The summer’s ending and we are quickly approaching the start of the school year. As such, you may find yourself in a similar scenario to the father in this picture – at a loss for how else to entertain your kids (while ideally keeping it educational!). Our extended summer break from school, spent mostly inside has been a blessing in the sense of quality moments with our children we would have missed otherwise; but trying to be creative with playtime may be getting harder and harder. Well – we are here to tell you – “You got this!”, and we got you!
We want to share a fun, educational activity that will be engaging, spur some creativity and more importantly it will help to get their brains firing for the upcoming school year! Pretty cool, right? And, if you guys try this one and love it (or maybe need something more challenging), feel free to peruse our other blog articles, because we have a lot of fun and educational math themed topics within. You can also always “Follow” and “Like” our Facebook page that we keep updated with fun math posts: https://www.facebook.com/MathnasiumofLittleton/. Or, give us a call and we would be happy to share with you some of our favorites.
How we want you to start this game is by finding toys or objects from around the house, because activities like this are always much more fun with manipulatives AND much easier to understand if you can see and hold it when you’re learning about it for the first time. So, for our example we’ll reference finding toys like farm animals (horses, dogs and/or pigs). Although, if you don’t have these, get your barbie dolls, action figures or stuffed animals - any will do.
- Now, place all the animals in a clear neat row on the table in front of your child. Ask them simple questions, to start it off fun and make sure they feel confident and successful right away. Write their answers out clear and big on a piece of paper:
- How many legs does each animal have? (Answer: 4 *make sure you choose all animals that have 4 legs, so no mix of 2-legged and 4-legged)
- How many eyes does each animal have? (Answer: 2)
- Now – for the harder part, ask them how many legs are there total with all the animals lined up? (Answer: Depends on how many animals you have, but 4 x that number)
- Multiplication is the key here though - getting them to think about this as a multiplication problem as opposed to just adding up all the legs. We want them to realize that there are 4 legs for each animal, so if they multiply 4 by the number of animals, they’ll find the answer. However, when you first ask this problem, it is more likely that they are just going to count every single leg – so they will be adding up all the legs. That’s okay, because that’s what this game is here to help teach. 😊
- If they didn’t realize it was easier with multiplication, don’t be upset, just ask them how they got it, applaud them for what they did – that’s hard work! Then say, let’s try it again, and do it with just two animals. (Answer: 8 legs)
- Ask them again how they got to their answer, and if they once again added – don’t get upset, but have them think about the fact that if one animal has 4 legs, and the second animal also has 4 legs, could you just count by 4’s and get the same answer? See if that gets their brain thinking a little differently… they’ll probably think a little then say yes…. Then you say, well, what about if we….
- Added a 3rd animal – how many legs are there total with 3 animals lined up? (Answer: 12 legs)
- And see now if they view the problem as counting by 4’s…. so, counting 4, 8, 12. If they do – make it a BIG celebration!!! Then, draw their attention to the fact that counting by 4’s is the same thing as multiplying by 4 – so 4x2=8, and 4x3=12…. So, knowing that, go on to ask them, what about if we….
- Added a 4th animal – how many legs are there total with 4 animals lined up? (Answer: 16 legs)
- And see now if they view the problem as 4x4=16… and if so – WOOHOO!!! You’ve got a Rockstar on your hands! And – now it’s time to add in some challenges! Now, see if they could answer for 5 animals? If yes, then what about 6? If yes, then what about 10 animals (but don’t put 10 out, see if they then get the idea without needing the manipulatives).
- Slight variation – What about if we asked for the number of eyes?
- Now that they have the hang of finding the number of legs – what about if we asked for the number of eyes? Let’s get them some practice transferring their newfound knowledge to a similar but different idea.
- If there are 4 animals on the table, how many eyes are there total? (Answer: 8 eyes)
- Once again, check in with your child to make sure they are finding this via multiplication as opposed to addition – if not, view the steps above to help get them confidently think about it as multiplication.
- Looking for a much harder challenge?
- Asking questions in terms of money and “purchasing” items is very tricky for most students and yet can be a fun game because it involves money and “purchasing” items around the house.
- An example of a problem like this would be: If I paid you $1.50 for 3 bananas, how much would I pay you for 5 bananas?
- For a problem like this students not only have to figure out how much it costs for 1 banana, but then knowing that, they have to figure out how much they would have to charge for 5 bananas – so two math problems in 1!
- Then, of course you can change this to make it as easy or as hard as you want – and if you play with real money that your child gets to keep/lose, it’s much more likely you’ll keep their interest. haha
We hope you’re as excited about the return to school as we are! But as always, if you have any worries or concerns about the upcoming school year and possibly needing some supplemental math help for your child, please reach out to us and let us know. We have both online and in-center instruction so we can adjust to fit whatever your family’s needs may be.
- Mathnasium of Littleton
(303) 979-9077
(303) 979-9077
