Working with

gifted children at home,

whether it's reading,

workbooks, projects

Math and Literature

An excellent resource to use when creating a list of books to look for at the library is Math Patterns in Children's Literature.

Another is amazon.com's lists of books keyed to specific mathematics content. For example:

K-5 Math Teaching Resources - Counting

K-5 Math Teaching Resources - Place Value

I recently paid 25 cents at a yard sale for the picture book Zero is the Leaves on the Tree. It introduces the number zero to young children.

K-5 Math Teaching Resources - Division

A book I read with my granddaughter 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!).
(files are named sharing cookies)

I can share the cookie and the plate:

Activity card for The Doorbell Rang

81 Roses - Buffalo State College offers a lesson available within StoriesByFrederiqueSet I and links to additional stories at Stories By Frederique Set I- Ages 5 to 8.

FOR PARENTS:

Math And Literature, Grades K-1. Marilyn Burns, Stephanie Sheffield, Toby Gordon.

Math And Literature, Grades 2-3. Marilyn Burns, Stephanie Sheffield, Toby Gordon.

Math and Literature: K-3 Book 1 by Marilyn Burns

Math and Literature (K-3) Book 2 by Stephanie Sheffield

Math Through Children's Literature: Making the NCTM Standards Come Alive
by Kathryn L. Braddon, Nancy J. Hall and Dale Tylor. Math activities designed for 132 different children's titles. Designed for classroom use.

It's the Story that Counts: More Children's Books for Mathematical Learning, K-6. David J. Whitin, Sandra Wilde.

Project Resources

Example: Halloween (see link at right)

QUILTS

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:

TESSELLATIONS

To make your own tessellations, simple directions can be found here:
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:

Math Manipulatives Page from USI STEM

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.

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.

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.

This link, also at TERC, provides questions that can be the basis for a series of projects:

How many different ways are there?

Finding different ways to make fourths on a geoboard is one of my favorite activities when I work with gifted students.

Not Workbooks: PRINTABLES available online

Family Math

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.

Helping Your Child Learn Math

GROCERY STORE BINGO is one example activity from Activities . Grades 1 and 2 . Early Math . PBS Parents | PBS. For younger children, check out

Activities . PreK - K . Early Math . PBS Parents | PBS

Activities . Infants and Toddlers . Early Math . PBS Parents | PBS

OTHER LINKS FOR PARENTS

What Is Mathematics?

Early Math Matters: A Guide for Parents of Preschoolers

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 and Games / Learning Activities / Spatial Concepts, helps parents work with their child's understanding of over, under, in, and out using cute animal cutouts.

4 Great Math Games from Marilyn Burns are intended for the classroom but can certainly be played at home.

Things to Do while You’re Waiting: Math

Mensa For Kids has a page of parent resources.

Explore a page of links on symmetry and tessellations posted by Jill Britton, based on material in her book: Investigating Patterns: Symmetry and Tessellations

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.