Card Game Math

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that we had started working on addition and was worried about doing it right.  Since then, I've found a couple ways to make the "plus 1, plus 2," fun.  Today I'm sharing a variation on the classic "Go Fish."

First, we decided how many cards to play with.  My poor little guy could not quite fit 7 cards in his hand, so we settled on 5.  Even then, it was a bit of a struggle and we had a good lesson on spreading out the cards.

Instead of asking for matches, like in regular "Go Fish", the object of this game was to ask for the "+1".  Beck had to look at the cards in his hand and then ask me for a card that would equal his card plus one.  It took a lot of concentrating and turned into a good lesson on sequencing as he started at one side of his hand of cards and thought about the +1 for each card all the way across.

Similar pictures, I know, but this is pretty much how he looked the whole time we were playing

At first we were only laying down cards when we had a "+1".  For example, if he had a 2 and asked me for a 3, he would lay down that pair.  It was taking forever.  So we started looking for "+1's" in our hand before asking the other player.  It helped to be able to lay down "+1" pairs before we even asked the other person. And even though we were replenishing our hands to 5 after each turn, the game went much, much faster!

You might be able to tell from the look on his face that Beck didn't really like this game.  He started out confused why he couldn't ask for matches, got frustrated when he couldn't spread out and see all his cards, and then just got bored.  But, I think it's a great way to work on his math skills and we should be able to adapt it for "+2" and "+3" as well.  First, I'll definitely figure out a way to make holding the cards a little easier!

Fun Weekend Game Q&A

I've been trying hard to focus on my kids' own creativity this week and haven't made it much farther in the Teaching Your Children activities.  To catch up this weekend, we'll be practicing how to ask a question:

When it's convenient and fun, name a category and ask your child to form a question about it. 

 For example, if the category is food, they may ask,

 "What food are we having for dinner?" or "How do grapes grow?" 

 Make the game spontaneous, encourage them, and then be available with the answers.  

If it feels comfortable, introduce them to the question words,

"What," "When," "Where," "Who," and "How."

Have fun and come back to let me know what questions you heard!

How's the Weather?

It's freezing at our house today and the weather report calls for 100mph winds coming over the mountains before morning.  We decided to forego today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity and play games instead.  Maybe if it's nice where you live, you can get out and do some exploring for us!

Take a nature walk.  

Ask your kids what they can see and hear.

Point out "nature" and "non-nature" items.

What did you see?

Learning Through Games

I discovered the PERC (Parents Education Resource Center) at my local library yesterday.  It's a small room in the basement of the library crammed FULL of toys, games, and educational materials.  I really mean crammed and I really mean full.  It was overwhelming.  I'm quite certain they've saved decades of educational materials and I'm extremely excited to dig around for flannel boards and file folder games to fit my lessons perfectly (and those just to get started...).

Today we played one of our newly borrowed games. It was educational for both Beck and me.  Here's how:

The Dice: My instinct was to shout out the number immediately after Beck rolled.  I started thinking about how I look at the dots and automatically recognize the number by their alignment, but he hasn't learned that yet.  I started making a conscious effort to stay quiet and let him count each dot individually to determine how many spaces he could go.  As we neared the end of our second round I noticed that there were numbers he was starting to recognize by shape without needing to count.

The Spaces: My husband and I have never been too strict about how Beck moves spaces when we're playing games, but today it felt right to let him know there are actual rules and ways to know how far he's supposed to go.  I guess it was really getting him to understand what "spaces" actually are.  He learned how to start counting at the very next space from where he landed last time and that each box represents one number or "space".  When we started he was scooting his piece random distances, but when we ended he was counting spaces just as well as he was counting dots.

The Creativity:  This is what Beck is continually teaching me.  At the end of our first game he wanted to play again and he wanted us both to have two playing pieces.  I assumed he meant we would each take two turns and move our pieces individually.  But just like when he taught me playing Candy Land, he had his own ideas again today.  Yes, he wanted us to both have two pieces, but he wanted them to travel together.  I got a little more excited to play another drawn-out round when I realized it was going to take us twice as long!

Also on my mind while we played was last night's episode of NBC's Parenthood.  (If you've never watched it, you definitely need to catch up on the back episodes and catch up.  It touches home every single week!)  In the episode one of the family's was confronted with the need to teach their 6-year-old how to lose graciously. I was glad today when I made it to the finish line first both times and Beck took it in stride.  The second time he kept playing and even enforced his own lose-a-turns.  He's pretty amazing.

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity:  

Look at photos of people in varying degrees of fitness

 and talk about what things help us to stay healthy and in good shape.

Great Children's Games

I love that so many activity suggestions in Teaching Your Children Joy are simple and classic.  Yesterday and today's activities were games that everyone knows, yet I have never gotten around to playing them with my boys.  We have now, with mixed reactions.

Yesterday we played Simon Says.  I thought it would be great to teach body parts to my younger one, and directions to my older one.  What really happened is that Peyton walked away immediately and Beck HATED it because he was so bored.  This is definitely a game we're going to have to try again when we have a larger group of people to play.

Today we did the "Hokey Pokey" with much better results.  My boys love music and dancing, and the "Hokey Pokey" lets you be completely goofy.  We LOVED it! 

 Why not crank up your computer volume and dance along!

Every Kid Loves Games

Today's Teaching Your Children Joy activity:

Play "Duck, Duck, Goose", London Bridge, or other anticipatory games

What are your children's favorite games?