The Learning Umbrella

Early math lends itself so nicely to games and puzzles.  I remember some favorite games from childhood, like MathBlasters for the Atari, or a boardgame we had that involved arithmetic and outer space.  Those games were a big part of how I learned to do basic math, and they made it “fun and games” instead of “drill and kill” to memorize math facts.

I’ve been inspired by some preschool books I’ve read to try and create my own math games for Carbon.  He doesn’t even care if the rules are very clear – in fact we sometimes have our best learning with set-ups that have open ended rule possibilities.  His counting skills have solidified up to 12, and he’s starting to play with the concepts of addition and subtraction.  He’s also starting to recognize some of the numeral symbols.

A few of our set-ups:

9 squares (pictured).  Materials: a square divided into 9 smaller squares and labeled 1-9, bottle caps, 2 dice.  Play: roll the dice twice, so the first roll tells you which square you’re using (ignore all rolls over 9) and the second roll tells you how many caps to put on the square.  To win: make the biggest stack of caps you can before they fall over.  They love the falling over aspect of the game, and so far no one worries too much about who won – just how big the tower got.

Fishing.  Materials: paper fish with numbers written on them, paper clips stuck on the fish, a string with a magnet on the end.  Play: drop all the fish into a bucket and take turns fishing them out and arranging them in order.  First person to get 1-10 wins.  The variations have proven to be practically endless.

Snail Race.  Materials: small round rocks with spirals drawn on them (the snails), a number line, dice.  Play: roll the dice and move your snail that many places.  First snail to the finish line wins.  A very basic game, but they still love it.

Lilly Pad Hop.  Materials: felt lillypads with numbers written on them (sharpie marker so it shows up), plastic frogs (plus other little plastic animals keep joining the game), a stopwatch.  Play: drop the frogs randomly on the lillypads, then time how long it takes to get the frogs sorted so there are 4 on the lillypad labeled 4, etc.  Trying to set a new “world record” for speed is the goal of the game.

I’m thinking of developing a new one using those gold coin chocolates and some sort of pirate treasure theme – maybe we could eat the chocolates as part of the play.  So far, they’ve all been wonderful, and we can afford to have a large variety when I’m making them myself.  I haven’t spent more than $5 (Lilly pad hop) on any of them.

Learning is just one big game!