Sunday, November 24, 2013

Our favorite board games (with math and counting) so far this semester. Including our Number Jail game.

Have you tried teaching place value yet? Do your kids enjoy the challenge of reading large numbers? It is fun for kids, especially when we go grocery shopping and do some couponing. Knox loves to tell me the numbers he reads on the shelves.
 
I made up a game called "Number Jail"- ha ha go figure huh. My kids are very competitive about it, and what's funny is there is really no way to win. You put up a box black bars and numbers inside of the box on your dry erase board. Then make your place value columns, like a Hundred's column, Ten's column, One's column. Then have the kids take turns picking a number and telling you where the digits in the number belong. Have them read you the number left to right. Then when you start with the place value, they read the ones column to your first. This will come in handy later in math reading the number backwards for place value. But they think it's a cool game and request it all the time.



I found this awesome game at Exploration Place during their Dinosaur exhibit called Dino Tracks. It teaches place value and you can adjust the game to suit different levels of math. We haven't used it except up to 100's, we are going to start 1000's. And then we should be able to move on to the more technical math cards that came with it.







We play Money Bingo, I found money bingo boards off another blog somewhere, I stuck them into clear plastic sleeves and we grab money from a little purple bucket. We actually practice counting change according to the date we are in the month. So if it's November 30th, we count $.30. I was surprised at how quickly they caught on to counting money.

Some other good counting games we play, Chutes and Ladders, Honeycomb Hike, and we love Monopoly Junior. Now that Knox is doing addition it should be a lot more fun. Genna is even picking up on the addition a little bit. It uses play money that is at a kindergarten/1st grade level so I think it's a good investment for that age.

**Honeycomb Hike drives the kids nuts too. I am not really sure why. I didn't realize it but I guess it must be hard to get, I saw one on Amazon this morning. If it's not there keep searching around I find it hard to believe a game that good would not be made anymore.


One math lesson we are constantly working on involves the weather observations each day. At the end of the year, Knox will take the data he collected and learn to make some sort of graph with it.

I do reward my kids I feel like they work harder for me and it motivates them a lot to have a prize bin to go to. Even Brenden gets a little surprise out of there so he can be included. Think of all the places you go that your kids don't have to do jack squat and they get a silly "prize". Like going to the bank..they get a sucker- wow! That was hard work balancing the check book huh?? lol
  Don't feel guilty for rewarding them. You can chose how often and how big your prizes are, and you can throw Catholic themed prizes in there too. I know our prize bin has statues of glow in the dark Saints in it and Holy Cards for their Holy Card collection and saint pencils and stickers..etc.. When you're homeschooling you just get it done and prizes will help do that ;).

No comments:

Post a Comment

I reserve the right to delete attacks on my faith and directed at my family or friends, or for any other reason I feel they are inappropriate. Please keep this blog a respectful and happy place.