Kindergarten math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS is smart but not off the chart gifted. Looking through his go math workbook, it looks like he's going to spend the whole year counting. He loves math and is disappointed not to have more challenging/interesting work. Is that other people's experience?

He doesn't know how to read so I'm not worried about him being bored in general, just math.

hi OP - I found a bunch of online resources at education.com and found some great fun games and resources for my child that she likes. She seems really, really into math (go figure) and is extremely bored by math in K (also still learning to read - but seems to be excelling at math).

We also have begun playing math games with our free time. I found a few good tricks on a homeschooler website as well.

I would also recommend talking to your child's teacher. Our teacher has been very supportive of letting my daughter finish her go-math work and then giving her some other math work from 1st and 2nd grade to see if she is up for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no rush. I teach 4th grade math. I could not care less if your kindergartner knows all 4 operations and can carry the one. All my students come to me knowing how to do this. What they struggle with is place value and problem solving. Things they should have been working on since kindergarten. I'm left banging my head against the wall. Let your kindergartners play with numbers by counting. Just let them explore manipulatives. They should not even know what the operations look like at that age.

Can you give some examples of things parents or teachers should do to improve these areas? What kind of manipulatives do you mean? (I'm not a teacher, obviously.)

Different teacher here, but an example:get a group of 10 pennies and ask your child how many ways she can make two groups (looking for 1+9, 2+8, 3+7). Still 10 pennies even though she is moving them into groups.

Another teacher here. Decomposing and composing numbers are a great way to build number sense. I used paper plates in my classroom so students could visually see and manipulate the two groups. 10 frames are another good tool - use them for building numbers and instantly recognizing/computing numbers. For example students can recognize 1 filled 10 frame as 10 and count up on a second 10 frame to 20 (or even instantly recognize up to 20).

It's also important to expose them to the vocabulary - parts, whole, how many in all, etc. When using two digit numbers and 10 frames, unifix cubes, or base 10 blocks you can begin to point out ones and tens.

Very good examples. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What school district?

DCPS, wotp

If you talk to the teacher, you may find that they will not follow the book religiously or even use it in some cases. I've had years were the standard math workbook came home empty or nearly so.

[Anonymous]

My (K, DCPS) kid has pretty good number sense (I think they did some of this last year).

We are doing problem solving at home. I need his help to figure out how many guests we are having for Thanksgiving dinner, and how much of each kind of food to buy. We'll talk about weights, and figuring out how much things cost per pound, and how to scale recipes up and down. He's not going to be able to do all the calculations, but I want him to think about some of the conceptual elements.

[Anonymous]

I am a grandmother. Here are my favorites: measuring cups in the bath tub. You can casually show measuring two half cups and pouring them into a a one cup. Cooking together: talking about making a mixture. Playing store: some things cost one quarter, some cost two quarters, etc. Pairing socks. Making pairs of similar and different objects, using analogies.

[Anonymous]

Does your school do ST Math? Our DCPS does, and my son is gaga for it. It's actually his "reward" for good behavior in class.

[Anonymous]

There is this old Chinese card game called "go fish". Not the same as the American Go Fish. You match up your numbers to get 10. We were taught that game in elementary age and I always remember those.
2 will match with 8 = 10
3 will match with 7 = 10
4 will match with 6= 10
5 will match with 5 = 10
10 will match with itself
Only the red cards have points. You add up the points at the end and you have a winner.

[Anonymous]

Bedtime Math is a fun book you can bring into your bedtime routine.