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Monday, December 22, 2008

Math Games!

Hey everyone! Sorry, I haven't posted anything for a while. My kids and I have been sick and then of course, the holidays have kept us busy. My husband is busy working all week (no days off *sigh*) and I've been busying trying to handle most of it myself.

Anyways, I had a lot of fun with my son the other day. We've been learning basic addition and subtraction using the montessori methods and I wanted to do something fun for him the other day to spice it up a bit. I decided to play chutes and ladders with my son. I got rid of the spinner (although you can use the spinner instead) and traded it for a regular 6 sided die. We played like you would normally, but instead we rolled the die twice and added the two numbers together and went that many spaces. It really is helping him get faster in his addition facts. I have him write his problems down. The first game he did 24 problems before I won and the second game we only did 5 problems. I plan to buy the 10 and 20 sided die from the learning store and a blank die so we can get harder problems, etc.

To plan the game with subtraction, use a 10 sided die and say for the whole game whatever you roll subtract and then pick a number to subtract like 2 and then go that many spaces. or use the 10 or 20 sided die and use a 6 sided die to roll to see how many you need to subtract.

Another great thing about chutes and ladders is that the spaces are numbered 1 to 100. So it's also great that you can roll the die and say you get a 6. Have your child add 6 to whatever the number is that the person is on (say space 22) and then move their person to that numbered square without counting the spaces out. They gotta do the math! Also, if they go up a ladder, have them figure out how many spaces they got to skip buy using the numbers on the two spaces or when the go down a slide how many spaces did they get behind. there a lot of great questions you can ask and have them figure out. You don't get tons of problems in, but your questions are word problems and you're helping them use math in their life so they are more interested. You can also ask questions about how many more spaces do you need until you win? etc. just keep asking questions in conversation as you play and have fun!


MoziEsmé said...

What a great way to get those math skills worked on! I'll have to remember this...

Packer Family said...

I just started a new blog and your blog was one that inspired me so I wanted you to check it out!

Peterson Party said...

I've gotten a lot of great ideas from your blog. I have an award for you.