Friday, February 20, 2015

Math Activities: Weights, Lengths, Shapes, Time

We were doing connect the dots to make a picture and while he connected the first 20 dots quickly, he paused and looked up when it came to 21. So I urged him, this is 21, 22.... and realised that learning counting beyond 20 is actually the easy part! He picked up the general concept and can now count up 50 and even beyond! Hence it was time to slowly introduce him to weights, lengths and telling the time. These activities take almost no prep time.

The Practical Mom: Math Activities: Weights, Lengths, Shapes, Time


There are always containers of aquarium rocks, beans and wooden numericals kept on his shelf. He brings them out and practises counting often. We know we have 63 rocks since he  has counted them! The numerals are helpful as we can put a 3 and 4 together to form 34, and place it in front of 34 rocks. So it's not just rote counting but a better understanding of numbers.


Weights

I brought out the kitchen scales one day (which weighs upto 2000 gms) and I placed the remote control, his toys, cars, water bottle, anything that was in sight to measure. I told him 00 is hundred, so the remote control weighs 300! That caught his fancy as he measured away to glory! This is only 200 mama..and this one is 700! He figured which is heavy which is light.


Lengths

Similarly I taught him to measure how long something is with a measuring tape. The next day I kept 3 cars out, a large, a medium & a small one. We measured weights & length of each of them and then I asked him to tell me which was the shortest, longest, lightest & heaviest.




I'm obviously not getting  into centimeters and grams now, but will probably introduce him to 'thousand' the next time round!


Time

My kid is VERY interested in knowing what day it is, what time it is and keeps asking every now and then. It baffles the crap out of random strangers being asked that by this tiny little fella - truly hilarious.


So I made him this simple clock. Color co-ordinated the hour hand with the hour # and minute hand with the minute #, which was actually a mistake, since when I showed it to my kid first, his instinct was to co-ordinate the 'small' hand with the 'small' circle and 'big' hand with the 'big' circle!

who knew!

The minutes part is still hazy, but he can tell what hour it is at least!

Shapes

With Salt, Glue & Paint: 

I first drew some basic shapes with a color pencil on his drawing paper. He then squeezed glue along the lines, then sprinkled salt over it. I shook off excess salt. Then he transferred colored water over the salt with a dropper, and watched paint travel over salt !






Another great sensorial approach to learning shapes is with wet spaghetti:

I got some print outs of shapes from teachingmama, but realised she had only the basic ones, so drew some more, I.e. octagon, hexagon, pentagon, semi-circle. We used some wet spaghetti as she had suggested (& craft sticks & straws too, though not as much fun as spaghetti!) to put along the sides to count sides.



A hands on way to learn why a hexagon or an octagon is called so! In fact we even went ahead and counted how many sides does our couch, coffee table etc have!




Until later! Stay in touch!



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13 comments:

  1. What great ideas! I know that at least one of them will be part of our week. I'm not sure which I like the most! But it might be the clock. :) Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Loving the wet spaghetti idea - great ideas all round here as well. Thanks so much for sharing with the Parenting Pin it Party today.

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    1. A lil bit of variation brings in a new interest in the same activity , doesn't it? Thanks for stopping by

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  3. Making maths fun and practical is definitely the best way to learn, great ideas here #ParentingPinitParty

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    1. Well at least its at the age when they find everything exciting! My kids so fascinated with time telling, haha

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  4. thanks for all your lovely comments :)

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  5. These are awesome ideas for creative learning. Thanks for sharing at the #HomeMattersParty - we hope to see you again next week. :)

    ~Lorelai
    Life With Lorelai

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  6. Wow, a lot of fabulous learning went on with these projects! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
    hugs,
    Jann

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  7. Wow! These learning activities are fabulous!


    Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!

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    1. Thanks! He is still fascinated by time & weights!

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