The chapters are:
What's the Difference
Fair Is Fair
Less Is Less
Take Some Time Off
Minus Magic
Going, Going, Gone
Nothing to Lose
Answers
In What's the Difference, Miss Prime are using subtraction to solve problems at the school fair. They solve how many tickets are left after the class gets into the fair. It shows the format of an equation and labels the minus sign, equals sign, and the answer is the difference. Perfect introduction.
In Fair Is Fair, they solve waiting in line to get their faces painted by subtracting all the people that went before them. Each time a person leaves, they subtract them from the number left in line until they are next which sounds like an interesting way to distract kids from the long lines that we sometimes get stuck in.
In Less Is Less, they take away cookies until they end up at Grandma's house with no cookies. There is a subtract when some are taken, lost and eaten. Great introduction to zero and multiple numbers in the equation.
Take Some Time Off used regrouping (also knows as borrowing) to subtract two digit numbers during the obstacle course to figure out how much they beat the school record and how much they beat the time of the other person. This was a little hard for my little guy to understand but a nice introduction.
Minus Magic has balloon animals that are subtracted with magic tricks until they get to the one which Mrs. Prime can't get rid of so Ginger solves the problem by popping the balloon. Then, there are none left! It was a funny story because the teacher magician covered the balloons and some went away but she tried to get rid of the last one and couldn't make it work.
Going, Going, Gone is a competition between Tally and Otto when they are selling popcorn and candy apples. One of them is not selling as quickly as the other so they reduce their price from $1.00 to $0.75 which subtracts $0.25. They reduce there prices until they get to zero in order to sell more than the other booth. It was a great introduction to money and subtracting with decimal points.
Nothing to Lose was about knocking down 10 ducks to win a fuzzy stuffed bear. She knocked down some and there were still two left which she had to throw a curve to get them all. She subtracted all of the ducks and got it down to zero to win the fuzzy stuffed bear.
It was nice that it was broken down into chapters because if you wanted to, you could take each chapter to learn what you wanted. We read a few chapters and then we had to take a break because he was going to school. We picked up the book when he got out of school and read it at the library. He really enjoyed it and we had some scrap paper to write the subtraction problems and solve them on our own. It was nice practice and great that it was integrated right into the book.
After were done reading the book, we did a Lego subtraction activity. I had a bunch of different ideas to work on subtraction but this seemed interesting because it was something that he was really interested in so make sure you pick something that your kids are going to enjoy. I found these sheets which were great for us because I could quickly print them out in black and white and they covered a bunch of different numbers. We have been working on practicing our numbers because my son practices his letters all the time but the numbers seem to be something that don't get used as much daily. Here is his paper with the Lego math and his practice writing with a little silly writing when he got a little punchy at the end.
On another day, we also pulled out the Duplos to do some fun color, sorting, and fine motor activity. For my guy, it is also good to have him work on some quiet activities sometimes because he likes more activity. I took out a big piece of paper that we have from our IKEA furniture....yup, I keep everything. I drew the lines based on the colors of the Duplo blocks that we had.
He pulled all of the blocks from the bin and even sorted the reject colors into another bin because we have some Cars and Bob the Builder colors in the bin. Do you see the pile of the colors that aren't in the rainbow? They are off to his left (also known as the right of the picture).
After we finished putting all of the blocks in the rainbow, he counted them and we put them on the dry erase board. We talked about which one had the most and how many more the one color had than another.
It was a great activity for him to do and incorporate math without him even really knowing. I hope that you try this book and some of these fun activities. I know that we will do them again soon!!
He pulled all of the blocks from the bin and even sorted the reject colors into another bin because we have some Cars and Bob the Builder colors in the bin. Do you see the pile of the colors that aren't in the rainbow? They are off to his left (also known as the right of the picture).
After we finished putting all of the blocks in the rainbow, he counted them and we put them on the dry erase board. We talked about which one had the most and how many more the one color had than another.
It was a great activity for him to do and incorporate math without him even really knowing. I hope that you try this book and some of these fun activities. I know that we will do them again soon!!
Seems like a very helpful book to assist with teaching math. I really like the Duplos activity as it includes learning about numbers, colors, and sorting, as well as being hands on. My oldest just turned 19 months. He is still a little young however I would like to start with him soon. I will use these ideas to help us out. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThere are so many things that you can do with your kid and start small but try to get organized now or you will turn into my mess of papers where I can't find anything after I came up with the idea :) It is so fun watching them learn things and he has already asked to make the Duplo rainbow again soon.
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