We set these skills aside because they were causing confusion with odd/even and counting by 2's and 5's which I deemed more important at the time, as we needed to progess further into money and time which both rely on 5's counting heavily. Now that we are well on our way with those, I want to pick up on counting by 3's and 4's. How did you teach this. Is it just pure memorization, or am I not picking up on some pedagological magic. Thanks
Memorization, memorization, memorization! We played games to teach odd and even numbers, counting foward and backward. Songs are great too. Ems has a great time using sidewalk chalk to do her math. It gets her outdoors and she has a lot of room to write. We used to collect rocks and place them in even and odd piles. I would have Ems count orally foward and backwards as well in even and odd numbers. Play hopscotch and as you jump to each square you say the next number. This is lots of fun. This is an area I really applied to Ems learning because I remember being her age and my teachers stressed 2, 5,10,20,50,100 but they skipped the middle numbers. I think this is a big part of my math problems today. Usually when we count money or change or do bills, we rarely are working with these even numbers. Handsome works with numbers all day. If any number is off, millions of dollars is at stake. So when he was in college he was taught to count by 3s and 9s. I am slowly working on this for myself and it really works. They seem to be easy to add to and take from because they are more common. I heard a man, many years ago, on Oprah. He was sharing with her that schools should be teaching children to count by 9s, not tens. I do not remember the method but it sounds something like what Handsome does. My sister also mentioned a method that sounded like this, when she was in school. I noticed Ems doing much better with multiplication and adding in general as she learns to add and subtract the odd and even numbers, equally. This is another thing I love about homeschooling, it appears to me that the public school gives a lot more time to even numbers and although they do work, I think most people can easily remember the even. This is why I think we should work on odd a lot more then we do. Many people I know can not fluently count by odd numbers. I hope you have a fun time teaching numbers. This was a great time for us. Patty
My dd used to love to write hers out on our wipe off board. I would write them first, then she would have to write them. sometmes I would skip one here and there to see if she would catch it...that helped her alot, too. We also would make our own number lines and have her "jump" by three's or 4's. By making our own it was more like a "project" and she loves a project!
Leslie, we also used the white board. I did the same thing, skip a number and have her fill it in. That really help too. I am glad you mentioned the white board because our white board is behind Emmas doll house and I completely forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me! Patty
The white board is a wonderful tool. Kids just seem to love it. Math in the younger grades is almost exclusively about memorization. There are tricks to teach in case a child/person forgets what an answer may be. But it is still memorization. It is my opinion that most if not all adults who think they are horrible in math are really horrible at memorizing. They then had convinced themselves they are not good at math and psychologically had a hard time learning when they got older. With my kids, I have let them know it is important to memorize math at their age. But if they can't get it or struggle with it, there will always be a calculator available to help them as an adult
I have a great count by 7s. Act out the sevens. Count by seven…. Only say the fact the first time so students understand what it means to count by seven. Act out the sevens. Count by seven…. Only say the fact the first time so students understand what it means to count by seven. And touch top of your head and say 7……………7x1=7 Touch neck and say 14…………………………… 7x2=14 Touch left shoulder with right hand 14…………….7x3=21 Touch right shoulder with left hand 21…………….7x4=28 Put fist in stomach and say 35……………………...7x5=35 Touch left hip with right hand and say 42………….7x6=42 Touch right hip with left hand and say 49………….7x7=49 Touch knees and say 56…………………………7x8=56 Touch ankle and say 63…………………………7x9=63 Touch the floor and say 70………………………….7x10=70 *****shoulders are the 20s hips are the 40s
Here's a web site for an interactive 100's chart. That's a chart of 100 squares all numbered. This one is on-line. When Phillip is skip-counting, he will get on and "color" every third (or fourth) number. You can also print one out and have him color it with crayons. Emphasize the patterns the colored numbers make, note any numbers that are always (or never) colored, etc. http://www.apples4theteacher.com/math.html#interactivenumbercharts
My son learned to count by 7s by watching football. In fact his math has soared after becomming a football fan. lol. I never really taught the 3's and 4's and such. My dd can pick out number patterns like rainman. I gave her this assignment of picking the next number and she did it in a few minutes. It took me longer to figure out if she was right. lol. I was never good at number patterns. I once gave her an assignment of writing by 2's, 5's, and 10's up to 100. She would write 4, the go to the next page and write 10, then the next and write 20....and kept doing it that way and never messing up. I would have been so confused. Anyway, I do think that having the child memorize and write out the 3's and 4's will be helpful. That is how I started with 2's, 5's and 10's.
Jackie, I just went to the website you suggested. Great website. I just clicked on the tangrams....UGH. I am so not good at patterns and tangrams, my brain must be damaged. lol. My dd looked over and got right away. Some days I wonder if I am qualified to homeschool. I am glad I still have spelling over her. LOL.
