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.

Electronic music is not often considered a vehicle for young children to explore music or mathematics for that matter.  At Catherine Cook School, where I am the Director of Education Technology, I oversee our AV Studio which is equipped with a sound proof recording room and separate editing room.  In the editing room we have various controllers and launchpads for our older students to explore mixing electronic music.  We are heavily invested in providing any opportunities we can for our students at all ages to explore creativity in all subject areas.  These devices of course are incredibly too sophisticated for younger children, but we have identified entry points to mixing music for our youngest learners.  A few include:

DJ Mix Kids, an application that invites children to remix instrumental versions of nursery rhymes:

Keezy, an application that allows children to mix recorded music or start from scratch and record and mix their beats and lyrics:

ButtonBass provides users with the ability to turn on cubes which have a certain sound assigned to them.  When combined, having multiple cubes on simultaneously, interesting and fun music is composed.  In order to turn off the cubes, depending on the device being used, simply tap the particular cube or click it with the computer mouse.

Here is a quick video demonstration using the web version:

ButtonBass is available:

Web: www.buttonbass.com, Free

App: Android, Free

Note: This resource is solely instrumental music and sound.

The web version provides access to cubes in a variety of genres including:

• Electro
• Trap
• Electronica
• Reggaeton
• Dubstep
• Hip Hop
• House

Consider the following as a list of possible challenges to use with ButtonBass:

• Create a pattern of cubes turned on/off
• Turn on as many rows of 3 cubes as you can
• Turn on as many corners as you can
• How many cubes can be turned on without any two cubes next to each other both being on?
• Turn on all cubes on one entire side of the cube?
• Turn on any cube that has five of its sides up against another cube.
• Turn on a 4-square

What challenges can you come up with?

This particular exercise gets children thinking about spatial sense, patterns, and geometry in a music composition experience.  When I have used this resources in the past, I often create “dj pairs” so that children can work together to tackle the challenges and appreciate their successes as well as the music they are co-creating.

If children find that a particular combination of cubes turned on is worth revisiting at another time, users can turn on the keys, “SHOW KEYS”.  This will indicate with keys on the keyboard to push to turn on that particular cube.  Taking note of these keys turned on will make it easy to recreate the particular sound again.

“Oh, did you drop your _______?”

What fun it is for the child to drop the same item again and again, exploring the depths of her caregiver’s patience.  Exploring the concepts of “where?” and “how far?” are a very young child’s entrance into the world of spatial sense.

Children develop spatial thinking the skills associated with imagining objects in different positions as well as their movements – over a long period of time and are  necessary building blocks in constructing logico-mathematical knowledge.

How do we support these emerging skills?  As with all other mathematical concepts, the introduction of vocabulary is one sure way to begin and reinforce the ideas.  When you present a puzzle for a young child to solve, be sure to support his attempts with spatial language such as; “try it upside-down,” “turn it over,” “move the piece up or down,” etc. You can also support these emerging concepts by playing games, presenting challenges, using math manipulatives, and in dramatic play.

Try hiding an important toy in the classroom and then give spatial clues so the children can search for it.  Hide an object in the sand table and create a simple map that leads the children to the treasure.  Play “hotter and colder” as children try to locate an item.  Later, tangrams and more sophisticated puzzles will challenge the children’s thinking and support their growing spatial sense.