“Worksheet problems make my daughter’s brain freeze. Even simple things such as “2 + ___ = 2″ confuse her. What can I do?”
Can your daughter do math if you put away the worksheet and ask her a real-life problem: “I have a lunch sack. I put two cookies into the sack, and then I give it to you. When you look into the sack, you see two cookies there. Can you tell me what was in the sack at the beginning, before I put my cookies in?”
Or can she solve problems when the answer isn’t zero? Could she figure out how many you started with if she saw four cookies when she looked in the sack?
The idea of having a number for “nothing” can seem strange to young children.
Worksheet Calculations Are Not Math
Can your daughter think mathematically, without calculations?
The symbols on the worksheet are not math. They are just one way of recording how we think about number relationships, and not a very natural way for children. Mathematics is a way of thinking — paying attention to the relationship between ideas and reasoning out connections between them. Encourage your daughter to notice these relationships and wonder about them.
Try watching Christopher Danielson’s video “One is one … or is it?” together, and then see how many different examples of “one” she can find around the house.
The Power of Story
Many kids at this age have a hard time with abstract number math — then their brains will grow up, and they’ll be able to do it. Development varies from one child to another.
When I do worksheets with young children, I turn each equation into a little story. Like the “cookies in a lunch sack” story above.
Sometimes we use blocks or other manipulatives to count on, but often the mental picture of a story is enough. Having something solid to imagine helps the child reason out the relationships between the numbers and symbols.
CREDITS: Carl Vilhelm Holsøe ‘Interior with a mother reading aloud to her daughter’ 19th Century. Image from Plum Leaves via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
This post is an excerpt from my book Let’s Play Math: How Families Can Learn Math Together—and Enjoy It, as are many of the articles in my Let’s Play Math FAQ series.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 