Almost Unschooling Grama

  Have you ever awoke with the answer to a problem? I was trying to think of a fun way to help my grandson recognize different forms of numerals when I went to sleep the other night. When I woke up, I had a plan for this game. I am thinking I may have seen something similar online at some time, but here it is. I'm calling it Number Sense. To begin with, I made up an image to put on the back of my cards with Canva. Then, I put 6 of them on one page of a document on Word and printed them out on cardstock. After I cut them, I made a deck of cards with 5 different representations of each of the numbers between 1 and 12 using tally marks, dominoes, number words, Roman numerals, and Arabic numerals. The game is played like Rummy. Each player is dealt 7 cards. The object of the game is to be the first player to lay down all of the cards in their hand. In order to lay down cards, a player must have at least 3 of the cards representing the same numeral or add to a set that another player ha...

  Mighty Red is now pretty much an independent adder. We started out with him on my lap as his sister and I played math games. He would move the pieces while I gave the answers. Then we moved to him copying me as I did the finger math. For the past several weeks, we have been doing the problems on our fingers together, but this week he announced that he could do this and just took off without me! When I was in school, having someone help me like I have helped Mighty Red would have been shameful and "cheating". Go ahead, help your kids "cheat". It works!

Joke of the Day Perimeter and area help are here! https://jillianstarrteaching.com/area-and-perimeter-manipulatives/ Need indoor PE ideas? Keep your kids moving with these.  https://thedeliberatemom.com/indoor-physical-education-ideas/ Play Trominoes to help your kids with spatial recognition. https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/trominoes/ Popularity isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It is better to have just a few close relationships than 100 "friends". The truth is that you just don't have time to sustain more than a few. If you try, you will end up lonely in a sea of friends that are no more than fans.

  Joke of the Day Good News!  Homeschooling Just Crossed the Tipping Point https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/homeschooling-just-crossed-the-tipping-point/ I remember making these when I was a kid. Fascinating fun! https://leftbraincraftbrain.com/milk-carton-crayon-ice-candles/ Trashket Ball is always a hit! https://thecozycraftyclassroom.blogspot.com/2019/04/word-problems-in-math-best-game-ever.html Thought for the day: I'm reading War Room by Chris Fabry and The Book of Mysteries by Jonathan Cahn.

Here's a great game to teach math terminology. One person secretly picks a number. T he other has to ask questions using math terminology until they can determine the number. I printed out a free 100s chart and put it into a plastic sleeve. We use an erasable marker to mark off the numbers we have eliminated. You cannot ask if the number is "79" or "14" Questions must be worded with math terms such as "Is it a prime #?", "Is the product of the ones digit equal to 3 times 3?" Is the number greater than 47?" "Is this number divisible by 9?", "Is your number even or odd?" As you ask the questions, mark off any numbers your question has eliminated. The Flash and I are having a great time with this game. He's not multiplying or dividing yet so we aren't using some of these terms but that's OK the game is adjustable. I printed out the chart and put it into a plastic sleeve. We use an erasab...

This is a game the whole family can enjoy instead of boring drills.  Spread dominoes out face down.  Levels:  Counters: Pick up one domino. Count the dots on each side. Then count all the dots. Say 2 + 4 = 6  Adders: Pick up a domino. Repeat the steps for the counter level and then write the answer on a piece of paper. On the next turn, add your second answer to your first. The person who gets to 50 first wins. When this is easy, add 2 dominoes together and race to 100 or 500.  Subtracters: Pull 2 dominoes. Subtract the smaller from the larger. When this is easy. Put 100 on a sheet of paper. Pick 1 domino and subtract it from 100. On the next turn subtract your pull from the number you got on the previous turn. The first one to get to 0 wins. This can be made more challenging by starting with 500 or 1000, picking 2 dominoes, adding them together and subtracting the result. Multipliers: Pull 2 dominoes. multiply them together. Add your an...

Is it just me? Or do games that your children have a hand in creating give your kids a little more interest? This is a game that the red head and I worked on a few weeks ago. To create this game, we cut  cardstock  into fourths and then placed  stickers  corresponding to each numeral I had written on the clothes pins. The redhead chose all  princess stickers  of course. I had to help her with placement and counting, but that is all part of the learning process. The object of this game is to place the right clothespin on the card. Sounds easy enough huh? Not when you are just learning to count! I mixed up the cards and had her pick one from my hand just for fun. You could lay them face down or even face up. It really doesn’t matter. The objectives of this game are the counting, identifying the numbers, and manipulating the clothes pins. Just don’t let the dog eat them! Once she picked a card, I helped her count by placing her finger on each pr...

To make this game, create a board with 15-20 squares. Then make cards just a little smaller than your squares for the count-bys your child is learning. Mix up the cards and place them on the table. Start out by flipping the cards over and placing them in the correct square. Show your child how to place his finger on each square and count by the number to find the correct square. When he is really good at it, you can make 2 sets of cards (each a different color) and play a Tic-tac-toe like game. Each person takes turns flipping one card and placing it on the board. If one person fills a row, up or down with his color cards, he is the winner. If you play until the board is full without anyone getting a row filled up, the game is tied. God Bless You All! ~ Grama Sue

Most of you can count by 2s, 5s, and 10s, but how many of you can count by 3s, 7s, or 11s? Even though I flunked out of math in high school, my kids were great in math. Why? Because I threw out the math books and insisted they learn each basic skill well before they moved on. No addition until they could count to 100, no subtraction until they could add a column of three four-digit numbers. We worked on subtraction until they could subtract three-digit numbers from four-digit numbers. Then before we worked on multiplication, we learned to skip count. I insisted they learn to skip count 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s before I introduced 2 x 2 = 4 and then continued all the way up to 15s before we were through. Skip counting is fun and gives a child a firm foundation to figure out multiplication problems they haven’t memorized. One hands-on way to teach skip counting is to have your kids create necklaces that have sets of beads separated by a different color and shaped bead. Have your chi...