Home-based Activities to Do with Your Mathematically Gifted Child
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Resources . Early Math . PBS Parents | PBS
Making the Most of Math explains important math skills that can be developed, starting in two- and three-year-olds, that will ultimately support math in school but connect math with fun and play for children and parents.
Mathwire.com | Math Enrichment offers a comprehensive set of links for gifted math students of all ages. So does the website Developing Mathematical Talent.
Parents Guide / Math Skills Development at Chateau Meddybumps provides information about math skills and links to appropriate activities for developing each skill. The page also contains a link to a page of counting books. Another page at meddybumps, Fun & Games / Learning Activities / Spatial Concepts, helps parents work with their child's understanding of over, under, in, and out using cute animal cutouts.
Making the Most of Math explains important math skills that can be developed, starting in two- and three-year-olds, that will ultimately support math in school but connect math with fun and play for children and parents.
Mathwire.com | Math Enrichment offers a comprehensive set of links for gifted math students of all ages. So does the website Developing Mathematical Talent.
Parents Guide / Math Skills Development at Chateau Meddybumps provides information about math skills and links to appropriate activities for developing each skill. The page also contains a link to a page of counting books. Another page at meddybumps, Fun & Games / Learning Activities / Spatial Concepts, helps parents work with their child's understanding of over, under, in, and out using cute animal cutouts.
An excellent resource to use when creating your list of books to look for at the library is Math Patterns in Children's Literature. The book I have been reading with my granddaughter this week is The Doorbell Rang. I found photos of a chocolate chip cookie and a plate from my everyday china pattern to make it realistic, and we acted out the story, sharing a dozen cookies among an increasing number of children. My granddaughter personalized the experience by using her stuffies to replace the humans in the story. I'll show you the video and photo in the presentation (I don't put pictures of her online!).
I can share the cookie and the plate:
4 Great Math Games from Marilyn Burns are intended for the classroom but can certainly be played at home.
Explore a page of links on symmetry and tessellations posted by Jill Britton, based on material in her book: Investigating Patterns: Symmetry and Tessellations
I was especially pleased to find a link to a free online quilt designer. Quilters made it easy for me to create my own patterns. Here's an example:
Making your own tessellations.
Cuisenaire Rods: Space, Color, and Mathematics introduces Cuisenaire rods and explains in detail how to get started with them. The rods are a very versatile manipulative, so worth the investment. They can be used to explore all the important whole number concepts and operations, but also factors and multiples, fractions, area and perimeter, etc.
Speaking of manipulatives, here is a nice description (with pictures) of most of the useful math manipulatives you might consider purchasing for your home:
Elsewhere on this blog I have already recommended the book, Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. It is worth mentioning again.
In addition to the print version, which I think is quite expensive, the book is available from the National Academies Press to read online: Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity.
I encourage you, as parents of budding mathematicians and scientists, to read My Mother, the Scientist to understand why your gifted daughters deserve the same support and attention in these fields as your gifted sons.
PRINTABLES
This manual for the project “Parents Teach Math: A Family Literacy Approach,” funded by the Office of Literacy and Essential Skills, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, has wonderful activities for doing math at home, starting on page 18.
Esso Family Math Early Years Resource Book provides more than 100 pages of activities and ideas for sharing math with your child. Although parents of gifted children are not the target audience for the book, the activities will certainly be appropriate for your children, ages 2-6. The book continues in this link: Extended Weeks (7-10) Resource Book.
Figure This Challenging math problems for families to work on together.
Figure This Challenging math problems for families to work on together.
GROCERY STORE BINGO is one example activity from Activities . Grades 1 and 2 . Early Math . PBS Parents | PBS. For younger children, check out
The Math Kit "At Home with Math" at the TERC website has this description, from their introduction:
A word to parents This math kit contains activities and games to help you make math a natural part of your family’s everyday work and play. The kit contains two books, one for everyday math activities and one for math games.
A word to parents This math kit contains activities and games to help you make math a natural part of your family’s everyday work and play. The kit contains two books, one for everyday math activities and one for math games.
Everyday math activities As parents, we use math all the time—as we shop, figure out how much time to allot for errands, and schedule time for cooking, eating, and cleaning. Often, our children are with us during these tasks. Perhaps they are even helping out. Why not involve them in the math?
The ten everyday math activities in this kit build math into the things most families already do—ordinary routines such as figuring out ways to save money, to share fairly, or to get somewhere on time. With these activities, children practice adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and using other important math skills while doing tasks that are a regular part of life.
I particularly liked the activity using estimation and counting while putting away toys that are scattered about, and the one developing ideas of probability and statistics through collecting junk mail for a week.
From the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) a remarkably useful tool for teachers and parents:
Need a pentagonal pyramid that's six inches tall? Or a number line that goes from ‑18 to 32 by 5's? Or a set of pattern blocks where all shapes have one-inch sides? You can create all those things and more with the Dynamic Paper tool. Place the images you want, then export it as a PDF activity sheet for your students or as a JPEG image for use in other applications or on the web.
Need a pentagonal pyramid that's six inches tall? Or a number line that goes from ‑18 to 32 by 5's? Or a set of pattern blocks where all shapes have one-inch sides? You can create all those things and more with the Dynamic Paper tool. Place the images you want, then export it as a PDF activity sheet for your students or as a JPEG image for use in other applications or on the web.
INTERACTIVE
The Math Playground offers math puzzles and games, logic, word problems, etc. in an interactive format. There are ads, so be sure to keep an eye on your child's progress at the site.
PBS offers online games:
(notice that there are no online games at PBS for infants and toddlers!)
Kindergarten Mathematics Index has activities for counting, shapes, same or different, taller or shorter, etc. in an interactive format. I suspect the items resemble those used on standardized tests, so a bit of test prep is a bonus.
I am enthusiastic about dynamic geometry software and have posted extensively on the subject. Here's a new link to a Geometer's Sketchpad tutorial video:
Region IV ESC Geometer's Sketchpad Tutorial Designed by David Eschberger
The speaker is very low key, but the visuals are there and the instructions are clear.
There are links to several math games appropriate for young learners at
ESSO Family Math Games and Puzzles
I urge you to mute the sound on your computer before clicking through to a game--I personally find the repetition to be crazy-making!
A wide variety of logic puzzles are available at Puzzlers Paradise! My personal favorites are the "Who Dunnit" puzzles (the kind where 4 people have 4 different pets, 4 favorite colors, 4 different last names, or whatever, and you have to figure out how to match them up according to a small set of clues). The site provides the grid to support solving the puzzles, and you solve online by filling in the grid. These are great exercises in deductive reasoning, suitable for all ages, and can easily be attacked by two or more people. For more of the Who Dunnits, try Logic Puzzles presented by Puzzle Baron. The site includes video tutorials.
Interactive Games and At Home Activities For Kids, LICM Kid’s Page is sponsored by the Long Island Children's Museum. There is another quilt designer here, and other interactive drawing games. The at-home activities include printable games for children 9-12.
BOOKS
Real Math: A Family Guide to Real Math
Family Math Night
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