math is fun…

What? Math is FUN? Yep.

Many of you might not know that in my previous life, I was an elementary school teacher. I taught 2nd grade for 4 years and 4th for 2 years before having our firstborn and leaving the classroom to help primary grade teachers with their math program. I gave demonstration lessons and did staff development. I LOVED that job. But I loved my baby boy more and we decided that after 1 1/2 years of part time work, it was time to stay home with my boy full time.

What does that have to do with anything? I promise it wasn’t extraneous information but rather my ‘credentials’ for the following information.

Math can be fun!

And today I found a fun tool to help you make it fun.

Today at the Dollar Tree I found these Jumbo Foam Dice. So many possibilities for fun with these babies. Not the least of which is MATH.

Do you have a youngster working on one-to-one correspondence? (an important skill…rote counting is just counting 1-2-3-4-5 without attaching it to anything. One-to-one correspondence means they can point at something and count it one by one. This is a concrete skill whereas rote counting is just memorizing which number comes next). Have them roll the dice and count the dots.

Your kiddo a bit more advanced? Move on to addition…adding the two numbers from the dice together.

Next step…subtraction…subtract the smaller number from the larger number.

Need bigger numbers? Add the numbers from one roll and then add/subtract the sum of the next roll.

Third grader? Multiply the numbers. (Division is a little bit harder to work out using the limited numbers on the dice…)

The possibilities are endless. Well, you are limited to the numbers 1-6…but you get what I mean.

Math can be fun and the kids hardly know that they are working on automaticity of the facts (knowing addition/subtraction/multiplication facts without counting).

That was my public service for the day. :)

Kristen

p.s. I tried to find them on the Dollar Tree website, but they weren’t there. If you google them, you’ll see that all sorts of places carry them…but mine were only $1 a pack! Oriental Trading Company has some in packs…go in with a friend and get everyone some!