This game builds conceptual understanding of multiplication or fraction models.
Many parents remember struggling to learn math. We hope to provide a better experience for our children. And one of the best ways for children to enjoy learning is through hands-on play.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s play some math!
Math Concepts: multiplication or fraction models.
Players: two or more.
Equipment: one deck of math model cards, or a double deck for four or more players.
This game lays a great foundation for your child’s understanding of multiplication and fractions.
Many parents remember struggling to learn math. We hope to provide a better experience for our children. And one of the best ways for children to enjoy learning is through hands-on play.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s play some math!
Math Concepts: multiplication or fraction models, visual/spatial memory.
Players: any number.
Equipment: one deck of math model cards.
Continue reading Math Game Monday: Concentration with Math Model Cards
There’s a new Math Game Monday this week.
Have your kids tried it yet?
This week’s game is one of my favorites for upper-elementary and middle school students, offering plenty of practice doing estimation and mental math with fractions. Or you might prefer last week’s game, featuring a classic two-player logic puzzle that develops strategic reasoning.
Or, if you’re reading this post later and missed those, there’s another great new game this week for you to play.
Check it out:
My eight-year-old daughter’s first encounter with improper fractions was a bit more intense than she knew how to handle. And I hadn’t learned yet how to use the Notice-Wonder-Create cycle to help kids think about tough problems.
Sometimes I wonder how our children survive their parents’ learning curve. It’s a good thing God made them resilient enough to thrive despite our mistakes!
This is the last post (for now, at least) in our If Not Methods series about how to help children figure out tough calculations.
By the time students reach the topic of multiplying fractions, they have become well-practiced at following rules. After some of the complex procedures they’ve learned, a simple rule like “tops times tops, and bottoms times bottoms” comes as a relief.
But we know that relying on rules like that weakens understanding, just as relying on crutches weakens physical muscles.
If we want our students to think, to make sense of math, to figure things out, what can we do with a problem like 5/6 × 21 ?
Continuing our series on teaching the tough topics of arithmetic…
Our own school math experiences led many of us to think that math is all about memorizing and following specific procedures to get right answers. But that kind of math is obsolete in our modern world.
The math that matters today is our ability to recognize and reason about numbers, shapes, and patterns, and to use the relationships we know to figure out something new.
But what if our children get stumped on a mixed-number calculation like 2 5/12 + 1 3/4?
We’re continuing our series of posts on how to build robust thinking skills instead of forcing our children to walk with crutches.
When we say, “Use this method, follow these steps,” we teach kids to be mathematical cripples.
If your student’s reasoning is, “I followed the teacher’s or textbook’s steps and out popped this answer,” then they’re not doing real math. Real mathematical thinking says, “I know this and that are both true, and when I put them together, I can figure out the answer.”
But what if our kids get stumped on a fraction calculation like 7/8 − 1/6?
As I said in an earlier post, we don’t want to give our children a method because that acts as a crutch to keep them from making sense of math.
But what if our children get stumped on a tough fraction calculation like 1 1/2 ÷ 3/8?
I just discovered a fascinating fact: In some places in the world, mixed numbers apparently don’t exist.
So that made me curious about my blog readers:
And if you DO know mixed numbers, can you simplify this mess:
[If you enjoy dry math humor, the answer is worth the work.]
The all-time most-visited page on this site is my post about Math War: The Game That Is Worth 1,000 Worksheets. It’s easy to adapt to almost any math topic, simple to learn, and quick to play. My homeschool co-op students love it.
But Math War isn’t just for elementary kids. Several teachers have shared special card decks to help middle and high school students practice math by playing games.
Take a look at the links below for games from prealgebra to high school trig. And try the Math War Trumps variation at the end of the post to boost your children’s strategic-thinking potential.
Have fun playing math with your kids!
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 