Tag Archives: math

How You Can Practice Math While You’re Eating

Posted by melissa.t on May 3, 2013 None comments

$Math Fun with Food$

Kids, even as young as two-years old, can add math to meal time. Learning is always more enjoyable when it’s fun. So combine food and math and you’ll be reinforcing math concepts.

1. Counting

Practice counting everything you eat– bites, pieces, chews.

2. Addition

At a restaurant, add up the prices of what your family orders. How much will the meal cost?

3. Division

Since kids always want everything to be fair, work on division with creating “fair shares” of food like cookies or pizza. What is a fair share? How do you know?

4. Multiplication

Learn how to tip 20% but multiplying your restaurant bill by .1 and doubling it.

5. Estimation

Ask your kids to estimate quantity. So, how many 1/4 cups of cereal to you estimate will it take to fill up your cereal bowl?

6. Measurement

Of course, cooking gives children lots of math practice in measurement. Here are some fun cookbooks for kids.

Betty Crocker Kids Cook

William-Sonoma Kids in the Kitchen: Fun Food

Eat Your Math Homework: Recipes for Hungry Minds

Yummy Muffin Recipe

Guilt Free Chocolate Muffins
adapted from Health, March 2008 – one of our favorite recipes!

1 c applesauce
1 tsp canola oil
1/2 sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
3/4 c. oat flour
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c chocolate chip cookies

Mix wet ingredients and dry separately, stir together. Bake for 30 minutes at 350.

Now it’s time for you to eat your math . . .

Photo credit: Darwin Bell / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Play with Math! Size, Numbers, and Shapes Games

Posted by melissa.t on August 17, 2012 None comments

It’s back to school time. It’s also time to get kids back into math play and learning! There are many great math games for kids that are so fun kids won’t notice how much they’re learning. Here are our favorites.

Sorting Games

Fruity Fun Pie

Shape Sorting Cube

Mix and Match Doughnuts

The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game

Numbers and Counting Games

Shape Games

Creative Peg Puzzle – Numbers

Shape Sorting Cube

Imaginets

Time Game

Pink Telly the Teaching Time Clock

Great Gift for Girls and Boys That Builds Brain Function, GeoMags

Posted by melissa.t on December 19, 2011 None comments

Need a last minute gift for a boy or girl ages 4, 5, 6, or 7? Get your little builders GeoMags Sets and see the brain magic happen! Okay, you can’t really see the brain growing but, science proves that building helps children’s brain function (cognition) improve and we all know that building is just plain old fun!

GeoMag Kids 110 piece set contains 60 magnetic bars and 50 steel balls, or spheres like this set below.

What can you build with these magnetic sticks and balls?

How about two-dimensional or three-dimensional shapes?

Parents, can you remember what these geometric shapes are called? (If I remember correctly, they’re a triangular prism with a triangular pyramid on top.)

The GeoMag Kids 150-piece set includes the magnetic bars and spheres but gives you panels — square and triangular panels.

See these triangular panels in the two-dimensional hexagon made from triangles? (You don’t need to know the geometric shapes — but it adds an nice math learning component, don’t you think?)

Add more triangle panels and you can turn it into a three-dimensional shape. (Um, don’t ask me the name of this one, . . . no idea!)

If you need more kid gift suggestions, read The Ten Best Toys of 2011.

Math Slam Better Than Flashcards

Posted by melissa.t on September 15, 2011 1 comments

I don't know about your kids but mine hate flashcards. And, I can't say that I blame them – they're kind of boring, right? After all, learning your math facts is pretty much memorization and lots of practice.

This summer, my kids were saved from the dreaded flashcards with Math Slam. What's more, it worked for both my 6-year old and my 9-year old.

So, Math Slam is an electronic Educational Insights product which tests kids on their math facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in three different skill levels. Kids see and hear the math questions which I like. Then, the child must hit the correct answer on the corresponding colored circle.

So, my first grader could practice some easy addition and subtraction while my fourth grader could practice the levels of multiplication and division. It helped keep both kids practicing math and made it really fun and active, which my kids need. Don't all kids?

Now that school's back in session, my fourth grader needs to keep practicing her multiplication and division facts every night. I let her choose and she almost always chooses to practice with Math Slam. Other choices include flashcards, iPad math apps, multiplication rap music, and practice quizzes.

How do your kids practice their math facts?

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