the little ones at the moment.
Lately these games involve the building of armies, the defending of territory, the launching of attacks and a whole lot of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division along the way.
It takes a while to not only do the equations but to draw all of the acquired structures, soldiers and other things necessary for a true battle to take place. Sometimes days are spent just organizing troops and their fortifications.
It is slow math at its finest but the fastest part of the deal is the solving of the equations. And that is the point after all, the "real world" application of math, not just solving for the sake of solving.
What math games do you play at your house?
Made up or purchased, we would love to hear about them!
And that is what I had in mind years ago when I thought, I will homeschool my children come hell or high water as I sat in a math class crying because there was now away I would pass this test.
ReplyDeleteOur math is very limited right now. Mostly adding the right number of cups of flour to a bowl or counting hazelnuts we collected on a walk.
I adore hearing about this simple parts of your children's learning process. It just feels so right Dawn!
oh... I feel you about sitting in math class in tears. I hated it from about 7th grade on. My own math has actually gotten much better, faster working with the kids doing these games and baking, etc...
DeleteYou are in a fun stage right now and it just keeps getting more elaborate and exciting for them!
Ha ha! This looks eerily familiar. Math often looks like this at our house too.
ReplyDeleteOne of T's favorite logic activities used to involve his collection of plastic creatures. We would each secretly take one and write down clues describing our secret creature: I do not have feathers. I have green eyes. My body is round…It was hard to do, because T owns many characters, and we needed to make sure our description led to a single creature. (I wrote more about it here, if you're curious, Dawn. http://patriciazaballos.com/2010/08/16/following-the-kid/ )
My I just say how much I love those spider droids?
Tee Hee the Spider Droids. They are my favorites too.
DeleteOff to check out your link! Sounds like fun!
Such a fun way to learn :) Math is pretty simple in our home right now...counting as we bake, talking about halves and wholes as I slice a peach up, organizing things and then counting them. All of it lead by him.
ReplyDeleteJust the way I remember that age Kim! Such a great time of exploring the basic concepts!
DeleteThis looks delightful! I dream of having drawn out activities and projects like this going on in my house when my kids are older. Building worlds and universes and events is just plain neat.
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