Book Review: Marshmallow Math: Early Math for Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Primary School Children

  by Trevor Schindeler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I originally picked this book up to get ideas for simple counting and math games for Scientist. I was pleasantly surprised to find, not only the games I was looking for, but a philosophy about teaching math to young children that I agree with.

This book focuses on how to teach solid math principles instead of just memorizing equations and rules. It encourages using objects (i.e. marshmallows, pennies, jelly beans etc.) over written numbers in the early stages of math so that children can see and physically manipulate the numbers they are trying to work with, and gain a understanding of what they are actually doing with each equation. Most importantly, it does this in game format to make it fun.

Other things I liked about the book...it encourages short, focused, fun time periods for doing math, instead of long stretches with lots of "work". It is easy to read and simple to understand, as in, they don't spend pages and pages trying to convince you why their method works or is better. In fact, each chapter is only about a page long. The book itself is only 153 pages, which includes charts and game boards that you can print out to use. Also, the concepts start with simple things for toddlers, and gradually advance in difficulty to about a 1st or 2nd grade level. So the book and it's ideas will be useful for awhile.

I would recommend this book for anyone out there with younger children looking for fun ways to include math into your everyday playtime activities.

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Another ABC Blog

Today I stumbled across another ABC blog while I was looking for ideas for our upcoming K day. It's called The Alphabet Project. It's basically the same as the ABC Stuff blog I posted about a little while ago, except that the woman who posts on there has a daughter that's 2 (as opposed to the woman who does ABC Stuff who has a 4 year old son) so her projects are a little bit simpler. I also really like the method she uses. Here's how she explains it:

Each week we will focus on one letter. I've divided the Alphabet Project into daily and weekly activities. Daily activities will be shorter, while the weekly activities will be more involved.

Daily:
1. SEE the letter.
2. SAY the letter's sound.
3. READ a book based on the letter. (For example, for the letter A, we'll read a book about apples.)
4. WRITE the letter.

Weekly:
1. COOK something that begins with the letter.
2. MAKE something that begins with the letter. (Yes, "make" could be the same as cook, but for "make" I'm envisioning an art project or something.)
3. DO an activity that begins with the letter.

Scientist and I aren't doing anything daily yet. We are still just going through the alphabet one letter at a time once a week. It's been more or less a play time with our friends so far, that just happens to have an educational twist. But I have been thinking that maybe in the fall after he turns three, we will boost it up to where he and I at least are doing something on a daily basis, and though I may not copy these exact goals, I like that she has them layed out and goes from there. It seems like it would give a little more structure but still give you lots of freedom to move within it.

Anyways, check out her blog, it has some cool ideas.

The World of Geography

As a college student in Utah I was shocked by how many of my fellow students were uncertain about the location of my home state, Oregon. I frequently heard, “is that the state north of California, or is it up by Canada? “ I guess I can’t really blame them, until a couple of years ago I only had a vague notion about the location of many states, and my understanding of latitude and longitude was a little fuzzy. Rote memorization is a big no-no in our house so I’ve found some other fun ways for the kids (and myself) to learn geography.

We stumbled on our first game by accident. One summer the boys developed a bit of an obsession with finding out-of-state license plates. Everywhere we went they searched for vehicles from far- away places. They needed a way to keep track of which states they had found so I printed off a map of the United States for each of them, and then when they found a state they would color it in. It didn’t take them long to realize that the smaller a state is and the farther away, the harder it is to find! (We did eventually find the elusive Hawaii and Rhode Island plates!)

My boys also like to collect state quarters. I got them each a map to display their collections. Not only have they pored over the maps countless times, checking to see which ones are still missing but they’ve learned a little bit about each state based on the engravings. I’ve found that learning about a place is the very best way to remember its location.

We talked about the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock and then we looked at the outcropping of Massachusetts, making it easier to remember which state it is. We’ve talk about being able to see the Statue of Liberty from both New York and New Jersey, about Mississippi being next to the Mississippi river and about the Pioneers traveling across the Missouri River. Small, simple amounts of information give the names of places meaning and improve recollection. Sometimes we can’t think of a good bit of information to “hook” a state name on, then we try to remember something about the shape of the state. We used to confuse Indiana and Illinois until we decided Illinois looked like a swollen nose, which reminded us of “ill”.

Our favorite geography games are the “10 Days” series. There is a different game for each continent; the object of the game is to collect 10 country cards that you can place in the right order to take a 10 day journey. As each card is drawn we study the map to find its location and see if we can work it into our game strategy. Often when we’re done playing the game the kids like to just play with the cards, planning out all kinds of long exotic trips across the planet.

Another favorite in our house is a game we like to call, “Where in the World is Uncle Ryan?” My brother, Ryan, travels extensively and it’s always fun to look up his location on the map, learn something about where he is, and hear about his adventures when he gets back. Even if you don’t have an immediate family member who travels, friends, neighbors, and missionaries are excellent sources of information about different places around the world. Geography is literally all around us. Now that it has become more than a memorization exercise, it is one of our families’ favorite subjects!

Sick Day Websites

We have been sick at our house for the last week. Someone forgot to tell Scientist that you are supposed to take it easy and rest when you're sick, so that your body can use its energy to make you well. One of the ways I found to get him to hold still for a small amount of time was to let him play toddler games on the Internet.

We did a google search for "toddler games" and came up with lots and lots of responses. Most of them I was not impressed with, but I did find a few that we will probably visit again. I think they have some educational value to them.

Minimops.com is the first website. It has five different games. The first is putting together dinosaur puzzles. The second is a band and you click on the different instraments to make them play. Third is drawing music. Fourth, and this one is my favorite, if a flower pot game. You get a picture of a seed, a flower pot, a watering can, and the sun with some clouds covering it. You have to pick the right order for planting the seed, watering it, and chasing the clouds away to give it sun. If you do, then a flower will grow in the flower pot. The fifth game is a dot to dot picture. All the games you can play with simple clicks of the mouse. Scientist seemed to catch on to all of them pretty quickly except the puzzles.

Fisherprice.com is the other website. This website has three different categories for Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers. The only one we've been to is the Toddler section. They have about 27 different toddler games. We haven't tried them all out yet, but here are a few of my favorites. The ABC Zoo. You push buttons on the keyboard and a cooresponding letter pops up. It says the name of the letter and then an animal that starts with that letter. So for example, "A, allegator begins with A" and then the little animated allegator chops it's teeth at you. Another one I liked was the Animal Sounds game. Two animals pop up on the screen and then you hear an animal sound. You have to click on the animal that makes that sound. There are also several different "Click and Color" games that Scientist really liked.

These aren't activities that we would do all day everyday, but when you're sick or just needing something "entertaining" that's still educational, we found that these websites were a lot of fun.

Not to Sound Like an Advertisement, But...

One of my biggest challenges right now is (and probably always will be) finding resources and ideas for activities for Scientist and I that are educational but still on his level. There are lots and lots of things out there for preschool aged kids, but Scientist is not quite there yet. What I usually end up doing is using my imagination to adapt the preschool material to fit a two year old. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes not.

Recently, I have found two recources that I really like, and I thought I would share them, in case anyone out there is looking.

#1 Highlights High Five Magazine

For Christmas, my mom subscribed Scientist to the Highlights High Five magazine (which is similar to the regular Highlights magazine, but for the younger age range of 2-6). Our first issue came today. I remember loving the Highlights magazine as a kid, and was really excited to share it with Scientist. We weren't disappointed either. They have fun little stories, games, and puzzles, that are entertaining as well as educational.

Probably my favorite story/activity in this month's issue was one about space men called Add Them Up! I took a picture of the page to give you an idea. If you click on it, I think it will get big enough that you can read the words on the side. What I liked about it is that it was clever, and pretty versatile. For the younger kids you can work on counting up the space men. Which is what Scientist and I did. But for older kids, you can use the same paragraphs to do simple addition. And if you wanted to add some of your own ideas, you could turn everything around without too much trouble and do simple subtraction. But the best part is that it's fun, so you hardly realize you're "doing math". :)

Anyways, I'm thrilled with the magazine. And I think Scientist enjoyed it enough that we could read it multiple times. Also, for anyone interested they have a website that has a lot of the same kinds of ideas and it's all free. Go to http://www.highlightskids.com/ and see if you can find anything to tickle your fancy. I think the age range is 2-12, so you can probably find something. Or, if you want to check out High Five (the one geared just to 2-6 year olds) go to www.highlights.com/highfive , on the bottom of the page in the center is a blue box called About High Five, and under that if you click on Preview a Sample issue, you'll be able to print out one issue for free. It's at least worth going and getting the free one. You can also check out your local library and see if they carry it.

#2 ABC Stuff

ABC Stuff is a blog put together by a mom with a toddler who wanted something more for him to do than play the computer and watch TV. Every week they focus on a different letter and she posts the activities that they do together. There a lots of art projects and simple math activities, and they are all centered around a specific letter of the alphabet. She is detailed enough that if you wanted to follow her weekly routine, you could. Or, if you are like us and just looking for an activity here and there, it works really well for that too. http://howethoughtsabcstuff.blogspot.com/

She also gives the links to where she finds her ideas on the web, which is another great list of resources.

Three Cheers for the library!

The computers at the library were offline today, so my poor children had to actually look for books at the library! Usually they throw me a token book or two on their way to the bank of computers but today they brought me book after book. We also stocked up on DVDs and books-on-tape for our Thanksgiving road trip to Arizona. I'm not sure there are enough books-on-tape in the world to make that 20 hour drive bearable, but we did our best! I love being at the library but my favorite part is actually when we get home with our stack of books. I've learned that if I want my children to read their literary finds I have to give them at least an hour of down time when we get home. They spread the books all over the place and dig through them hunting for treasure. Sometimes I let the pile sit for a day or two because as soon as I put it away they seem to forget that they have library books.

Princess talked Engineer into reading to her (aren't they adorable!) and Thinker and Puzzler dove into a new origami book. I love the quiet hum of anxiously engaged kids!

Rainy Day

So what do you get when you combine a rainy day and a house full of sick kids? Surprisingly enough, an interest in coloring books. Now I know that may seem like a no-brainer given the circumstances, but my boys have NEVER been interested in coloring books. However, this week they discovered them on the shelf and suddenly they were all the rage. They were Dover coloring books that my mom had given me. (Rainbow Resources http://www.rainbowresource.com/index.php has a large selection of these "educational" coloring books.)

I thought we would never use them, but I put them on the shelf anyway. Engineer, who is also an avid birder, discovered The Book of State Birds and Flowers. Thinker grabbed The Book of Sailing Ships. Soon the copy machine was humming (there are always more than one kid who want the same picture) and the crayons were spilled everywhere.

Thinker was too sick to stay interested for long, but Engineer kept copying and coloring page after page. With each new page came interesting facts and questions. "Mom, did you know two states have a chicken for the state bird?" "Mom, why is the Baltimore Oriel named after the city of Baltimore when it must live other places too?" "Mom, look at the coloring on a thrush!" By dinnertime he had pretty well completed a "unit study" on state birds and flowers! It's amazing to me what kids will learn when information is available to them and when they have the time to follow an interest. Even if that is nothing more than coloring books on a rainy day.