Materials:

• Quartette board print-out QUARTETTE BOARD
• 8 markers in two different colors ex. 4 red and 4 blue

Directions:

• Give each player their 4 markers in whatever color they choose
• Take your 4 markers of the same color and place them on the board so the colors alternate on the top and bottom rows
• Take turns moving your markers vertically or horizontally into any square that is adjacent and empty
• The first player to get four in a row wins!
• You must always move one of your markers on your turn, markers cannot be moved diagonally, and you cannot “jump” over someone else’s marker

As you are playing this game, it’s a great opportunity to work on logic with your child and have conversations about directions. Some things you could say are, “My marker needs to go up one space for me to get two next to each other, how many spaces does your marker need to move?” “Are you going to move yours right or left now?” “I have three markers next to one another, how many do you have?”

Materials:

• Construction paper in four different primary colors
• Index cards or small sheet of paper
• Small ziploc bag
• Dot stickers
• Dry erase marker

Directions:

• Take the construction paper and cut out four large circles from four different colors of paper that are large enough that your child can easily stand on the circle. I recommend using one sheet of paper for each circle you create.
• After you have your circles, take an index card or sheet of paper, and use the dot stickers to create your map.
• Your map will be a in a 4×4 pattern, keep in mind that every row needs to have the same color dot stickers.
• Make sure your dot stickers are the same color as the construction paper you are using.
• After you have made your map, lay your paper circles out on the floor in the same pattern as your map.
• It’s best to secure the circles on the floor with tape so they don’t move around too much while you are playing the game.

• Now take your map and put it into a ziploc bag.
• Take your dry erase marker and draw a path on the ziplock bag so it shows up on the map.

When first playing this game, keep it simple and draw an easy path with two different turns of direction in it, and then get more complicated as your child becomes more confident. You can draw arrows marking the start and end of the path to make it easier for your child to follow along.

As you encourage your child to follow the directions on the card and stand on the matching dots, ask them to anticipate where they need to go next. “Which way do we turn here? Right or left?” or “Are you going to take a step forward or back? How many steps are left before we get to the end? Let’s look at our card for directions!”

If you’ve never heard of Hexbugs, they are basically very affordable micro robots. You can buy as singles or in bulks (depending on where you are purchasing from).

Materials:

• Hexbug Nano
• Poster board
• Some cardboard tubes from wrapping paper rolls.
• Popsicle sticks
• Straws
• Tape

Directions:

• Design a maze for your hexbug!
• It needs to have one entrance, one exit, walls and several paths, one straight section, and few bends where the bug makes a large change in direction (makes a big turn).
• Use either clothespins, popsicle sticks, or straws to create the walls and paths in your maze based on your design.
• You can tape the materials you are using on the board when building your maze.

Once you build your maze based on the directions, it is time to put it to a test!

To help children practice spatial relationships, encourage them to narrate hexbug’s movements. For example, you might say, “Look, he is turning right,” “It is going under the bridge,” “It is inside the tunnel now,” “It is going over the bridge.” You can take turns narrating the movements and directions the hexbug takes. To keep it interesting and fun, try revising your maze and see if you can use other other concepts related to position and spatial relationships.

• Understanding categories and attributes of objects allow children to mentally manipulate and physically organize things in their minds and environment.
• Developing spatial awareness and understanding spatial relations allow children to navigate in their environments.
• Using spatial language allows children to express themselves in different contexts.

How can we support our children to develop these skills?

Growth and development in children’s spatial reasoning and abilities are intertwined with their increasing capacity to move, navigate through, and interact with their surroundings. Therefore, it is important to plan activities that encourage children to explore their relationship to space by moving their body in a variety of environments and situations.

The next three blogs will explore games where children can use their bodies or other materials as a tool to develop their foundational understanding with spatial reasoning while practicing this important mathematical concept.

So far, we have introduced two games: dot bingo and the dot card matching game. Our final game for this month is called “Fill That Parking Lot.” This game enables our youngsters to think of numbers one through nine in terms of their relationship to the number ten and to build a strong foundation for addition and subtraction.

For this game you will need:

• The dot cards that you created for the dot card matching game (only use cards with the numbers one through three)
• Small toy cars or you can use the template for car counters
• A printer to download and print the Parking Game and Car Counter templates

Printable Parking Game and Counter Templates

• Once you have downloaded the template, print as many copies as you need, one for each player.

The object of the game is to fill your parking lot (hence the name)! Each player will take a turn flipping over a dot card, determine how many cars they need to park in their parking lot based on the number of dots on the card, and then use your counters or cars to fill the parking lot, whoever fills the parking lot first, wins! For example, if you have the number three, take three cars or counters and fill up there spots in the parking lot. Continue taking turns and filling up the parking lots until you have a winner!

It is important to have your children fill up the parking lot in a meaningful way for this activity to be effective. Have them fill up one row at a time or have them choose spots that are touching one another or next to one another. This will help your children see the relationships between numbers one through ten.

Some questions you can ask your child while playing are:

• How many more cars do you need to fill your parking lot?
• I have six cars in my parking lot, how many more cars do I need to get to 10?
• What is happening to our parking lots, do we have more cars or less cars?

I would love to hear your comments on these games! Looking forward to hearing from you.

Happy subtizing!

For this week’s activity we are going to reinvent the game of bingo. Again, we will not be using
symbolic representation of numbers. Instead, we will be representing numbers with dots to
deepen your child’s number sense.

Traditionally, bingo is played with the numbers one through seventy-five. However, for this
game, we will be using numbers one through six. There are several reasons behind this. One of
the reasons is that young children need several experiences working with small sets of numbers
in order to truly understand what those numbers represent in terms of quantity. Introducing only
numbers one through six affords that kind of rich experience we are after. Second, subtilizing is
intuitive and in order to use this skill, we need to provide small set of numbers rather than large
ones. This way, children will use this skill to perfect their understanding of numbers and what
they represent mathematically rather than symbolically.

With this game you will need a printer, dice, and bingo counters.

Please click the link BINGO TEMPLATE below to download the printable template:
BINGO TEMPLATE

Once you have downloaded the template, print as many copies as you need (one per player).
The object of the game is simple, the first person to get five squares in a row covered, wins. You
can do this horizontally, diagonally, or vertically. Each person takes a turn rolling the dice. When
the number on the dice is shown, the person who rolled must find a square on their chart that has
the same number and cover it with a bingo counter. Each player takes a turn until one of the
players gets five squares covered in a row.

Bingo!

The first step should be focusing on the meanings of the numbers rather than the symbols. A great way to do this is dot cards.

For this activity you will need a set of plain index cards and dot stickers. I used traditional 3×5 blank index cards, but any size will work as long as they are consistent. For the dot stickers, “color coding labels” work great for this activity!

When first introducing this activity, I like to use small numbers, for example one through five. For the number one, you take one index card and one dot sticker. Place the dot sticker as close to the very center of the index card as possible.

For the number two, take two dot stickers and place them in the center right next to one another. The placement and arrangement of the dots on the card will make it easier for our children, especially when this activity is first introduced, to begin their number understanding. 

Continue this process until you get to the number five, following the visual aid as closely as possible. When I first introduce this game, I like to use the same color stickers throughout the first sets of cards. Once you have completed your first set of cards, make a second set following the same steps. It is important that these two sets of cards are as identical as possible.

.

So, now that you’ve created your two sets of dot cards, what are you going to do with them? First, look at the cards with your child and see if they can identify what these dots represent. Go through each card one at a time and have a conversation about what they see. Some questions you can ask are:

• “Can you tell me what you see?”
• “I see one dot on this card, how many do you see on this one (show them a different card)?”
• “I see two dots on this card, can you show me the number two with your fingers?”

There are different ways to incorporate these cards into playtime with your children. Some of my favorites are:

• Dot Card War: For this game I like to add a blank index card in the pile to introduce children to the number zero. I then shuffle all of the cards from both sets (making sure each set has a blank card). Then deal a card to each player. The player with the bigger number (more dots) gets to keep all of the cards for that round. Keep repeating this process until you run out of cards.
• Dot Card Match: Shuffle the cards from both sets together, and lay them face down. Like in traditional matching games, each player gets a chance two pick two cards and turn them over. The goal to find the cards that has the same number of dots on them. Once the player, finds the matching cards, they get to keep them. Each player takes a turn until you run out of the cards. If you would like to make this game last longer, you can make additional sets of dot cards. If you would like to make it more challenging, you can change the dot arrangements in additional sets of dot cards.

Have fun subtizing!

How to Develop Subitizing

The ability to subitize can be developed by using pattern recognition skills. By working with a small set of numbers, children can start to develop an understanding of what numbers mean and what they represent. For example, five strawberries could be a set of two strawberries and a set of three strawberries, or a set of four strawberries and one strawberry. This means that a child looking at five strawberries doesn’t only see five strawberries, but also see two and three, or maybe one and four, and five and zero strawberries. Once children are familiar and comfortable with various representations of numbers 1 to 5, larger sets can be introduced (1 to 10).

How can we use subitizing to support our children’s developing understanding of numbers?

• Start with a small set of numbers.

• Subitizing relies on visual patterns. Not all arrangements of a number are equally easy to “see.”

Activities to Build Subitizing Skills

This month, we will open the doors to the world of subitizing by introducing simple and fun DIY games that you can play with your 3 to 5 year-olds.

Stay tuned!

At all ages, children classify intuitively to make sense of their world that seems largely out of their control. By 2 weeks of age, infants distinguish between objects they suck and those they do not. By 2 years, toddlers form sets with objects that are similar. In preschool, children begin to sort objects according to a given attribute and form categories. Many parents have likely walked into a room to see their four-year old putting their blocks or other toys in piles based on color or type. So why sorting is important you may ask. By sorting the objects around them, children start using their analytical thinking skills that is the lifeblood of mathematics. Studies have even been shown that by comparing objects to one another and understanding the relationship between set of objects, children engage in transitive thinking: A blue block is bigger than a red block and smaller than a yellow block. So, blue blocks need to go into a medium-sized block pile. Practicing sorting skills also provide children with models for organizing things in the real world, such as putting toys into the right toys boxes or putting the socks in a sock drawer and underwear in the underwear drawer.

Sorting Ideas

Helping children recognize math in the real world and finding everyday math activities at home is a great way for parents to reinforce young children’s sorting skills. Here are some of the sorting ideas you can implement in our home:

* Collect real-life objects such as rocks, marker caps, marbles, and buttons. Ask your children to guess which objects will together and which items will not. Ask the children to sort them according to different attributes such as; color, texture, type and etc.

* When it’s clean up time, ask your child to sort toys by attributes. For example, ask your child “Can you pick up all the toys that are the same color as this?”

* Encourage your children to name groups of things or activities. For example, at the dinner table, talk about attributes. You might say “2 people at this table wear glasses, 4 don’t.” or “3 have curly hair, 3 have straight.”

While you are doing these activities, use words such as “same,” “different,” “math,” “group,” “collection” and “set” as they apply and encourage your child them to use when they are describing their groups and comparing the groups they have created to one another. You may also ask your children questions such as, “Can you figure out what goes together?” “Can you sort these a different way?” “Why do these go together?” “Why do these not go together?” These kinds of open-ended questions will allow you to better understand your child thinking and push your child to be more precise in explaining their mathematical thinking processes.

Different children, different decisions

Children at different development stages are equipped with different mathematical abilities. A younger child will likely require less categories (sorting by two attributes) while an older child often can handle three, four or more. What you use for sorting also depends upon the age and ability of the child, as well as their interests. Some materials may be more challenging to sort for younger children (e.g., visually ambiguous materials) while others too simple and even boring for an older child (e.g., colored unifix cubes). Using real-life objects and situations to provide sorting experiences is always beneficial for all-around learning for all age groups. The bottom line is to know your child’s abilities, interests and to meet them where they are at, so you can just give them the right amount of challenge without underwhelming or overwhelming them.

As she sits on the floor, a three-year old starts stacking blocks with various shapes and sizes. After some experimentation, she realizes that it is hard to build a tower if a block lays on its curvy side.

 

What does this 3-year-old discover about shapes?

From an early age, young children notice different shapes have different characteristics, even if they don’t know their names yet. They realize that some shapes have points while others have none. They also discover some shapes have flat sides while others don’t. Traditionally, we teach children the names of basic two-dimensional shapes: circle, square, triangle and rectangle and assume that being able to name these shapes indicates a higher level of geometrical understanding. Unfortunately, this can be any further from the truth. In reality, young children need your help to focus on attributes of shapes rather than overall appearance. For example, as you build a block tower together, encourage your child to pay attention to defining attributes of the each shape you are using. You might say, “I see you are stacking up the blocks that have flat sides. Look, all of its sides are flat. How is this one (i.e., cube) different that this one (i.e, half circle block)?” As you continue with the activity, encourage your child to use her fingers to trace and feel the shape. Give them a plenty of time to feel the shapes, count the sides and even ask them to find an item in your home to that resembles that shape.

As children manipulate various three-dimensional shapes, they will eventually build deeper understanding geometrical shapes such as flat faces of solid (three-dimensional) shapes are two-dimensional shapes.

There are many ways to encourage and help your child to learn about shapes. Here are some of the games you might play with your children at home:

* Drawing shapes in sand or foam

* Walking around shapes drawn or taped on ground

* Making shapes with bodies

Shapes are all around us and it is easy to play games like these at home, outside and elsewhere. Most importantly, make sure to have fun while doing it.