Spooky Math Fun with Shapes

Math always was spooky. I see a wide majority of people out there (including myself) vigorously nodding their heads in approval! Well, why not use this ‘spooky math’ to teach your little one the basics of geometrical shapes this Halloween?

Here’s a fun activity to do, which also doubles up as a craft. We all enjoy making jack-o’-lanterns out of pumpkins in order to keep them on our porches outdoors for Halloween. Let’s try our hand at making paper jack-o’-lanterns too for a change; they’ll look good adorning the walls indoors, especially the kids’ rooms!

Image courtesy: Toddler Approved

Simply draw the outline of a large pumpkin on a white sheet of paper and let your child color it a bright orange. Now cut it out. On a separate sheet of paper, draw various other basic shapes – triangles, squares, rectangles, circles, semi-circles, even a star or two. Ask your child to identify each shape and color all the similar ones a particular shade – such as yellow for circles, black for squares, blue for stars and so on. Once that is done, you could cut out the shapes as well; these can now be glued on to the orange pumpkin from the first step and, lo and behold, you have a cheery-looking multi-colored pumpkin grinning back at you!

Have a good, spooky Halloween!

Playing Around with Math

“Mathematics” by OpenClipart-Vectors is licensed under CC by 2.0

These days I’m trying to teach my daughter to ‘play with numbers’. Right from using building blocks to count from 1 to 10, playing board games like snakes and ladders in which one has to count ahead spaces at every step and add numbers together to mastering the fundamentals of the basic number line through a simple game of hopscotch, we’re doing it all. And it’s a whole lot of fun.

We also have an abacus at home now. Earlier I was of the view that it could only be used to do simple addition and subtraction; but then on reading more about this fun calculating tool, we’ve started doing more complex operations like multiplication and division too, albeit of small numbers.

We try and include math in our everyday activities – in the kitchen learning about volumes, playing online math games on the computer and the like. Kids (at least mine) tend to develop a natural aversion to the subject if they are made to sit down with a list of problems on a worksheet and asked to solve them. The key to making the subject fun is to involve imaginative play in math, something that is a part of their everyday routine and yet is enjoyable.

Finger Counting - Good or Bad

To begin with, I unashamedly admit the fact that I use my fingers to count even today. Count as in, not counting on my fingers one by one, but yes, I do take a quick look at my fingers whenever a single digit calculation has to be done, just by way of habit.

And the debate goes on – shouldn’t you wean your child off from counting on her fingers as soon as possible? Naysayers who do not support finger counting put forward the following claims:

• Finger counting is an introductory skill and children should generally move ‘from the less-efficient strategies of using their fingers, to the more efficient strategies without finger use’, according to a certain mathematical development research.
• The whole calculation process slows down as a result of counting on your fingers, and hence the child is put at a disadvantage in class.
• Finger counting closes the kids’ minds to the essential skill of memorizing certain math facts.

That said and done, a recent study conducted by a team at Stanford concluded that:

• Far from being ‘babyish’, the technique is essential for mathematical achievement.
• Stopping students from using their fingers while counting could be akin to halting their mathematical development.
• Visual math is a powerful tool for all learners, especially young kids. When we work on math, our brain activity is distributed among many different networks, which include areas within the ventral and dorsal pathways, both of which are visual. Hence, our mathematical thinking is grounded in visual processing.

Now the next time your child starts to do a basic mathematical calculation on his fingers, don’t discourage her; instead do it along with her. It’s for her good only in the long run.

Blast from the Past: Lessons in History for Kids

If you thought learning history was all about memorizing facts, think again. My kids surprised me recently when they asked me about the Renaissance. This caught me by surprise because they are still a long way away from Renaissance. On probing, I found out that they came across this while playing one of the penguin games that featured paintings from the Renaissance period.

This made me realize that anything, even history, can be turned into an exciting learning opportunity. It is not just a story about people, places and events from the past. It tells us how the past has shaped the present. All that we have today is a result of what happened.

Take for example, the subject history when taught in classrooms with dates to be memorized was boring. This is the past and we have learnt from it, understood why it didn’t work, and have come up with new ways to make the subject exciting.

So what are the ways in which history can be made fun for kids?

“Point Park, Lookout Mountain TN” by framechaser23 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Games

Apart from the penguin games I talked about earlier that sparked an interest in Renaissance in my kids, there are many other apps that make history interesting. For historical figures and the American Revolution there is Ansel and Clair: Paul Revere's Ride, for battles and wars there are Marie Antoinette & The Independence War and Empire Total War, and for politics you can consider The Political Machine 2012.

Movies

If your kids love watching movies, there are plenty that you could show them like Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Gettysburg, The Great Escape, The King's Speech, Lawrence of Arabia and Saving Private Ryan, John Adams (mini series), JFK, Forrest Gump and Gangs of New York. I would recommend you watch the movies before the kids do or sit with them during them, as they may not all be suitable for younger children. Not all movies portray history accurately, and that is something you should keep in mind too.

Museums

“National Museum of Natural History” by angela n. is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Take it from reel to real, and visit the National Museum of American History or American Museum of Natural History! Field trips to nearby historical towns and museums are great ways to engage kids in learning history. Your own neighborhood may have historical buildings that you could visit. By setting up the Field Trip app on your smartphone, you can receive alerts when you are in the vicinity of interesting places that are categorized under Historic Places & Events.

Books

If we must bring books into this, why not get kids to read biographies and autobiographies? Even better, give them a choice of historical figures, if possible from the era you are teaching them about, and ask them to choose the person about whom they would like to read. It is more likely they will take an interest in reading, if they play a part in choosing what they want to read.

But wait, it need not stop at reading. Why not pit kids against each other with a game of 20 questions? With each one assuming the character of a person they have read about and the other trying to guess the name of the historical figure.

Act!

Kids can take it to the next level and act the characters out. They can also put together a few easy costumes. It is a whole lotta fun! Kids can enact a scene from the life of Abraham Lincoln, Alexander the Great, Amelia Earhart, Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong. The latter got us a ringside view of the moonwalk! You can also find out if there are any history buffs who gather together for battle reenactments and watch them.

These are just a few ways to put the spark back in history and they sure beat the textbook route, don’t they?