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Multiplying Joyful Days

Informal Math in the Early Years

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100+ Math Things To Do

printable pdf version

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  1. Build a birdhouse

  2. Play sudoku

  3. Learn to read music

  4. Play store

  5. Make an addition grid

  6. Read Life of Fred

  7. Play Tangrams

  8. Play Q-Bitz, Blokus or Kanoodle

  9. Visit livingmath.net

  10. Try a math worksheet just for fun

  11. Explore Mr. R’s World of Math

  12. Do a number puzzle or a dot-to-dot

  13. Make a multiplication grid

  14. Hold a paper map while driving

  15. Watch the musical arrangement of pi

  16. Plan a trip, real or imagined

  17. Do the family taxes together

  18. Play Sorry or Snakes and Ladders

  19. Sign up for Bedtime Math

  20. Sit down with a logic puzzle book

  21. Visit Yummy Math.com

  22. Add up the money in your piggy bank

  23. Read a math book for preschoolers like Stuart Murphy’s Mathstart paperbacks

  24. Plan to save up for something important, chart your progress

  25. Play Mobi (bananagrams for math equations)

  26. Bake muffins, double the recipe and freeze for later

  27. Play Dutch Blitz or War or another sequencing card game

  28. Do a scavenger hunt with a list of heights or weights and find matching items

  29. Play hopscotch

  30. Watch John Bennett’s Ted Talk on Why (higher) Math Instruction is Unnecessary

  31. Race to find certain page numbers in a book, hymnbook, or Bible

  32. Play dominoes (preschool) or Mexican Train dominoes (whole family)

  33. Leave the kids with a number problem at bedtime to puzzle over

  34. Play Mastermind or Guess Who (youngers)

  35. Stack blocks (babies) or play Jenga (whole family)

  36. Double your favorite supper recipe and bring half to someone who needs it

  37. Look at the next month on the calendar and talk over your plans

  38. Memorize your phone number(s) and write them out

  39. Take a jar full of coins and roll them, figure out how much they are worth

  40. Follow the temperature throughout the day, plot it on a graph

  41. Get out the number fridge magnets and line them up

  42. Make a chore chart, jobs down the side, days of the week across the top

  43. Read Mathemagic (old Childcraft book, vol. 13)

  44. Clap and dance to your favorite music, count time

  45. Find your home address on a map, count the miles from the US border

  46. Plan your day in the morning and watch for certain times on the clock

  47. Notice comparative language in your Bible time (eg. “last shall be first”)

  48. Play Qwirkle or Rummikub to practice grouping and patterns

  49. Make stick figures of the family groups you know, add them up

  50. Plant a square foot garden, measure how many square feet you have to work with

  51. Weigh each family member and add up your collective weight

  52. Learn to play chess, maybe with Kasparov’s “Checkmate”

  53. Play with a balance scale, or make one, to compare items

  54. Make pizzas, use pi to calculate surface area, and cheese needed per square inch

  55. Read a Sir Cumference book or other math story

  56. Play restaurant, make menus, pay and calculate a tip

  57. Make patterns with a spirograph game, color them systematically

  58. Sing together and use “percussion” instruments to keep time

  59. Play Greed, Pass the Pigs or other game with high stakes

  60. Watch The Boy with the Incredible Brain

  61. Read a math biography, like Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown

  62. Follow your favorite athlete and keep track of their stats

  63. Fill glasses to differing heights and play music

  64. Watch the speedometer as you drive and estimate distances and arrival time

  65. Read Mathematicians Are People, Too by Luetta and Wilbert Reimer

  66. Play Monopoly, Risky Business, Stock Ticker or other money game

  67. Build a wood project from the Family Handyman to help organize your house

  68. Follow a recipe to make a refreshing summer drink

  69. Play cribbage and never forget which numbers add up to 15!

  70. Plan a small business project, build or cook something to sell, keep track of expenses

  71. Calculate the square footage of your bedroom, your whole house and your yard

  72. Talk about the math symbols (+, -, =, x, etc.) and what they mean

  73. Make a scale drawing of your grandparent’s house

  74. Dive into TJEd Math with the “how to teach” resources

  75. Figure out how long it would take to get to the store walking, biking, driving

  76. Use a slide whistle to experiment with length affecting tone

  77. Add up the ages of your family members or find differences in birth years

  78. Figure out your GPS coordinates related to lines of latitude and longitude

  79. Use your timeline to talk about numbers going backwards below zero

  80. Time each family member on a race and compare finishing times

  81. Use balloons to measure lung capacity with a volume of a sphere

  82. Buy a watch and learn to use it to arrive on time

  83. Make cookies in all the geometrical shapes

  84. Read A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe to inspire teaching

  85. Learn about circle patterns or anything else at Math Delights

  86. Take a math joke book out of the library

  87. Play with measuring cups and spoons and playdough

  88. Use a protractor to make circles to cut out and make into snowflakes

  89. Make a list of all the math words you can think of

  90. Read the story of Florence Nightingale or another math biography

  91. Try some exercises at Khan Academy just for fun

  92. Play a dice game like Yahtzee or Mousetrap (with a plunger)

  93. Count the amount of time until an event in months, weeks, days, hours, minutes

  94. Play Scotland Yard, a spy mapping game

  95. Play Rack-O or Uno or Sequence or another sequencing game

  96. Get more game suggestions (with the skill learned) with this pdf list

  97. Memorize the 7 levels of math learning from the pyramid at TJEd.org

  98. Learn about factor visualization and play factor dominoes

  99. Estimate the number of items in a jar, start small, and the closest gets them

  100. Do a Bible word study on counting or numbers

  101. Read a math adventure chapter book, like The Phantom Tollbooth or Rithmatist

  102. Enjoy knowing “why”!   (go to TJEd.org, scroll to "3. Article "what's math got to do with it?")

This track will play Multiplying Joyful Days:  Informal Math in the Early Years

from MACHS 2019 Conference as soon as this audio is available.

Read Aloud School - Danea Lawrenson
00:00 / 00:00
listen

Sources and Resources

Games

resources
numbers and sequencing games.jpg

Numbers and counting

Dominos

Dutch blitz

Mobi

Sequence

Mousetrap (plunger)

Yahtzee

Greed

Monopoly

Cribbage

 

Racko

Risky Business

Poker

Uno

Pass the Pigs

Mille Bournes

Rummikub

Shoot a Loop

Stock Ticker

logic and patterns games.jpg

Patterns and logic

Jenga

Chess

Tangoes

Kanoodle

Blokus

Mastermind

Q-bitz

Guess Who

Scotland Yard

Paper puzzle books

Sudoku

Qwirkle

Battleship

Books and Book Lists

Teaching Books

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Ignite the Fire   Terri Camp

A Thomas Jefferson Education  Oliver deMille

Dumbing Us Down (and others) John Taylor Gatto

Teaching the Trivium  Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn

"History and Research on the Teaching of Math"

      appendix to Teaching the Trivium  Bluedorn

      (why we don't start formal math until age 10 or more)

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Kids Books

The Phantom Tollbooth   Norton Juster

Mathemagic- one of the childcraft series

Champions of Mathematics  biographies of mathematicians

Bedside Book of Geometry   Mike Askew and Sheila Ebbutt

Life of Fred   read aloud math curriculum

Mathstart paperbacks   Stuart J. Murphy

Links to More Book Lists

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Really decent picture book synopses

https://themidlifemamas.com/stories-about-math/

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This listing is categorized, if you like that

https://www.livingmath.net/reader-index

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https://denisegaskins.com/living-math-books/

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Also a huge categorized list

https://mamajenn.com/livingmathbooks/topics/

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TJEd recommendations- the whole site is chock full

https://www.tjed.org/resources-2/classics/math-classics-kids/

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Teaching Resource Links

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TJEd.org

http://www.tjed.org/2015/03/tjed-math/

Intro to the 7 levels of Math

https://www.tjed.org/2015/04/major-revolution-teaching-math/

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Andrew Pudewa recordings from MACHS conference 2011

machs.ca

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musical arrangement of pi

https://youtu.be/wM-x3pUcdeo

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Raymond and Dorothy Moore philosophy

https://www.moorehomeschooling.com/articles/synopsis

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Synopsis of Benezet's Story

https://lauragraceweldon.com/2014/11/11/math-instruction-versus-natural-math-benezets-example/

 

TED talk  John Bennett- why math instruction is unnecessary
https://youtu.be/xyowJZxrtbg  

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Effects of GPS navigation on brain function

https://www.psypost.org/2017/03/study-gps-navigation-switches-off-parts-brain-otherwise-used-48464

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