Gulp. I just re-opened Maddy’s Kindergarten folder and stumbled across a pretty important little guy–a summer math information sheet and suggested activities.
Math does not come naturally to me at all, but luckily for some of my bloggy pals it does. One in particular, Christy of Superheroes and Princesses, has discovered two very cool ways of incorporating math into your day through two books she found.
She has kindly allowed me to feature two posts of hers, and here they are: Math by Chocolate (yum!) and Ten Black Dots.
Last week we borrowed The m&m’s brand chocolate candies Counting Book by Barbara Barbieri McGrath from the library. C and R had a lot of fun with this book.
You only need 12 m&m’s, but you do need specific colors so plan ahead if you want to avoid dumping more candies than necessary for your child. I did not plan ahead and C and R had too many m&m’s in front of them, but I was able to remove the leftovers without any complaint once I told them they could each have 12 at the end of the book.
The book teaches the numbers 1 through 12 and simple math like addition and sets of 12. The directions were simple enough for R (3) to follow.
It also teaches three primary shapes: the square,The best part of the book for C and R was the subtraction. Subtraction is taught by eating the m&m’s. We had a lot of fun with this book and C and R only ate 12 m&m’s each – well worth it for the math lessons!
C and R had a lot of fun with Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. This book is great counting practice. We used black pom poms to count along with the items in the book. C and R also enjoyed playing with the dots and making their own creations. I put this book in a large ziploc bag with the pom poms so they can work on counting and creating independently.
Christy does an awesome job of sharing the activities she does with her children, and I love to read about their adventures through Tot School. Christy also is co-hosting The Super Summer Swap, and I’m so grateful that they shared such a cool idea; we sure had a blast with it. Be sure to check out Superheroes and Princesses for more of Christy’s ideas!
