Math Fables - Lessons that Count

 By Greg Tang
Illustrated by Heather Cahoon

This is a great idea, and my daughter does ask to read it, but in practice it's a little too much in one book.

All the numbers from one to ten are represented, and each number has stories for every possible equation.

 This works well for the first few numbers.  We like to read about the squirrels and divide them up into two and two or one and three.  Great.

But later on, it gets really boring.  Especially nine and ten.  We've never read through the story about the ants.  Two eat watermellon and eight eat cheese.  Three took home bread and seven took home lettuce.  etc. etc. etc. until little hands are all over the book forcefully turning pages to get you to stop.

The rhyming and meter are pretty dreadful.  But seeing as my daughter likes the beginning and it IS actually educational, I give this one a pass.

Lifetime - The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives

 By Lola M. Schaefer
Illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal

This book is longer than pictured.  It has huge pages and is great for cuddling up to read with kids.

It is also a counting book for older kids, which I very much appreciate.

 The animals featured are random, and the objects to count reflect an amazing part of that animal's life, like a caribou dropping its antlers, or a seahorse male birthing babies.

The illustrations are in this newfangled modern style, but not twee.  They're really nice.  I'm still finding this style of illustration fresh, probably because it's so clean and simple.

Mathematically, this book is actually useful because it counts by tens for a bit, then shows hundreds of things, then finally one thousand.  It's not about learning all the numbers in between, it's about visualizing numbers.  My kids aren't really old enough to comprehend the concept of one thousand, but when they're ready, this book will be perfect.

We still look through it anyway, because the animal facts are cool.

The Doorbell Rang

 By Pat Hutchins

This book was almost good.  My daughter loved it for the direct repetition on each page.  Plus it has a catch at the end; the doorbell rings, but they don't tell you who it is.  "BUT WHO IS AT THE DOOR?"  She would yell at me, never satisfied with my answer.

My husband, on the other hand, found it too repetitive and a little bit creepy.  He also hated the art.

It's a math story about 12 cookies divided many different ways.  But they don't tell you that it's 12 cookies, so maybe it could be a fun math game for an older kid?  maybe.

Personally I didn't love it or hate it.  But I didn't keep it in the house for very long, because I think owning it and reading it every single night would wear on me.

Bears On Wheels

 By Stan and Jan Berentsain

Not Berenstein, as everyone seemingly used to pronounce it.

This book is amazing!  It teaches basic math!  I wouldn't call it an amazing counting book.  There are better books for that.

 The bears' shirts are different colours and the different vehicles that they ride or drive have different numbers of wheels.  It has 2+2, 1+3, 1+4, 5+5 and a few others.  Nothing incredibly difficult.  It's just a nice visual representation of the concept of adding and is really appealing to preschoolers.

My daughter seems to understand addition and I sincerely believe that this book made a big impact on that development.

Friday Post - Waddingtons "Dix"

Waddingtons "Un Monde Des Jeux - Dix"

I found this at the thrift store and picked it up because my mum used to have a copy.  We never played it properly when I was a kid because we didn't know the rules and nobody sat down and explained it to us.  We lost the box and everything, so my mum got rid of it.

I read the rules when I got it home and it's basically dominoes, but you add to 10.  It says 5+ on the box, which is probably accurate.  I let my daughter play with it a bit and she happily moved them around on the coffee table in arbitrary pairings.

I hope this comes in handy down the line.  I've been looking up other games by this company, but I can't find anything so far.

Friday Post - Number Mats

 This is a "Teacher's Friend" product published by Scolastic.  I found it at the thrift store for a dollar.

Not all of the resources in this series are useful.  A lot of them are redundant or too simplistic.  This one is great for a few reasons.

First off, we love identifying numbers.  It's a favourite game.  So a box full of foam numbers that you can match up on cards is a fantastic activity on its own.

The cards with stars to count are great right now, too, because they're organized in basic dice patterns.  I'm learning a lot about teaching addition now that my daughter is working on beginner math.  It's interesting to see which concepts are easy and which are difficult.  She can count forwards and backwards to 10, and she can count up to 29 (Sometimes 30), but adding two numbers together makes no sense to her.  She has, however, memorized that 2 plus 2 is 4, and if she sees two groups of two, she will recognize it as four objects without taking the time to count.  Learning by rote and repetition has helped her understand elements of addition already, so I'm totally embracing the idea of her memorizing dice patterns and not bothering with written out math equations.

Lastly, the wipe off cards for practicing writing are fantastic.  She gets so angry when she makes a mistake and can't erase it.  This way there's no stress. 

This is the best dollar I've ever spent.

Friday Post - Young Math

 I've been looking up a lot of really old abandoned games recently while trying to find 'edutainment' for the toddler.  I found this gem.  Young Math is a really old and really simple math game that has animated representations of mathematical equations.

 My oldest is starting to understand addition, but definitely isn't ready to do equations by herself.  This is going to be so helpful when we're ready to take the plunge.  The equation is displayed below, and items being added or subtracted are shown above.  The only downside is that you have to choose the right answer before the animation confirms that you've made the right choice.
There is no drilling, and the numbers don't go very high, so this isn't for practice, just learning.

 The depot games are great, too.  You can play addition, subtraction, or number order.  My oldest could probably do number order, and I know she'll get a real kick out of playing with cranes and bulldozers.


Lastly, there's a game where you complete the pattern.  This is waaaay easier than those "draw the missing picture" activities in colouring books.  The controls are pretty easy for all the games.  The child needs to know right and left and be able to figure out the arrow keys, but there is no time limit or serious penalty for pressing the wrong button.  Installation is a little wacky with dosbox, because you need to mount the folder as the A drive and already have the your destination drive mounted as C before you install.  But that's about it.