Bits from Books--Ready, Set, Count by Marlene Barron

Ready, Set, Count--60 playful math activities for you and your child to share.

Okay. I love this book. It's from the libary, but I'm seriously considering buying it.

I love it. Really.

Marlene Barron is the head of the West Side Montessori School. I have been intrigued by Montessori, but this is the impression I've gotten of it.

1. You must do everything in order or the window will close and your child will never learn a thing. He will be on the street for the rest of his life. (Obviously, I'm exaggerating--a little).
2. You must always let the child lead the activities, or you'll make him hate learning. Once again, you might as well buy him his card board box and prepare him for street living.
3. You should probably have a million dollars to buy all the materials.

This book changed all of that. Really. I am a recovering math phobic, but I'm trying to change my way of thinking. Read this quote--it's awesome.

What if you're not good at math? What if you hate math? What if you can't even balance your checkbook? Relax. You're not alone. Many of us can't. (It's not real math anyway, it's arithmetic.) ...People who say they're bad at math are often talking about computation. But if you can figure out which bag or bowl to put the leftovers in, you're good at math. If you can estimate how long it's going to take you to travel to your nearest national park, you're good at math. And if you can get all the different parts of a meal ready at the same time, you're exceptional at math. ...Put away those notions of being good or bad at math.

Isn't that amazing? I thought you'd think so!

Watch for some posts on this book until the ladies from the libraries wrench it out of my white knuckled fists. :)

Tracking the Pack

Okay, I know I haven't posted in forever, but there are some major educational operations going on in this house. This one is my favorite. In an effort to learn a little about U.S. Geography (and have a little fun), we are going to follow the Packers across the country throughout their season. Well, okay, not literally.

I got a map of the United States from an educational store here in town for $2.50. And then I printed off the logos for all the teams in the NFL, laminated each in packaging tape, and stuck them to the map with poster putty. I was seriously more excited than anyone while we were doing this. And if you know my kids, that says a lot.

Here is a close-up of our division. John Paul recently had a momentary lapse of judgement and thought maybe he wanted to be a Minnesota Vikings fan. However, I'm happy to report that he makes a quiet wretching noise if anyone says the name "Brett Favre" or "Minnesota Vikings." Virtuous? No. But we'll work on respectful dislike for the team once the excitement for the Packers is more ingrained. ;)

So anyway, we'll be taking the Packer's logo around the country every week, and I also have the schedule posted so we can practice our charting of Wins and Losses. So...a little geography, a little math, a little phys. ed, and a LOT of fun. Peace out, and Go Pack.

Number cards and counting

Well, I hope I'm doing well at hiding the fact that I despise math from my little students. I approached this activity with enthusiasm, even though I've been known to fail a math class or two in my day. I can handle counting, right?

I used regular 3x5 cards for the numbers and the items to count were packing peanuts that came in a package we got. When I do it again, I'll use something else because the packing peanuts were not a uniform shape and so they were harder to count. John Paul put one packing peanut under the one, two under the 2 and so forth. He got up to eight before it all became a little too overwhelming and he started making it "snow" with the packing peanuts. I was satisfied though because it was our first time with this activity, and who doesn't love making it snow with packing peanuts?

Patterns and Matching

This is a take off of another product made by Melissa and Doug--a pattern matching bead game. I decided I could mimic it with drawing patterns on card stock. It took a little longer than I thought it would, but the boys still enjoyed it. It was little easy for John Paul and a little tough for Joey, so I'll bring it out again for Joey later and maybe make a harder variation for John Paul when I get around to it.


I started with the lacing bead set made by Melissa and Doug that I got from my sister in law a couple of years ago. But if I didn't have this, I think this activity could be done with candy or household items. Some ideas would be forks and spoons, or Runts candies, or even paper shapes. The idea is to just get kids to match up the picture with the pattern given. They have to use visual discrimination to get the correct shape and the correct color.

John Paul is nearly four and has troubles with blue and purple. We have some color blindness in the family, but I'm wondering if it's just a skill he hasn't mastered yet. Anyone else out there with boys (or girls) have trouble with colors at this age?

Overall, this activity was good, although the prep time took longer than the lesson, which I'm not usually a fan of! But I can use the cards again, until the boys start noticing my less than stellar art skills...