Teaching Math to Preschooler 2

When I was in kindergarten, my mom hired a tuition teacher who made me do sums that looked like this:

  2347
  9382
  2906
+4759   
             

Holly molly, how I HATED math. I was a little Dragon girl then, I wanted to run and climb trees, catch bugs and scream and shout. Instead, I had to do sums.....imagine doing pages and pages of that. Thanks ma, I am allergic to numbers now.

It's not that my mom was kiasu. She couldn't teach us herself and therefore, she did what she thought was best for us. I vowed never to do the same to my own children. I never thought I would have a little math nerd for a son.
 
I brought Tiger to Eye Level the other day, just to see if he would like it. Basically, the FREE SCREENING test for his age was to see if he could write 1 2 3. Since I've never forced Tiger to write lines, he squiggled legible but fugly numbers. Alas, that meant he must start from Book One. Tracing numbers & writing lines. My allergy sky-rocketed.

"You want me to pay fees to trace 1 2 3?" 

*I didn't say it out loud la*

Instead, I asked Tiger if he would like to join the class. 

He replied, "I like math with mama only"

*Mama did imaginary Kozachok dance and backflips*

I smiled and said, "Never mind, we can write at home. Maybe when he is 5? Bye"

Like what Madam Pow Yew said, Math is magic!

It should be fun, exciting and intriguing.

What we do at home is:

Sometimes, we write/scribble

 

Sometimes, we just count

Occasionally, he uses his Logico board.

If we bring the board  to my room, he will ALWAYS ask for popcorn.

It's like the book, If You Give The Mouse A Cookie.

In this case, I gave the Tiger some Garrett Almond Popcorn

while we played with this in my room last July.

Associating popcorn with math. Genius, no?

I need a popcorn maker.

 I snapped a craft stick into two to make a "bigger/smaller than" sign

I recently purchase some magnetic numbers from ELC during its member sale

but I needed a sorter...tadaaaaa

                     category box              +      magnetic letters

Tiger was over the moon.

"Mama, wah....so nice!"

  

 Never be afraid to teach new math concepts.

They think it's a game!

 

 Something for Teacher Mama.

After he completes a worksheet, he gets either a stamp

or a sticker.

Not like I get to stamp because Tiger will do it himself but

ain't that the best part about homeschooling?

Our goodies from Bookxcess!

I really like this book Math Wizardry by Kenda & Williams

(ISBN-13: 978-0-7641-4176-8)

For example, her guidelines for young math wizards are:

• Make math hands-on
• Take math outside
• Take math on a vacation
• Encourage kids to keep a sketchbook/observation notebook
• Make charts/graphs with your children
• Encourage an interest in architecture
• Keep sports stat
• Play with codes
• Take math into the kitchen
• Make math a holiday event
• Don't step in too fast
• Don't be reluctant to expose children to difficult concepts

I feel like I can teach math when I look at her guidelines. Haha! Very much like Madam Poh Yew :)

Only rm 17.90 from Bookxcess!