Teachnology

You may think I misspelled it, but I did it on purpose.  Technology can be used to Teach our children.  Living in 2011 and being brought up in the Technology generation, of course I integrate technology into the daily lives of my children.  On my Smartphone, there are some "free apps" for children.

For very young children there is "Toddler Lock."  This app locks the phone so the child can not go into other apps but it allows them to draw shapes all over the screen.  It will also make sounds if you have the sound turned on.  Seeing the shapes in different ways reinforces shape ideas.

There are many many free puzzles where children have to move the pieces around on a 3 by 3 grid or larger until the picture is complete.  Puzzles help students develop the idea of taking things apart and putting them together...essential to basic math especially in regards to operations (adding and subtracting).

The ever popular "Connect 4" is also a free app.  Children who are young develop the idea of patterns and eventually the idea of of 4 (one on one correspondence as well as quantity recognition).

There are a variety of "Kids Connect the Dots" where children recognize sequencing and the apps I have even tell the child the next number if they are incorrect or take too long.

"Kids Numbers" is an excellent app for children who are learning to count all the way to adding and subtracting.

"Mouse Trap" is another free app that is fun for children and parents.  It is a game where pieces have to be moved up and down or right and left to help the mouse get through the page to the open door.  This helps develop logical thinking and problem solving skills.

Another great app I have found that is free is "Sodoku" which is a number game.  In the version I have there is a Kids mode and an Adult mode.  Obviously for young children, Kids Mode will be the most appropriate. 

Don't be afraid to allow your children to explore technology.  Especially the apps I have mentioned develop number sense in young children.

Simple Dinner Math

When getting ready for dinner and setting the table, involve your child in setting out the napkins.  The first time try asking them to make a square or rectangle shape with the napkins.  Then once they figure that out, maybe suggest trying to make a triangle.  Depending on how much your child likes the activity, you can try some more interesting shapes. 

Making our children think

What do we want for our children as they grow?  One of the skills I want my children to have is the ability to think.  How do I develop this?  Oftentimes I ask questions like "why do you think that happened?"  I also will allow them to experiment.  At the dinner table, allowing our children to pour their drink from one container to another is giving them some ideas about volume.  I'll also ask "what do you think will happen if we do this?"  I allow them to give me some ideas, I'll sometimes share my idea, and then we'll try it and see.  I often overhear my own children asking this question of each other.  It's so important to not just give the answer, but to allow exploration and discovery.

The Digital Age and Telling Time

Does anyone still have an analog clock up on the wall?  You know, the type of clock that is round with 12 numbers around the edge.  I know you can still buy them.  In fact, when my first child was born, I bought one with Lightning McQueen on it.  The second hand makes a ticking sound which was annoying to me, but it seemed to calm him.  Did you know the resting heartrate is 60-80 beats per minute?  I've been told that music that plays at that rate is calming for that reason.  Maybe the ticks on the clock did the same thing.  But better still, having the clock, in some way must have been helping him to understand the sense of time. 

We as a family have a couple of rules with time.  First, if mommy or daddy say something like, "wait a minute," we really do wait a minute.  Second, we tend to have our routine set up on the o'clocks.  For example, dinner is always 6 o'clock.  Bedtime is always 8:00.  We will tell them if it is 7:30 that it is 7:30 and they have 30 minutes.  Now our older son who is 4 has begun to ask if he can go to bed at 8:30 instead.  He also recently asked us for a wrist watch to wear and he reads the time to us (it's a digital watch, but he can still read the time).

I guess my point is, many think our children are young and they can't tell time.  But why not expose them to true words, a true sense of time, and the actual times.  It never hurts to say more to our children.  They are thirsting for knowledge.  Don't hold back.  They may not figure out time and how to tell it until much later, but at least we are exposing them to the concept.

Are we talking peas or carrots?

As our children are developing their number recognition, it is important to assign a unit to the number.  If you are counting peas, count up to the number of peas.  For example you would say 18 peas.  This is helping your child on multiple levels.  First, the counting helps the child to learn the ordering of numbers.  Second, it is reinforcing vocabulary like peas.  Third, it is preparing young children to be able to unitize their numbers and have a clear sense of what the number refers to.  So as we're counting out loud, verbally say what the number refers to.

Car Rides are a time to Talk

My radio is never on in the car.  I was a stay at home mom when my children were first born and then went back to work.  It seems like either way, there is never enough time in the day.  I use the time in the car to talk.  Your focus should remain on driving, but rather than talking on the cell phone or turning the radio up, talk to your children. 

We'll often talk about different things we see, what the color of the lights mean, and we count.  One of my children's favorite things to count is school buses.  There may be time between seeing them, but that is okay.  Also, I have noticed, my children may say they see one and I did not see it.  Just because I did not see it, does not mean they did not see it. 

We also look for shapes.  I call it the I spy game (it has a twist from the game where you I spy something green).  The way I play the game is I start by saying, "I spy a tall tree".  Then I may do another if my children do not catch on.  I'll say, "I spy a square sign".  Eventually my older son will respond and say, "I spy a house".  This game is great with shapes, colors, and even just naming objects that your children see.  Be mindful of you child's line of sight in the car as you play.  As the adult, it helps if you model what you want your child to say and if you can use more than one word, as I did in my examples, it just expands the vocabulary.

The vocabulary we use is mimicked!

Have you ever heard your child say words that are exact copies of something you say??  Toddlers are pros when it comes to mimicking.  So as we speak, using some vocabulary that is mathematical in nature can help build mathematical minds.

For instance, many times in conversation I can bring in words like big, little, most, least, more, and less, just to name a few.  These types of words help our children understand relative size.  Again, in books, many of these words are used.  Helping our children understand the vocabulary is the first building block to understand big ideas like comparing numbers and comparing shapes.

Some more words I use are hot, cold, warm, and cool.  As the temperature and seasons change, I can easily use this vocabulary to help my children understand the difference.  Further, I can ask a simple question as we get ready to go outside...What do you think we need to wear?  Rather than just setting out the clothes and putting it on them (oftentimes with my youngest toddler leading to a battle), they can answer the clothes they need to wear and they take ownership of their wardrobe.  It is also instilling the idea of what the various temperatures feel like which will be helpful as they put numbers to the temperatures.

Math words are everywhere.  Again, the more we talk to our children, and use the vocabulary appropriately, the more we give our children mathematical minds.

Types of questions for young children

We, as parents, think of 3 years olds as the group of children who naturally ask "Why?" about everything.  Questioning does not start with 3 year olds though. 

With my two year old, I can easily ask him "How many?"  Last night I asked him how many pierogies he wanted for dinner and he very deliberately answered, "Two big ones mommy."  Why could he answer that question?  I started as early as I could counting out loud.  Around age one, I would start to ask him, "How many?"  The question would come naturally, especially when dealing with foods.  If he ate something like 2 bread rolls, I would make a big deal about it and say, "Wow, you ate 2 bread rolls!!!"  By telling him what he ate, he knows what to ask for when I say "How many?"  Sometimes, when I ask "how many do you want?"  my children say an outrageous answer.  For example, I may say, "how many bread rolls do you want?"  The child may say, "10."  I know the child will not eat 10.  So I would say back in a nice way, "Wow that's a lot!!  Maybe I can give you 2 and if you eat that I'll give you more."  That way the child knows he asked for 10, did not get 10, but will get 10 if he eats it all. 

So then, as I already stated, around age 3 our children begin asking us "Why?" about everything.  Anyone who has had a 3 year old know what I am talking about.  It is a natural age of curiosity.  A twist I like to do is every now and then, I try throwing the questions back, especially when I may not know the answer, "Well why do you think that happens?"  This can sometimes lead to a discussion and both you and the child can grow and learn from the discussion.

Another big question that helps in mathematical thinking is in relation to time.  I will be posting in the future a post about time.  For now, if something like bedtime is familar to children, we can ask, "When will  you go to bed?"  We can also ask, "When should we eat?"  By telling children information like their bed time, children become familar with the idea of telling time.  My four year old has figured out at 8:00pm he can ask, "Can I go to bed at 9:00?"  because on the weekends we allow him to go to bed at 9:00.  But that question only has come from familarizing him with the idea of the o'clocks and usual times he goes to bed.

Read Everyday

What does reading have to do with math?  A child has to be able to read the problem and understand what is the problem to solve.  This does not mean we have to read word problems to our two year olds.  But reading does help children develop skills of analyzing, inferring, and making conclusions.  All of these higher level thinking skills will be needed in the future to help our children solve problems that they are faced with in math and in the world. 

Even more, at the young age, there are many books that have math ideas in them.  For instance, Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar (one of my children's favorites) has days of the weeks, numbers, and the idea of growing and changing.  Any of Marilyn Burns' books that are written on the pre-kindergarten and elementary level have a lot of math ideas in them.  Many of the nursery rhymes also have number ideas, like "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe."  Of course at the young age, read stories to your children daily and more than once a day if you can spare the time.  The more we communicate, the more our children will learn to communicate their ideas, no matter the subject.

Count out loud

As adults, sometimes we don't even think about counting things, but counting out loud over and over in different scenarios and different ways, gives our children exposure to numbers.  For instance with my own children we would count how many chicken nuggets were on the plate.  We would count cars in an aisle as we walked into the store.  We would count seconds (if we said "wait a minute" we would then count to 60 and be true to get back at the end of that minute).  Count steps (but make sure to use your child's steps, not your own).  We counted the trees or school buses we passed as we drove.  There are so many times in the day we can count.  Just start noticing those opportunities and count them out loud.