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Math- where to begin with 5 year old
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Without using a curriculum yet, I’m not sure how to daily work on math effectively with my son. Can someone point me in the right direction? I really am hoping he will not develop an extreme dislike for math like my older son. Thanks!
Counting would be where I would start. Use buttons, beans, blocks, whatever you have, and count them. When he can do that (and he may be able to already), do some basic addition and subtraction. (“Look, here are 4 buttons.” Then add a button or two and say, “Now how many buttons are there? Yes there are 5 or 6.”) Let him build it too. If he starts getting the hang of that pretty quickly, you can apply it to daily situations and make little word problems out of it. For example, during snack time, ask him to count how many grapes he has on his plate. Then ask him to eat one grape and ask how many grapes are left. Or, if he’s playing with cars, say something like, “You’re driving 2 cars and I’m driving 2 cars. How many cars do we have together?” If you make games out of it, they rarely dislike anything.
Can he recognize and write numbers? If not, maybe work on that. If so, you could introduce him to the different signs (+, -, =)
Geometry is also part of math, so does he know his shapes well? If so, teach him simple concepts like the difference between a square and a rectangle or that a triangle has three sides and three angles.
You could also get out some coins and discuss the worth of each, and then count them. This is a great way to introduce skip counting by 5 and 10.
Those are some of the ideas I have off the top of my head. I’m positive you’ll get more!
Blessings,
Lindsey
P.S. I know you aren’t using a formal curriculum yet, but I was able to use MUS Primer with my 5yos. They loved it!
I have used the Saxon K book (very pared down, minus the meeting book – just manipulative work – I got it super cheap used), and the MUS Primer with my little ones and liked both. If you are looking for just good ideas and maybe a bit of scope and sequence, check out Ruth Beechick’s Three R’s book – lots of great ideas and direction there – no curriculum needed (and the book is very affordable).
Do you know which curriculum you eventually want to do???
Besides everyday things…
If doing RS – don’t focus on counting – find “Yellow is the Sun” song on the site and practice singing that with actions.
If doing MUS – see if you can get the blocks and do simple activities with them (I don’t know any details…)
If doing MEP – their Reception year is a great introduction, and is free….
hope that helps!
I like http://www.lessonpathways.com as a place to get ideas. The basic idea is that they have collected different online resources into little ‘lessons’. Essentially it’s just a collection of links that relate to a topic. So, you could look at the math programs for a list of the skills that would be appropriate for your son, and then just pick and choose some activities to use. This would give some guidance, but you wouldn’t need to be following a structured curriculum (although if you choose, you can follow their suggested order.) Most early math skills can be learned in very informal ways, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do on any given day.
Joanne
Really you don’t need to do anything structured with your five year old. Charlotte said that we should not begin academics before 6. Before 6 they should be outside, we should read to them, we should work on habit training, and they should be involved in our daily activities. If you do those things you will lay the foundation they need for academics. I have two girls 5 and 8. I did more with my 8yo than I would do if I did it over again. My 5yo does not have a structure for this year. She listens in to our other school books and often tags along on projects. We do incorporate math into our daily lives though. We count things. (I did RS for a year with my oldest and counting items did not seem to be a problem for her when we transitioned to the RS way of looking at groups of 5. At this age you are working on one-to-one correspondence anyway.) We talk about many items we have (napkins on the table) and how many more we need for everyone to have one. We have been orally working on adding 1 or subtracting 1 when she begs to do math when big sister is working on an oral problem. But that is nothing more than helping her realize that counting by 1 is adding 1. You are probably already doing more than you realize every day that is laying the foundation in math.
I would look at The Three R’s by Ruth Beechick. I think she gives good advice for curriculum free math in the lower grades.
There was a juggler that you count the balls he is juggling and put the number of balls on the right amount of balls you count. I used this with my daughter. I laminated them all and put a peice of velcroed under the juggler. This way she could removed them and use them over and over. I also put them in a file folder so we could take with us.
Now where did I find the juggler site?????
Ok I think I found it…
I think it was on Homeschool share
http://files2.homeschoolshare.com/docs32465/workboxes/juggling_numbers.pdf
They have a lot of school things for a 5 year old.
Good Luck and happy hunting!
http://www.livingmath.net is a very helpful site for that age.
Peggy Kayes Games for Math is excellent for younger ones.
I also second Ruth Beechicks Three R’s.
Most importantly, have fun with them at this age – they grow so fast
.We are using Miquon for K along with many of the activities here:
http://www.educationunboxed.com/
We only do a page or two a week, and play with the C-rods on the other days.
I third Ruth Beechicks Three R’s.
I would also play board games like candyland, chutes and ladders, old maid, etc.
We have loved the living books for math from Mathstart by Stuart Murphy: http://www.mathstart.net/ There are other math books we have liked at http://www.livingmath.net/EarlyConcepts/tabid/383/Default.aspx
We really liked Even Steven and Odd Todd, a Hello Math reader that is on that list.
We are now doing Rightstart math with an AL abacus and play her math games. We are loving it. We also watch Mathtacular once a week for 10 to 15 minutes(from Sonlight).
I just want to add to the list the new Mathmatics book here by SCM. It is a resource I wish I had from the get-go of home schooling. It is revamping how we do math and my children are ENJOYING math now (new for us, blush). I suggest reading this book before doing anything else!
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