Valentine's Day Math Games: Division and Subtraction Cards and other games

I made a Valentine's Day set of division cards to use with LD over the next week or so. We use these cards to play a game called Fast Track -- an idea we got from Peggy Kaye's Games for Math.
To make the board you need a large piece of butcher paper or poster board. There are three win spaces, three start spaces and various directions on the other spaces such as stay put, move ahead three, double move, triple move, go back 1 space, lose a turn and so forth. Each player takes a turn turning over a card and solving the problem. He/she moves ahead that many spaces and follows the directions on the space. For example, if he moves ahead 10 and lands on a double move space, then he gets to take another card and go again. The first player to land on a "win" space wins the game.
You can download a set of the Valentine's Day Division Cards here if you are interested.

Here's another glimpse at the game board I made over a year ago.

DD also loves playing this board came so I made a set of subtraction cards for her.  You can down load the
Valentine's Day Subtraction Cards here. We all played the game together with LD using his division cards and DD using her subtraction cards.

Since DD is still working on these subtraction problems and doesn't know them by heart, she uses her abacus (pictured below) to help her work through the problem. We still use many of the wonderful ideas and manipulatives from the Right Start Math curriculum, though we use it as an extra rather than our core math.

Last year when we played this game, DD was working on sums of 10 through 17.  I made a set of cards for her and you can download the Addition Cards here.

The other game we've been playing is just a simple eraser toss game.  ED has trouble remembering her numbers consistently by sight so she simply has to tell us the number she landed on.  DD has to double the number she lands on while LD has to square the number. It's a quick game that all three kids enjoyed.

In the photo below is a skip-counting maze I printed out for DD.  You can find it and other skip counting sheets (1s,2s,3s,4s,5s)  at Print Activities.

Finally, here are the Valentine's Day activities we did last year.

Our Move: On another note, next week, the week of Valentine's Day, our blog will be joining the Parent's team over at Parents.com/blog.  I'll have a link from this address to get you there.  I hope you'll check in on us there!  We've done some great experiments and will be sharing more about our geography, history and preschool activities in the next couple of weeks. 

Math Movement Game for My Preschooler

 ED (age 3) needs more work identifying her numbers 4-9 and counting consistently with one-to-one correspondence.  This is an action game I put together for her to work on some of her preschool skills.

There are two dice:
1) with the numbers 4 through 9
2) with the shapes -- star, square,
oval, rectangle, circle and triangle

There's a game board with 24 spaces and these symbols on them.

There are wooden numbers 4-9 and a set of numbers on the game board to match the numbers.

Each player needs to perform an action in order to move along the gameboard. Let me explain:

When a player takes a turn she rolls both dice.  Let's say she rolls a star. She moves her piece to the next available star on the gameboard.  Then she looks at the number on the other die.  Let's say it's an eight.  She finds the wooden eight and places it on the 8 on the gameboard (see picture below).  Finally, she does the action (a star=run) 8 times. So she runs around the room 8 times.

Finally it's the next player's turn.  The first person to get to the end of the road and roll the correct symbol (ours was a triangle or a star -- see the gameboard above), wins.

DD does 6 somersaults (above) while ED does the tabletop for 8 seconds.

 

I've been trying to add in a lot more games with our math curriculum. I'll be blogging about that more this next week.

Piggy Bank Counting; Odd Man Out (odd-even game)

Piggy bank counting --
In this activity, the kids each had their own sets of coins and 'piggy bank.'  (DD had nickles and pennies; LD had quarters, dimes, nickles and pennies.)

LD tossed his coins onto his piggy bank.  He got to 'keep' the ones that were heads up.  He sorted those and got rid of all the ones on 'tails."

Before counting his coins he had to trade in his pennies for dimes or nickles at the bank (the tray in the picture below.)

Sorting out the coins he got to keep (those coins on heads)

LD is counting out 10 pennies to trade at the bank for a dime.

Odd Man Out -- I had never gone over the concept of odd and even with DD.  Today was the day.  To reinforce these concepts, I pulled out 6 tiles.  She had to roll the die, get that number of tiles and determine whether each counter had a partner (even) or if one was alone/the odd man out (odd). Pretty simple, right?!

We played this game at least 30 times, so I guess she liked it!

Eventually we decided to keep a tally of how many times even or odd came up.  And then we turned it into a competition to see who won on each side (who won the even side; who won the odd side).

Math Gameboards and other stuff

It's been a long time since I mentioned these math gameboards from The School Bell.  DD and I have played these addition fact games.

Let's say DD and I were playing on the 5s gameboard. DD drew a 5 card, then she would move her piece to the next 0.  On my turn, if I drew a 4, I would move my piece to the next 1 on the board. The first player to have their piece in the final circle wins the game. 

Here are the gameboards and worksheet from The School Bell (on the right in the picture above) that LD and I have used lately.

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I haven't been writing much about other things partly because they don't take good pictures! We read about 6-10 picture books each day. We sneak books in pretty much anytime, but especially when we're eating around the dining room table.  We read lots of Caldecott award winning books together along with other good picture books.  We got a huge lot (of about 75 or 80) Newberry winners.  They are longer chapter books and I've let LD choose what interests him. We're reading the Whipping Boy  now (I read those aloud.). I've been pre-reading the books myself (I sure loved Caddie Woodlawn and can't wait to read that with the kids sometime! I was really touched by Wringer, but suspect I'll wait a couple of years before sharing that with LD (found it really touched upon being humane and making the difficult choice to stand up to what you believe in.) Meanwhile, LD continues to work through the Magic Treehouse books by himself.  He seems to love those books and they've generated a lot of interest in history in general.

We're busy with lots of outside activities now -- soccer (LD), gymnastics (LD and a tot-class for ED), dance class (DD), music classes (for all three), homeschool group (all three) and other endless opportunities!   LD is still learning the piano.  We keep meaning to start back with science experiments, but for some reason I haven't had the planning time I've needed.  I'm thinking I should go back and simply repeat a lot of the ones we did last year (but I haven't even done that and we're already 6 weeks into the semester!)  There's never a shortage of science-based activities here at the homeschool den, but LD especially loves that hands on element.

Meanwhile, I continue to try to make a blueberry garden--digging out the grass/sod, beating the sod to get rid of the dirt, trying to loosen the soil, etc. [Later: I just had to add these pictures of ED helping me in her princess garb.  Too cute!!] It's slow, tedious and semi-strenuous work.  Unpacking is still an unfinished job.  Ugh.  I might spent an hour or two tackling one area of the house, but then the kids doing their creative things elsewhere, which usually winds up meaning HUGE cleanup times.  Creative messes, as I like to tell myself.  There just seem to be so many projects we need to tackle (putting gutter-guards over the rain gutters to keep out leaves is one of Daddy's big projects, for example). 

We're slowly meeting people and making friends, though I have to admit there are lots of times I'm still quite lonely.  We might have quality time with friends and the kids have a good play or fun at their activities, but somehow it's not been enough for me personally (just to chat, commiserate and complain with good friends).  I know that's often the life of homeschoolers as we've chosen such a different path to most, but I feel it more acutely as I have no contact with my Australian friends (time differences and such) and have yet to make those close connections here. It's also so different since Daddy is gone for such long, long hours.  So, there's my complaining for the moment.  I try to be positive about most things, but boy transitions are hard, right? Sigh...

Ending on a positive note, the kids just love, love the woods and creek area here near the house and we continue to see all kinds of amazing critters.  There were a dozen bats circling overhead the other evening.  LD has a little toad habitat he's been keeping (he always lets the frogs go since we learned their skin can be toxic to other little critters).  And today, for example, the kids saw a box turtle.   What a beautiful and special world we live in!

I thought this was so cute -- I know Grams is probably cringing seeing ED in her princess dress and sparkle shoes, but she was so determined to help, I thought it was adorable!

And with help like this, what Mom wouldn't smile?!

Math Activities

Here was a quick math activity for DD. The princess bookmarks were from here.

It had been a while since LD did this place value activity, so I added this in to our other activities.  I really like the purple paper beads which I printed out from here. I bound 10 sets of 100s with a brad to make a 1000 bead bunch.  While we also have actual Montessori beads, I've used this set lots and lots. You can see in the picture that LD had to build the number by laying the thousands on the bottom, then 100s, tens and units.

LD did a number of other activities as well -- work in a math workbook, work with me with our Right Start Math curriculum and a math game (yet another round of Fast Track!)

Math Games We've Been Playing Lately

These past six weeks or so, LD has been doing a lot of work in his math workbook (that's not terribly exciting to blog about, is it?!!). That was easiest for me while we were on travel and as we settled in. We generally use Right Start Math, but it is quite Mom-intensive, so we had to put that on the back burner for a while. In fact, we only started back into Right Start this week.

In addition to the math workbook, we've been playing some math games. DD is LOVING math time and begs to play math games most of the day.  She is doing simple addition with these games while LD has been focusing on subtraction.

Fast Track: We got the idea for this from the wonderful book, Games for Math by Peggy Kaye. It is a simple path with several start boxes, several win boxes and others such as draw two, go ahead two, go back three, stay put, double move, triple move.

Using flash cards (for DD -- addition facts to 6 such as 2+4 and for LD subtraction cards such as 13-7) a player moves until he/she cannot move anymore. For example, if you move from the start place and move 4 spots and land on a "double move, the player then picks up a new card and moves that number of spots twice.  If they then land on a "move ahead 2," they move ahead. They keep moving until they land on a spot such as lose a turn, start, or stay put.  The object is to be the first person to land on one of the "win" spots.  It's a fast moving games and a lovely way to review math facts.

All three kids have had fun with the Math Mat recently.  ED (age 2 1/2) steps on the numbers as they are called out (with help from her brother and sister).  DD does the numbers and occasionally does the easy addition and LD does addition and subtraction trying to get as many points as possible.

Another game from Peggy Kaye's book, Games for Math, is called star count. LD and I have played this for the past couple of weeks.  On your turn, you roll the die and make that number of circles on your paper. Then it's the other player's turn.  On your second turn, you roll the die and draw that number of starts in each circle. The winner is the person who has the most stars.  A quick, easy game and a good intro to multiplication.

We've also been playing a lot of Math War these days (the person with the highest number wins that round).  There are some wonderful addition and subtraction cards at Confessions of a Homeschooler (called Add It! and Subtract It!) if you want to print your own.

DD still wants to play Sunny Side Up most every day!  Here are the directions again. Again, this is a great game for introducing your preschooler/kindergartner to double digit numbers.

Bird Related Activities

So aside from learning about the birds in our area (which are all new to the kids), I also selected a number of general bird and chicken activities to slip into their workboxes. Here are a couple they did today:

DD had this chicken grid game from prekinders.com in her workbox today for math.  We played with two dice and she had to try adding them together.  That's quite challenging for her (4 1/2), but it added a new dimension since one die is to simple.  I was amused that LD came RUNNING over to play a few rounds with us!

DD and ED also had pattern blocks in their workbox today.  DD had a bird pattern, but I didn't get a picture of that!  You can download a lot of free pattern pictures from prekinders.com.  I especially like those because you can choose the black and white option (as above) for older kids and a colored version, which ED (2 1/2) uses.

Preschool Games

In this game, I made a number of dice with the numbers
0-5
6-10
10-15
Each player chooses the mouse they want to be. Then
each player choose one die for that round. Both/all
players roll their dice and pick up that number of
cookies for their mouse.

Spin the spinner for that round and see who the "winner/s"
was/were.

cookies were from:
http://www.learningtreasures.com/suite101/literature/cookie_math_plate_counters.jpg
other cute activities relating to If You Give A Mouse
A Cookie from Belinda Mooney are at:
http://kidscrafts.suite101.com/article.cfm/i_give_a_mouse_a_cookie_pattens
I especially like her cute alphabet cards















The butterfly net catcher game is just the same.
Each player chooses a die, rolls it and then someone
spins the spinner to see who was the winner.

Pretty butterflies were from http://prekinders.com/bugsunit.htm.
In the printer options I chose "multiple copies per
page" so that the butterflies would be small enough.
















Squirrel Grid Game:
http://prekinders.com/forestunit.htm

Each player takes a turn rolling the die and
covering the squirrel with acorns (the acorn counters
were from kidssoup.com, a paid site I really enjoy).
The first player to cover their board wins.

Princess Counting

I printed off princess bookmarks from here. (I
actually used the j-peg image so I could print
two sets (16 bookmarks total) on one page, but you
can also get the larger bookmarks in a pdf file there.
(It took several tries, but I did manage to view the
pdf file, just so you know.) I put a dot sticker on
the bottom with the numerals 1-19. I pulled out
our beads and DD has really enjoyed working
with them!! (She's working on the felt board
I made that folds up compact when not in use.)

Below is a wooden scrap booking set that I
saw when I went to a big craft store down South
last November. We've been meaning to pull
out the paints for DD to decorate it; we finally
did for the princess theme table. After the
paint was dry she and ED played with it a lot!

Theme Time: Princess

With two girls, we have lots of princess things
around. Since it really appeals to the girls, I see
no reason not to tap into their interests. So from bugs,
frogs and the outdoors one day--to princesses the next!

At any rate, the princess theme was a big hit
especially the wooden castle which DD painted
and the princess numbers/beads. We did lots of
building, puzzle making, read lots of princess books
and things like that.

Theme Time: Dinosaurs

It's amazing how many books and things you find
in various nooks and crannies around the house.
We had quite a large selection of dinosaur books,
puzzles, animals (mostly from my childhood!).
I added in a puppet, board game and made a
math worksheet for DD. (You can download it
at the right if you're interested.) 

The wonderful thing about this was that ED and
DD spent a LOT of time here today doing things
independently (though I did play the board game, read
lots of books, helped ED do the puzzle four or five times
etc. -- I'm always a ping-pong ball-back and forth
between the kids!!)  while I worked with LD on his project.