Struggling:  As a parent, there is nothing worse than watching your child struggle.  The awful truth is that every child, including my own, struggles. So, what do we as parents when our child is having a difficult time comprehending Math?

Some thoughts:  The help is at home.  It will take some time, patience and consistency, but it is doable!

1. Find a nice, quiet spot with space for math manipulatives and materials.
2. Try to work on math at a similar time every day.  I know how incredibly harried days can be. There are lots of extra-curricular activities and distractions, but it will really alleviate stress if you prioritize this difficult subject and give it some tender loving care.
3. Build in mental health breaks.  Don’t try to work through a concept or homework assignment without allowing time for a fun snack, or a 2-minute stretch break.
4. Celebrate the small successes and expect some frustrating moments.  Be ready for both and tell your child to expect ups and downs when working on something difficult.
5. Don’t be afraid to have your child write notes to the teacher.  And don’t you be afraid to write notes to the teacher as well. Communication is KEY! I am a big proponent on letting the teacher know what was tricky or letting him/her know that your child needs a bit of reinforcement on a specific concept the next day.  Also, don’t be afraid to talk about the amount of work coming home. If it is taking an inordinate amount of time, there should be no reason that your child cannot be assigned odd-numbered problems or half of the page so long as all concepts are being covered (Often homework assignments have many repeated problems and doing some of them can cover the concept).
6. Be flexible.  If one way of explaining does not do the trick, try another.  Some children need a visual explanation, others need to have their hands on blocks or unifix cubes, still others need to hear the information.  No one way is right, because every child is unique!
7. Try to be ok with allowing another person to do the explaining. This has happened to me!  While I was in the middle of working through a concept with one of my own children, an older sibling wandered in and explained it so simply I nearly cried. My child looked to the older sibling, had him repeat himself, and show her on the page and she got it.  It is ok if to look to others when your words and thoughts aren’t working.

Tips:

*Have a 100 chart nearby. The visual placement of numbers is useful.

*Keep manipulatives such as unifix cubes or place value blocks nearby.

*Store graph paper, blank paper, lined paper, pencils and a straight edge.  Get the graph paper with the larger sized blocks for younger children. There is graph paper that has larger squares on one side and slightly smaller squares on the other side.

*Most importantly, don’t be afraid to conference with friends who have children of similar age, peers who have slightly older children and have already gone through similar concepts with their children or the teacher.

*Remember, no one way of explaining always works.  When one way is not computing for your child, be flexible and try another.

****Don’t be afraid to use the computer to look up a strategy or method.  I have been doing this for years and do it all the time. *****

Let’s welcome Lisa Ginet to the Early Math Counts blogoverse.  Lisa comes to us from the Early Math Collaborative at the Erikson Institute where she has been an integral member for many years.  Her expertise comes from years in the early childhood classroom, and as an adjunct faculty member in Chicago.

Since 2009, Lisa Ginet has been a member of Erikson’s Early Math Collaborative, which is transforming the understanding, teaching and learning of early mathematics from the ground up. Before that, Lisa spent more than a quarter century as an educator in various roles: classroom teacher, child care provider, parent educator, home visitor, teacher trainer, and adjunct instructor. She has worked in diverse settings, from child care centers and elementary and middle schools to community colleges and private universities.

 

During her time working with Erikson’s Early Math Collaborative, Lisa has thought a lot about the essence of foundational math, engaging adults in enjoying and doing math, bringing to life children’s mathematical thinking, and authentic mathematical environments in early childhood classrooms. Lisa will reflect on the lessons she has learned and what they mean for those of us who want to help children love, understand and use math.

Visualizing large numbers, understanding fractions, having fun with division, or just fine-tuning how you approach problems – all of these books present fun and winning ways to bring math into your children’s lives.

How Much is a Million by Stephen Kellogg

Master children’s book writer Stephen Kellogg’s book has been making large numbers understandable to young readers for generations, and is still the best book out there for visualizing them in an accessible way. No one who has ever read this book will forget that if a billion kids made a human tower it would reach past the moon.

The Pancake Menu by Lucy Ravitch

Lucy Ravitch, who blogs at Kids Math Teacher, has created a winning combination of cooking and eating out in this book aimed at getting kids comfortable with adding costs. It encourages readers to make their own fun pancake creations and figure out how much customers would have to pay if they were running their own at-home restaurant. An imaginative, active good time.

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table by Cindy Neuschwander

Clever all around, this title by Cindy Neuschwander is a rarity – a math picture book with a really great and memorable story. It is a smart take on an inventive side story of the Arthurian saga, about King Arthur’s quest to find a table that can accommodate all of his squabbling knights. If you love it, Sir Cumference and the First Round Table is the first in a series.

Which One Doesn’t Belong? by Christopher Danielson

This brilliant new book by math educator Christopher Daniels, of Talking Math With Your Kids fame is less about teaching right answers than about getting children to ask the right questions. On each page, readers are invited to pick the shape that doesn’t belong and talk about why they picked that shape. But there is not correct answer – just an opportunity to talk about how we think. A must-have.

What Do You Do With a Problem? by Kobi Yamada

It’s a shame that when we talk about solving math equations we equate it with a “problem.” However, this charming and emboldening book What Do You Do With A Problem? by Kobi Yamada. A dark, splotchy problem follows around the unnamed character and haunts his days until he decides to face it head-on. Along the way, this endearing story shows that maybe the problem wasn’t as scary as he thought after all.

The Best of Times by Greg Tang

Greg Tang has a number of math picture books out, but I like this one best. In it, he provides simple instruction for multiplying numbers. Here’s a choice example: “Four is very fast to do, / when you multiply by 2. / Here’s a little good advice – / please just always double twice!”

What’s New at the Zoo by Suzanne Slade

It’s a simple premise: A visit to the zoo yields possibilities for learning how to add. Four monkeys are all carrying babies – how many monkeys are there? What’s New at the Zoo is perfect for early math learners because of how simple it’s questions are and how it engages readers in a real-world problem. Add to that perfect rhyming and some cute pictures and you have the perfect addition to your library.

Full House: An Invitation to Fractions by Dayle Ann Dodds

Dayle Ann Dodds makes this list twice. In Full House, she wraps two learning stories in one book with the tale of Miss Bloom, the proprietor of an inn with six rooms. As guests arrive, Miss Bloom calculates how many of the rooms have been filled. Later, they all share a cake cut into six equal pieces. The illustrations are charming, the lesson spot-on, and the characters funny as can be.

The Great Divide: By Dayle Ann Dodds

When 100 people set out on a marathon, some of them don’t finish in this rousing story by Dayle Ann Dodds. More a concept book than a memorization story, The Great Divide follows the marathoners as, on each spread, half of them encounter a challenges taking them out of the race. In the end, there can be only one – but getting there is the fun in this book.

That’s a Possibility: A Book about What Might Happen by Bruce Goldstone

Some math concepts have as much to do with learning the meaning of words as anything else. Enter That’s A Possibility, a book that teaches students about the subtle differences in the language of possibilities. In popping, colorful illustrations, it leads young readers through a series of situations, defining the terms possible, probable, impossible, and certain along the way. Possibly a must for Christmas?

9.  We don’t have to wear pantyhose, ever. 

8.  Our work includes snuggling.

7.  We don’t have to worry about the Common Core.

6.  We know what “ooblek” is even if our smartest friends don’t.

5.  Our workday includes reveling in the little things with childlike wonder and excitement.

4.  No sitting at a desk unless it is pretend.

3.  Nobody cares if you have paint on your sweater or a sticker on your forehead.

2.  Sometimes we mistakenly get called “Mommy” or “Daddy” and it gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. 

and… the #1 reason Early Childhood Teachers are Thankful This Thanksgiving is:

We get to spend each and every day with the best kind of people- the little kind.

You can’t imagine how excited I was when I heard about her book as most Early Math Counts readers know that I love Tesselations.  We thought Emily would be a perfect guest blogger for the month of November.  Please welcome her and look for her posts over the next four weeks.

Emily Grosvenor is the author of Tessalation!, a children’s math picture book about pattern, nature and wonder, which was successfully Kickstarted by a group of creative math educators in March, 2016. A magazine writer by profession, she lives with her family in Oregon. Follow her on Twitter @emilygrosvenor.

I am pleased to tell you that our blog is changing course a bit.  Over the past 4 years I have been blogging for Early Math Counts and have enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.  After over 700 posts we all thought it might be nice for a change.  Therefore, over the next year the blog will be written by an awesome group of Guests Bloggers who are connected in some meaningful way to young children and math.

Over the next few months you will hear from a former preschool director who specializes in creating exceptional environments for young children, a third grade teacher who incorporates fabulous and progressive math into her early years’ curriculum, and a high school math teacher who will write about adult understandings of math concepts.  That is just a taste of what you can expect between now and October.

Keep checking in and engaging in the conversation.  I will still be here both as an administrator of the site and as an occasional writer.  I will continue to post interesting and pertinent articles for you as I find them and will be participating in the dialog as it unfolds.

I am looking forward to this next chapter in the Early Math Counts project.  I hope you are too.

Monday is the anniversary of the birthday of our country.  Do you have big plans?  Are you going to finally get some much-deserved rest?  I will spend the day with every television we own on, at full volume, to help drown out the noise of the fireworks in our neighborhood.  They scare my dogs to pieces.

The 4th of July is an opportunity to talk about ordinal numbers with the children in your program.  An ordinal number is one that tells of a position in a sequence.  Therefore, the 4th of July describes the fourth day in the sequence of days in July (the first, the second, the third and then the fourth).

When you talk about this holiday next week with the children, be sure to use this exact math language so that it begins to become familiar and eventually a part of their math vocabulary. Draw a small calendar that only includes the first week of July.  Make 5 squares labeled with 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and then show the children that the 4th of July is on the 4th day of the month, after the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.  The day after the 4th is the 5th.  Be specific and use the visual cues that the calendar offers.

Remember, any opportunity to revisit these concepts is just that – an opportunity!

Happy Birthday America!

I wrote about a friend whose life was forever changed by a teacher who told her she was “no good” at math and that one interaction altered the course of her life.  I wrote about how we can battle math anxiety through a variety of techniques and strategies that genuinely work.

Today, I present you with an article from the Washington Post that clearly explains why we need to stop telling children that we are bad at math. Take a look at this article and see how our adult behavior affects children’s performance and attitudes about math.

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