Tim Coomer

Can someone give me some good ideas on things to purchase for my 4 1/2
year old. He LOVES numbers, and is starting to put them together to see
what they make. It is so neat watching him figure these things out! He
is really into music, and he remembers the number of the song he likes
on almost every CD, even if he hasn't heard it for a month or so. That
amazes me!
Thanks,
Amie

Samantha Stopple

How about lots of dice. Different kinds too the kind
gamers use that have more sides than your everyday 6
sided dice. Maybe dominoes...from my experience I
wouldn't play a game of dominoes with a 4 1/2 yo but I
would use them like a puzzle or seeing patterns. My dd
is 6 and we only just started Yahzee.

She started exploring numbers at about the same age as
your son. Yesterday she was 'playing school' with lego
children who each had their own cars. They must have
been having a math lesson because she kept asking me
what something plus something plus something was and I
would tell her. Then she would in a singsong like
teacher voice ask the student what something plus
something....was then the student would give the
correct answer :)

I don't think I ever did anything special when she
started showing interest in numbers except answer her
question or give her hints that might work for her to
figure things out on her own. And her math concepts
have gotten more complex.

Numbers and math is lots about finding and seeing
patterns. A game I really like for patterns is Rivers,
Rails and Roads.

Samantha

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groundhoggirl

Oh, we love Rivers, Roads & Rails! I bought a brand-new game at a
garage sale for something like 50 cents years ago, and my sons and I
play it all the time.

Last weekend we discovered a game called Triaminoes, which is something
like Dominoes, except the pieces are triangles instead of being
rectangles. It was challenging for the boys, but something they could
easily pick up if we play it just a few more times. They really seemed
to enjoy it. My husband and I loved it. We plan to buy this game as a
Christmas present for the family.

Mimi


On Saturday, December 8, 2001, at 01:26 AM, Samantha Stopple wrote:

>
> How about lots of dice. Different kinds too the kind
> gamers use that have more sides than your everyday 6
> sided dice. Maybe dominoes...from my experience I
> wouldn't play a game of dominoes with a 4 1/2 yo but I
> would use them like a puzzle or seeing patterns. My dd
> is 6 and we only just started Yahzee.
>
> She started exploring numbers at about the same age as
> your son. Yesterday she was 'playing school' with lego
> children who each had their own cars. They must have
> been having a math lesson because she kept asking me
> what something plus something plus something was and I
> would tell her. Then she would in a singsong like
> teacher voice ask the student what something plus
> something....was then the student would give the
> correct answer :)
>
> I don't think I ever did anything special when she
> started showing interest in numbers except answer her
> question or give her hints that might work for her to
> figure things out on her own. And her math concepts
> have gotten more complex.
>
> Numbers and math is lots about finding and seeing
> patterns. A game I really like for patterns is Rivers,
> Rails and Roads.
>
> Samantha
>
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> Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
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Tia Leschke

>Can someone give me some good ideas on things to purchase for my 4 1/2
>year old. He LOVES numbers, and is starting to put them together to see
>what they make.

Money is great for kids learning about numbers. Give him a small allowance
and help him figure out how long he'd need to save for some small thing he
wants. Play store with him using play or real money. One good thing about
money is that it makes understanding borrowing and carrying easier.

If you really want to buy something, we used to have a plastic balance-type
scale. The numbers were each a different size (and weight) so that a 3 and
a 5 will be the same weight as an 8 and balance out.

Games like snakes and ladders are good for counting and figuring out what
you need to roll to land where you want to. Talking about numbers you
encounter in daily life is great.
Tia

Tia Leschke leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
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It is the answers which separate us, the questions which unite us. - Janice
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Elsa Haas

In How Children Fail, John Holt’s first book, which began as a journal he
kept while working as a fifth-grade teacher and trying to analyze why the
kids seemed to have so much trouble understanding or retaining what he was
trying to teach them, there are pages and pages of his observations on kids
trying to figure out how a balance beam scale like that worked. (Well, the
scale he describes might have been more complicated – the thing he wanted
the kids to figure out was that “things weigh more farther out” – the
principle of the lever. The weights could be placed at varying distances
from the fulcrum.)

In the original text, he describes how he and a colleague were trying to
help children develop their “thinking skills”, or some such rot. Then, in
the revised edition (in which he wisely changed nothing of his original
journal entries, but only added his new thoughts on them twenty or so years
later), he remarks that, after all the feverish effort he and his colleague
had put into these “thinking games” (with pretty dismal results), one day he
forgot and left the scale by accident on a table in the back of another
classroom, and… guess what?

Those kids figured it out on their own in no time, with no prodding,
hinting, encouragement, bribes or other manipulation. So I say, go ahead and
buy some stuff (I like Cuisenaire rods, too), but for goodness’ sake let
your kids play with it ON THEIR OWN.

When kids (or adults) are too closely observed in their learning, they
become self-conscious. They feel judged, so they start focusing more of
their attention on not looking stupid than on actually solving the problem
in front of them. This destroys their intelligence.

Elsa Haas


Tia wrote:

<>

If you really want to buy something, we used to have a plastic balance-type
scale. The numbers were each a different size (and weight) so that a 3 and
a 5 will be the same weight as an 8 and balance out.

<>


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