More math games.

[rivka]

Alex and I have continued to do intermittent math play with Cuisenaire rods.

She has a great grasp now of how the rods relate to each other. This seems to have developed through casual free play and building. She had initially backed off from the game where you put two rods together and try to add something to the shorter rod to make it equal the longer one, because she was afraid it would be hard. Now she breezes through it.


(This picture shows 10 = 7 +3)

I told her I was going to solve one a new way, by trying to find two rods that made up the gap. As soon as I picked up the first one she told me what the second one should be. Then she suggested that we should find all the different ways of doing it, but we got distracted after only three possible solutions.



I hadn't introduced the number names for the rods to Alex, but when my father was visiting I showed the rods to him. He picked up an orange rod and asked if it was "ten," and started trying to make an ordered row. After I gave him a couple and assigned them numbers, Alex jumped right in with "Here's six" and "Here's five." So apparently she grasped the correspondence without having it taught.

After a little while she laughed and said, "How come we're calling them by numbers?"

"That's an interesting question," I said. "I need a bunch of white ones to answer it." (White rods are unit rods - they're one cubic centimeter.) I reached for some, but she was way ahead of me. "So an orange is ten, and it's the same as ten white rods," she said.

Uh, yeah. Never mind about that demonstration, then. That's the cool thing about Cuisenaire rods to me - it really seems like an intuitive grasp of mathematical relationships arises just from playing with them.

We've done a little more playing with rods-as-numbers, including making demonstration "staircases" showing that each size of rod is one white-rod longer than the next. I showed her that you can also make a staircase of rods that differ from each other by a red rod, which is "two." And, because it seemed to flow from this, I showed that you could ask questions like "how many red rods does it take to make a dark green?" (2 * x = 6) and "now, how many light greens does it take to make a dark green?" (3 * x = 6)

Of course, what Alex does with the rods more than anything else is things like this:

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

That's neat.

I can teach quite a bit of graph theory with simple childrens' games, when it comes to that.

B

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I loved playing with Cuisinaire rods as a child. We had 'em at the Montessouri school, and also had a set at home.

We used them to build things and play with, mostly, but in order to do that, you needed to understand the relationships between them. It wasn't until years later that I realized just how much math I knew from building towers and piles and stuff with them.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

Are those as hideously expensive as my gut tells me they must be? They seem like something David could benefit from (and that I'd have far too much fun with).

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, no. We paid a little extra to get wooden rods instead of plastic, and it was still only $25 for a bucket of 155 (http://fun-books.com/books/cuisenaire_rods.htm).

The Idea Book for Cuisenaire Rods is a good thing to have, but you can also find free information on the web about how to use them.

[kate_nepveu]

The more you post about these, the more I think we have to get SteelyKid a set when she's older. Thanks.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

These are very cool. I will definitely have to get Rachel a set when she is older.

Can you recommend a book or other resource that contains suggestions for age appropriate learning games? Right now, at 2 months, Rachel and I play by having "conversations" and looking at different things. We spend a lot of time just interacting. Plus, there's tummy time and we try to go outside everyday. Peck likes to introduce her to new smells by placing things under her nose to smell. She also gets to "pet" the dogs and kitties and feel different textures. Basically, it's all just part of day to day life of hanging out with mom and dad.

I wish there was a resource out there that compiled a list of suggestions for play/learning ideas by age. Yes, I can google and search for ideas (and do), but thought perhaps there was a resource that you would highly recommend.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're really great. They're so inviting of exploration - I mean, the wooden rods even feel nice to your fingers, and the colors are really rich. They just make you want to do things with them, and then, as xiphias says, the math knowledge follows almost by itself.

Next on my wish list is pattern blocks (http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=3577), but right now I can't face the idea of one more toy with small pieces to clean up.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you have all the right ideas. One thing you might check out is if your local library has an infant story hour. A lot of them do. We loved ours - it was all nursery rhymes, little songs, and lap bounces. Two months is a little young, but by four months it's a wonderful activity, and also a great way to meet other moms.

I also always recommend the book Einstein Never Used Flashcards. As you might guess from the title, the authors (developmental psychologists) have an agenda: they don't approve of cramming kids full of special "learning toys" and classes. But there's a lot of great information on how kids learn through play and everyday activities, and what's going on cognitively at different ages. I'm almost positive that they have play suggestions for different ages. They also have instructions for replicating famous developmental psych experiments at home, which is fun.

Oh, and there's a book for new fathers called Be Prepared that has more suggestions about how to play with a young baby than anything I've seen that's geared at mothers. The thing I remember best was tying a helium balloon to the baby's ankle so it moves when she kicks. That was fun.

[kate_nepveu]

Heh. I can imagine--keeping up with two shape-sorter boxes is surprisingly time-consuming . . .

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing these suggestions.