alphabet hooks

This morning I was pondering teaching young children or children with special needs, sounds. I haven't tried this, but an idea came to mind. Alphabet (or even phonics) hooks.

Attach 26 small hooks to a board which can be hung on the wall. Above each hook write a letter of the alphabet, then have/draw pictures of items beginning with those letters. Make a game of it - see how quickly the child/ren can put the pictures on their correct letter name hooks. Hooks could also be used for phonetic sounds e.g ough, st, tion etc

Learning should always be fun for children so make a game out of each learning experience.

Maria Montessori said: play is work for a child - which is true to a certain extent, but it mustn't be boring so that it becomes a chore!

Starting history with young children

It can be difficult for young children to be able to relate to the past (especially if it's way back), therefore start with themselves. Dig out some photos of them now, then when they were babies. Dig out photos of yourself, their dad (whoever else lives in the house with you - you could include pets). Make sure they are recent ones, then choose ones of you at your wedding, in your teens, school photos etc, then ones of your parents, their parents etc.
Ask questions about the clothes, the hairstyles etc - are they different from what people wear today?
If you have pets - were they smaller? How did they look - cuter perhaps?
Looking at photos of yourself - have you changed from when you were in school? Does your face look the same?
With your child/ren - do they have a favourite toy, if not what did their favourite toy used to be - all of these things are teaching your young ones about the past! Even questions like - what did we have for dinner yesterday? Where did we go last week? Are teaching history.

learning maths with dice

Until I met my husband 20+ years ago I thought there were only 6 sided dice, but how wrong I was - there are 3 sided, 8, 12 etc and even 100 sided dice. With the internet age, if you can't buy them in local shops, you should be able to purchase them online. All sorts of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing games can be invented by using different dice.

Just use one die as a Times table learner! Saying times tables in a random manner can help with learning - it may improve memory processing and recall times.

You make up the rules, using whichever dice are appropriate and off you go!

One more maths game using playing cards

Joker mania

♠ = multiply that card by 3

♥ = multiply that card by 4

♣ = multiply that card by 5

♦ = multiply that card by 6

Joker = Say the whole times table of the card you picked up with the Joker.

Examples:

You pick up the 7♠ and the 6 ♦

(sum = 7 x 3 + 6 x 6 = 21 + 36 = 57)

If you pick up the K♥ and the joker – you have to say your 4 times table

As you get to know your tables change the values around e.g.

♠ = multiply that card by 7

♥ = multiply that card by 8

♣ = multiply that card by 9

♦ = multiply that card by 10

You can make up your own rules at this point – try to think of something to help you learn your 11 and 12 times tables!

© Carolyn Davison

Yet another maths game using playing cards

Adding Fish

2 players

Items needed:

1 pack of playing cards

Each player gets 7 cards each – the remainder are left in the middle of the table.

The object of the game is slightly different to traditional rules – instead of having the most cards for this version it’s the person with the highest total after adding all the card values up.

Some variation could be:

A ♠ = 20 points

Q ♥ = 8 points

K ♣ = 10 points

J ♦ = 5 points

Make up your own point scoring system and have fun!

You could use the same rules for the game of pairs!

© Carolyn Davison

Another Maths Game

2 players

Items needed to play:

2 packs playing cards (each with a different colour back)

1 dice (6 – sided)

Take 2 packs of playing cards and remove the K, Q, J, and As from them.

Shuffle the K Q J As (both packs together) and put in a separate pile – now shuffle the other cards but only in their own colour – e.g. all the blue back cards together and all the red back cards together) and put them in 2 separate piles. Now each player takes it in turns to pick up one blue card and one red one. After they’ve picked it up the other player rolls the dice to determine what happens:

1-2 = Add them together

3-4 = Double them and add together

5-6 = Pick up a card from the KQJA pile and follow the instructions below:

K ♠ ♣ = Add the numbers together and double the answer

Q ♠ ♣ = Multiply the smaller number by 5 then add (if both numbers are the same – multiply both by 5 then add together)

J ♠ ♣ = Subtract them                                             

A ♠ ♣ = Add 4 zeros to the end of both numbers and add

K ♥ ♦ = If the answer is even divide by 2 – if it’s odd, add 19
Q ♥ ♦ = Take the larger number and subtract 3 then add together. If both numbers are 2 then miss a go
J ♥ ♦ = multiply both numbers by 10 then subtract them
A ♥ ♦ = Add enough zeros to make up to the nearest million

 © Carolyn Davison

Maths Game using Playing Cards

This is a game I made up to teach my youngest son some maths principles. using basic playing cards

K = 13            Q = 12  J = 11 A = 1

♥ = add zero to both numbers

♠ = Multiply answer by 5

♣ = subtract instead of add

♦ = Double the numbers

♥ & ♥ = Add 2 zeros to both numbers e.g. 10 ♥ + J ♥ = 1000 + 1100

♥ & ♦ = Add 1 zero to each number then double them e.g. 5 ♥ + 10 ♦ 100 (50 x 2) + 200                 (100 x 2)

♥ & ♠ = Add a zero to each number, add them together and then multiply the answer by 5

♥ & ♣ = Add a zero to the numbers and take away e.g. 4 ♥ + K ♣ = 40 – 130 (can it be done? Play about moving the numbers around to see what works!

♠ & ♠ = Just multiply the answer by 5

♠ & ♦ = Double the numbers and multiply the answer by 5

♦ & ♦ = Double both numbers and double the answer too!

If you have 2 A’s together add 2 zeros and follow the other rules

e.g. A ♥ & A ♦ = 1,000 (don’t forget to add the zero as there’s a heart) + 1,000 – now double them both and add them together – 2,000 + 2,000 = 4,000

Can you make up new rules? Play around and have fun!

© Carolyn Davison