*Note: This post contains affiliate links.

First, get your little ninja inspired by reading one of these stories:

Ninja! by Arree Chung

Ninja Bunny by Jennifer Gray Olson

Ninja Cowboy Bear Presents the Way of the Ninja by David Bruins

Dojo Daycare by Chris Tougas

Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta

Wink: The Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed by J.C. Philipps

Ninja Boy Goes to School by N.D. Wilson

Little Kunoichi, The Ninja Girl by Sanae Ishida

My Grandma’s A Ninja by Todd Tarpley

Activity:

Since ninjas must be agile, strong, and mentally sharp they must train their bodies and minds. This activity will have your child feeling like a ninja in training.

Materials:

There are two options for materials. You can easily use stuff around your home or you can use martial arts gear.  To illustrate the activity, I used store bought gear. We had the items at home already!

Option 1- Store bought gear:

• Punch mitts
• Kid size boxing gloves
• Post-it notes (for the older kid version of this activity)

Option 2- Things around your home:

• Small square pillows to punch
• Bare hands
• Post-it notes (for the older kid version of this activity)

This activity is so simple! Give your child a math fact that he or she can do in his or her head. It may be simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.; It all depends on your child’s math level. When your child provides the answer he or she must punch the bags in an alternating fashion the same number of times as their answer. If the answer was seven, your child would punch the bags seven times.

Another option for older kids who may get very large answers, is to assign one bag as the tens and one bag as the ones. You can even label the bags. So, if your child gets an answer of 95, s/he would punch the “tens” bag nine times and the “ones” bag five times. For children learning base ten concepts, this option may be useful.

You can make this activity even simpler for toddlers by just giving your child a number and punching the bags in that same quantity. If your child tries to punch too fast and thus punches too many times, slow your child down and show him or her how to accurately punch while saying each number (1, 2, 3…). It’s about having one punch for each number stated. Your child will be practicing one to one correspondence by doing this.

Keep giving your ninja math facts until you sense they are losing interest or breath.

The post Calling All Ninjas! Nine Ninja Books and Fun Math (and Motor) Activity appeared first on Empowering Parents to Teach.

My kids have experienced both homeschool and public school.  In this post, I will share one way we supplemented our children’s public school education at home. As parents of gifted children, we know that public school may not always be able to meet every need of our gifted learners so we often need to supplement our children’s education on our own. To me, it can be a tricky balance. I feel like after a long day at school, the last thing I want to do is give my child more work. I want them to play and have time to unwind. In order to keep after school time as low key as possible while still helping my children progress on their level, I started Five Minute Math.

For my children, math is one of their strengths. Their math ability is much higher than the level they are being taught in school.  My goal with Five Minute Math is for them to practice higher level math concepts that they already know so they don’t forget it! The practice time is short. I call it Five Minute Math because it should only take them 5-10 minutes to complete. The set up is really quite simple.  I just take a notebook and write a couple of math problems for them to solve.  I usually write 6-8 math problems covering various topics depending on what they know and what they are not getting practice on in school. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best solution. For us, just a tiny bit of practice helped my children retain their math skills that may have otherwise been forgotten from disuse.

At one point my oldest son did this every day, but now that both boys get more homework they only do this about once a week. It’s so simple to do and my kids actually ask me for the math. I like that it is so easy to set up. I don’t have to scour the internet for worksheets that often have too many problems and print them out. I can adjust the the type of math problems every day as needed. All I need is a notebook and the knowledge of what my children are capable of and I can completely customize their practice problems.

This is what Five Minute Math looked like when my oldest was in first grade:

Five Minute Math worked for us, it may work for you too. It’s short, easy to set up, and keeps your child from forgetting math skills!

Be sure to visit the many other bloggers who share their insight, stories, and advice for parents of gifted children. Click here to read more!

Follow Gifted Homeschoolers Forum on Facebook: Click here

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Materials:

• Squbed game boards (4 included)
• Number cards
• Squares and Cubes Guide
• Beans or other small objects
• Envelope to store the number cards
• Print Squbed materials here
• Note: Laminate materials if possible for durability

How to play:

1. Choose one Squbed game board.  This game can be played with up to four players.

2. Place the number cards in the envelope.

3. Players take turns picking out a number card randomly.  Each card contains a number squared or cubed.  For example, one card shows 2 squared. If a player has the equivalent value of the card (in this example: 4) the player should cover the square with a bean or other small object.

4. The first player who covers his or her entire board first is the winner.

Note:

• I included the square and cube guide to help facilitate play until the squares and cubes are memorized.
• I made each board a different color so that your child can keep track of which board or boards he or she used. After playing four times, with the four different boards, all of the squares and cubes will have been practiced at least once.

Have fun!

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One way teachers help students gain this ten knowledge is with ten frames and dot cards. Both of these visual devices help students conceptualize the number ten.  Ten frames typically look like a small 5 by 2 chart with five squares on the top and five on the bottom, all conjoined. Dots cards are simply different arrangements of dots on a piece of paper or flashcard.

In this activity, students will use a ten frame variation. The framework I created uses the same 5 by 2 arrangement. Instead of conjoined squares, I used circles. Think of it as a merger of the ten frame squares and the dot cards.

Materials-

1. Dot frame (laminate if possible)

2. Number cards- two sets in two different colors (laminate if possible)

3. Record Page

4. Bear counters or other small object (preferably using two different colors)

5. Pencil

6. Small bowls for bears and one set of numbers

Dot frame, number cards, and record page can be printed FREE from here: Make Ten Printables.

Activity-

1. Present your child with the materials. Show him or her the materials and count the circles together. Let your child know that s/he is going to use these materials to figure out what numbers can add together to make the number ten.

Red bowl: Red bears
Blue bowl: Blue bears
Pink bowl: Red numbers

2. Have your child choose a number from the bowl.

3. Place the number in the first dashed rectangle.

4. Have your child place the corresponding number of bears in the circles starting on the top left, filling the circles from left to right, top to bottom. *Note: The bears should all be the same color to distinguish this set of bears from the set they will use in another step.

5. Have your child fill in the empty circles with a second color of bears.

6. Have your child count or subitize (quickly recognize the number quantity without the need to count) the second group of bears.

7. Have your child place the corresponding numeral in the second dashed rectangle.

8. Have your child record the number combination on his or her record sheet.

9. Continue this procedure until all of the number cards have been used. Keep recording!

Extension:

Once your child is ready to move past the concrete stage of manipulating the math bears, you can take away the bears and practice using just the number cards. Line up one set of numbers. Have your child pull out a number from the cup and match it with the addend that would make ten.

Is it getting easy? Your child may have the ten pairs memorized. Now you can simply give your child a number orally and ask what number s/he would add to make ten.  This will only take a minute or two. Ask your child to do this every day until you think she or he has them solidly memorized. This will make mental math easier

Don’t forget to read these articles first:

1. Number Sense Series: Developing Early Number Sense from  NRICH (click here)

2. Number Sense Series: A Sense of ‘ten’ and Place Value from NRICH (click here)

3. Ten Frames and Dot Cards from K-5 Math Teaching Resources (click here)  Great game suggestions too!

Remember, have fun together and follow your child’s lead! It’s ok if your child does things a little differently.  With the knowledge you’ve learned from these articles you will know what is important and why.  Focus on the big picture. There are many paths to understanding, trust your child and trust yourself.
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First, print out a divisibility rules chart for your child to use a reference. I created a very simple chart that is small enough to cut out and paste in a math notebook if needed. Show your child how s/he can determine if number is divisible by either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, or 10 by following the rule for each one listed. I would go through them one at a time, making sure your child understands as you go along.

Materials needed:

Divisibility Rules Chart (click here)

Activity Printout (click here)

3 Dice

Pencil

Activity:

1. Roll 3 dice.
2. Put the dice together in a line. Use the numbers on the dice to form a three digit number.
3. Referencing the divisibility rules chart, determine if the number is divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10.  Your child may need your help for the first one to get the hang of it.
4. Put an X in the box of any divisible factors. For example, 246 is divisible by 2, 3, and 6 so the child should check the boxes for 2, 3, and 6.
5. Repeat the process with more three digit numbers.

By the end of the activity, your child should become more and more comfortable with the rules and may even have them memorized.

Here’s a picture of my son doing the activity.  As you can see he modified the instructions by using check marks and Xs

Try this activity next:

Click here for the activity

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It looked like this:

I decided to make this idea a little more hands on by making factor trees with leaves and sticks.

Materials:

• Printable leaves (click here for the FREE printable in Green or B&W)
• Sticks (I collected mine from outside and cut them to be roughly the same length)
• Whiteboard marker or pencil

Activity:

1. Print out the leaves in color. Or, if you are like me and have a printer that refuses to print color, print the black and white leaves on green cardstock.

2. Laminate the leaves if possible. Your child can write on the leaves with the whiteboard marker and erase when finished, allowing you to use the materials as many times as you want. If you don’t laminate the leaves, your child can simply write on the leaves with pencil, pen, or marker.  Just be sure to print enough leaves, since you can not reuse them if they aren’t laminated.

3.  Take out one leaf and write a composite (not prime) number on it. For demonstration purposes, I will use 45 as the example number. On the leaf I would write 45 and place the leaf on the working surface (floor, table, or paper) with enough room underneath the number to work down.

4. Have your child name two factors of the number, excluding one and itself. For example, with 45 your child might say, “9 and 5″ or “3 and 15″.  Choose only one set of factors.

5. Show your child the sticks and tell him or her to place two sticks under the 45 to show that we are splitting the 45 into two factors. In this case, we will use 9 and 5. Next, have your child take two leaves and write the factors on the two leaves. Write one factor per leaf.

6. Ask your child if any of the numbers that s/he just wrote can be broken down further. Your child should notice that the 9 can be broken down into 3 and 3. Repeat the process of placing sticks and leaves.

7. Once again, look at the numbers and determine if any of the numbers can be broken down into two factors. In this case, all the numbers are now prime. The process is done.  Depending on your starting number, the process may be longer.

8. Explain to your child that once they have reached only prime factors, they have found the prime factorization of the number.  Have your child list the prime numbers that s/he ended with. In our example, it would be 3,3,5.

9. Show your child how we can write that as 3x3x5.  If your child is comfortable with exponents, show him or her how to write the prime factorization as 3² x5.  Have your child do the multiplication of 3x3x5 to clearly illustrate how the prime factorization is still the same value of 45, it’s just written differently.

10. Continue the procedure with more numbers.  Keep working for as long as your child is interested. Note: If this activity is too challenging, your child may need to review factors, or prime and composite numbers. Click here for an activity to teach prime and composite numbers.

11. If your child keeps a math notebook, have him or her record one of the factor trees in the notebook.  Be sure to write out the prime factorization too. This will serve as a reference and provide practice with writing factor trees in the standard format (as seen above). Another option would be to have your child paste a stick and leaf factor tree into the notebook (substituting the sticks for pencil lines).

Have fun

Try these activities:

Click here for the Divisibility Rules Activity

Click here for the Prime or Composite Lesson

 Click here for the Pythagorean Theorem Activity

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.If you make a purchase from Amazon, I receive a very small fee at no extra cost to you.

First of all, if you are unfamiliar with the game, I will very briefly describe how the game is played.  Your four pawns are at home, where you wait until you roll a five or a two dice combination of five to enter the board. The game uses two dice to indicate your spaces to move.  You can add the dice together to move one pawn or let two pawns share the dice combinations.  You have to go all the way around the board and get all four pawns to your home to win.  Along the way, you can block players and capture players.  It’s a great strategy game!

How does Parcheesi help with all of the math skills mentioned?  Let me explain.

Counting:  When the child rolls the dice s/he can count the dots on each die to figure out the value of each one.  Your child can point to the dots while counting. This gives your child a concrete way of practicing counting with an authentic purpose (to see how far to move).

With enough practice, s/he may begin to recognize that three dots is “3” without even having to count the dots.  S/he is subitizing, or recognizing a number quantity quickly without the need to count.  With enough hands on practice counting, s/he will begin to do this automatically.  By playing this game your child is getting a lot of practice counting and subitizing.

Adding:  Since this is a game that allows two dice to be added together to determine the number of spaces to be moved, your child is also practicing adding.  With the help of the dots, your child has a visual representation of the numbers in which to count.  The more practice your child has with objects they can point to and add together (the dots), they will naturally begin to remember some of these math facts and also create a visual representation of number quantities which they will use to figure out new problems.

One to One Correspondence: This skill is practiced in two ways. First, when your child counts the dots on the dice, s/he should only count each dot once.  For example, if your child rolled a six and counts one the of dots more than once, s/he may incorrectly say there are seven dots.  Encourage your child to count again making sure s/he doesn’t count any dots more than once. With sufficient experience your child will become very good at counting each dot only once.  S/he will likely figure out a strategy that works for him or her to keep track of which dots s/he already counted to avoid over or under counting.

Another way your child is practicing one to one correspondence is when s/he moves their pawn.  Your child can advance one space per number. So, if s/he rolled a six, s/he can only move six spaces.  Young kids may skip spaces or count faster than they move.  Encourage your child to count slowly and move the pawn as she counts.  Sometimes it helps if you, the parent, point with your finger to the next space so your child doesn’t skip spaces. With enough help and practice, your child will learn to move one space per number rolled.

Doubles:  When your are working with two dice there is the chance that you roll two of the same number. You can introduce the term, “doubles”.  For example, if your child rolled two twos, you can explain that two of the same number is called “doubles”, so s/he just rolled double twos!  Not only are you introducing a new term, but you are also building a beginning foundation for multiplication. 

Eventually, your child will commit the these facts to memory.  Having double facts in their memory banks gives them a reference point when figuring out new facts. For example, if your child knows that 5+5=10,  s/he can can use that knowledge plus pattern recognition to quickly figure out that 5+6=11. 

Truthfully, there are many games that can also help your child practice these skills.  Any game that has a board with individual spaces and uses dice can do this!  I like Parcheesi because it tends to be a little longer in terms of play time, giving more practice! My kids also love that they can capture me and send me back to home, keeping them motivated and excited to play.  So next time your child complains about math homework, maybe taking a game break might help

To purchase Parcheesi on Amazon:

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Young ones usually count the number of bills. For example, he had a five dollar bill and two one dollar bills.  Most of the time, kids that young will count the three bills and say they have three dollars. Ideally, if I had five one dollar bills I could show him that the five one dollar bills was the same as one five dollar bill.  But I didn’t have enough bills for that.  Math bears came to our rescue again!

Here’s how I would show a young one how to add bills of different denominations using readily available materials:

Step 1:

Place the bills largest to smallest in a line.

Step 2:

Have the child read the number on the first bill. Take out the corresponding number of math bears, i.e. five math bears for a five dollar bill.  Teaching Tip:  This gives the child a visual, concrete representation of the number on the bill.

Step 3:

Repeat the process of corresponding the math bears to the number on the bills.

Step 3:

Have the child count  all the math bears together.   Teaching Tip: Have the child start on the left hand side to count.  Just like reading, we typically solve math problems left to right.  It’s never too early to establish good habits!

In our case, we were not done yet.  Remember, he was counting for a purpose.  He needed to see if he had enough money to purchase a Skylander.  I asked my little guy if seven dollars was more or less than ten dollars.  He said, “Less” and immediately started to throw a tantrum because he realized he didn’t have enough money.

Once he calmed down I asked him an extension question, “If you have $7, how many more dollars do you need to make $10?” He responded, “$3″.  He can mentally figure out what numbers add up to ten so I did not need to use the math bears to help him solve this. But, if he needed help, I could have put out seven math bears and we could count together how many bears we added to make ten.

Older brother came to this rescue and gave his brother his Easter money- $5. It was super sweet.  We counted the money once again and he now had enough money for his new toy!

I love when math can be taught in context for a real purpose!  Next time your preschooler or kindergartener wants to buy something, teach him or her how to count money!  Evaluate at the end if they have enough for their purchase. 

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Education is not preparation for life; education is life itselfJohn Dewey

There are so many learning opportunities around us, naturally, everyday.  Life requires skill, knowledge, patience, problem solving, and sometimes research.  We don’t have to contrive a learning experience for our children to learn.  We need to learn to survive and survival is our basic instinct.  Your child wants to learn!  Keep your eye open to opportunities in your children’s everyday experiences.  What skills or knowledge do they need to complete a task or solve a problem?

Sometimes it is best to let your child figure it out themselves, other times your guidance with the experience is beneficial.  I truly believe finding these natural teachable moments are the best way to teach!  Why?  Simply because the child is learning the skill within the context that is actually used, is by nature hands-on, and the child has a real purpose for solving the problem or learning the skill.

I’ll show you what I mean:

My son wanted make fresh juice.  Our go to recipe is to add kale, apples, celery into our juicer.  As I was finishing the dishes in the sink I asked my son (age 3) to get the apples out for me.  He took the whole bag to the table and I hear him count- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.  I walked over to him and noticed how he placed the apples. Instead of lining them up he placed them two by two with one by itself (as pictured).

By setting up his apples this way I noticed a natural occurrence of something that I knew he was learning.

A little while ago we read the book One Odd Day by Doris Fisher.  It touched on the concept of numbers being even or odd.  My little guy was catching on to the idea.  Once I realized this was a developing skill for him, I later introduced some hand-on activities to play with the concept.  He really liked it!  Knowing that this was a skill he was working on, I asked him if the nine apples were an even or odd number. We talked again about what makes a number even or odd.  We could tell that nine was odd because one apple doesn’t have a buddy (that’s our preschool language).  He looked at his apples again, he told me that four was even.  This showed me that he was continuing to think about the math concept by mentally checking other numbers to see if they were odd or even.

By taking out nine apples, we had a problem to solve.  We only needed four apples to make juice.

Other concepts he’s been working on is addition and subtraction with objects.   Since I only needed four apples for the juice I told him, “I only need four apples.  You need to take some away.  Do you know how many to take away?” At first, he insisted on putting all nine apples in the juicer.  That was really too much so I encouraged him to take away apples until there were only four left.  He took away the apples one or two a time until he only had four left.  As he took away the apples he lined them up on a different spot on the table.  Once he got down to only four apples, he counted how many had taken away to leave only four. Therefore, he realized that he had to take away five apples to get down to four apples remaining.

From nine apples, he took away five. The apple in his hand was never counted originally.

My hope is that this gets you thinking about your everyday experiences with your child and realizing their true potential.  You do not have to replicate things exactly as you see them.  A true teacher knows that every child is different and there is no script for learning. Follow your child’s lead.  Keep a mental note of what they can do, what they are learning, and what is too difficult for them.  Life will hand you teachable moments.

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One of the earliest math skills children learn is the concept of more or less.  We know easily (as adults) that five is more than three, but to young ones this takes hands on experience with objects to gain this understanding.  I’ll show you one way to gain that experience through a fun game. My three year old LOVES this game! I made it up for him after he watched me and his brother play the card game, War.

More or Less game

Materials:

• Math Bears
• Playing Cards

Set-up:

• Take out any cards that are not numbers, such as the Joker,  Ace,  King,  Queen,  Jack, you only need the number cards.
• Put the cards face down in one big pile

How to play:

1. Each player takes a card from the top of the pile and places it in front of him or herself with the number facing up.

2. Each player takes out the corresponding number of math bears and lines them up next to his or her card. I would do this in turns. Have the child or parent go first, then switch. That way, the child sees both numbers being constructed.

3. The child may be able to visually see that one number quantity is bigger than the other. If not, try lining them up closer to each other and matching them one to one, like this:

4. Have the child compare which line is longer.  Remember, this only works if you line them up one to one.  Ask the child if they have more or less than you.  If the child has more, he or she wins.  If they have less, you win.

5. What if you both have the same quantity? Teach your child the term “equal”. You both have an equal number of bears.  You both win!

6. Repeat as many times as your child wants.

Teaching Tip: To extend this as your child advances with the skill, you can have your child compare how much larger a number is.  For example, using this method the child can see that five bears is bigger than three bears by two bears. 

This game is very simple, but lots of fun!  I made it up on the spot, which is why I love having my math bears handy.  You never know when they may be needed!

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