As I mentioned in another thread, Math Scrabble is a great fun game. I had found it at a thrift shop, it is like the regular scrabble game but with math. it can start at the simplest math or we were even able to use algebra equations with it. You work off of the previous equation on the board. It takes problem solving skills to come up with solutions.
You and the kids could brainstorm and come up with creating this type of math game from and old game board. There is some schooling right there!
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Using finger foods for younger children! Using thin ribbon or even licorice shoestrings, children can practice counting up to 10 and then by 10's using Cheerios and Gummi Lifesavers. Give each child a piece of ribbon that is long enough to tie around his/her neck without it choking them. Tie a knot on one end of the ribbon so that the Cheerios won't fall off. Pour some Cheerios onto a paper plate, along with a few gummi lifesavers. Tell them to work in a pattern by stringing on 10 Cheerios, then a lifesavor, 10 cheerios, then a lifesaver...until they can count by 10s until they reach 100.
You will count 10 Cheerios, 1 lifesaver = 10, ....so you will end up with 5 sets of 10 Cheerios, and 5 gummi lifesavers on each string.
The kids can wear their necklaces and then eat their masterpieces!
Yo could make chocolate chip cookies and hunt for chips in each cookie and count them while eating the cookies. Also while mixing the dough they can learn about measuring the ingredients. And then estamating the time for collecting the ingredients, mixing the batter, time for cooking, the clean up time, how many cookies will fit on a cookie sheet and how many cookies can you get out of a batch of dough.
You could do the estamation with any kind of cookies, even cakes/cupcakes.
You could string dry cereal for necklaces for a snack after you make them. Use different flavors/colors of cereals and make pattern or number sequences.
I've used both with my kids when they were growing up.
You could use dried beans or grains to do some sequencing too. Or make pictures by gluing beans or seeds to paper and counting how many they use to make their pictures.
Collect bottle caps and use them to count with. Collect different colored caps or large and small lids too.
While in the car you could count how many cars or trucks you see in ten minutes. You could also find things that start with each letter of the alphabet. Or how many cars or vehicles of one color you can spy in one block or use time; such as in 5 minutes.
Or plan a trip to the zoo/park/ or vacation and have them count the items you will need to take with you. Then Estamate the miles and time it takes to get there. They can also count cars on a train.
If they are old enough the could make things out of beads and count how many beads they use.
They could even cut out squares of paper and make a paper quilt block which helps with shapes and measurements.
Instead of paper use cloth materials and sew them together for pillows and bags or even have a whole class make a block each and make a real quilt. To help raise money for a fund raiser. If they did this they could get into learning about money and selling tickets.
And learn how much things cost and how to spend money.
They could even do this with making things out of beads.
These are just some ideas. Hope they are helpful for you.
Even having a lemon aid stand will give them some money learning.
How about while cooking... there are a lot of fractions; adding; subtracting; dividing, and multiplying involved.
One example is Baking cookies (could be any meal) for a holiday affair (any day of the year): Are you making them from scratch or out of the box. If by scratch, how much of each ingredient will you need, and for how long should they cook at what temperature should the oven be set at. If by box: will you be making one box for the suggested amount or will you be doubling the amount for a larger group (gift item), and how much of each of the ingredient will you need for the batch(es) of cookies. Where you live do you need to set the oven to the "normal" temp or are you in a higher/lower elevation that requires the temp to be higher/lower than normal cooking, and does the cooking time vary? For newborns to pre-k children use their everyday items during play and "clean-up" time, it is a good time to teach them about "time" as well, because math is about numbers, sequence, and sizes. For example:PI is a mathematical equation regarding a circle or circumference, its Synonym PIE is a dessert we eat. What item(s) are we using today that could be a circle /circumference and how many other objects do we use / see (may need to go outside for this) that are in a round shape? How do we measure the size of each shape? etc Therefor expanding the day's lesson(s) into a mathematical; science/ (cooking)/ nature; arts/crafts, and/or reading / language lesson(s).
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