What is the best way to help a bright, math-oriented 5-year-old improve her math skills?

My daughter will be five soon and I think she has a knack for math - she notices numbers and patterns, she can do some basic addition and other calcuations, and is curious and interested. Not a genius, just your average wide-awake kid. How can I foster this interest in a creative way?

I don't want worksheets, I want something more. Asked by JAHPhotoGirl 57 months ago Similar questions: help bright math oriented 5 year old improve math skills Science > Math.

Similar questions: help bright math oriented 5 year old improve math skills.

From a math teacher and a mom This link takes you to the table of contents of a book that shows how to relate children's picture books to math. What I like is that this link shows you the list of recommended picture books, so you can check them out on-line without having to buy this particular book (sneaky, but for a good cause, right? ).

If you snuggle with your child, read one of the books together, then direct your conversation towards the math in the story, you can accomplish a lot at one time (many birds with one book, whatever). Cuddlebugs rule! Additionally, there are spur-of-the-moment activities you can try, such as: Pour water.

Explore volume outside on a hot day with a hose, or inside over the sink or in the tub. Ask your child for predictions--Which container holds more? How many times can you pour this container into that one before it overflows?

Make lots of references to time--Bedtime in 10 minutes. We'll leave in 5 minutes. See how long you can spin without falling over dizzily (time your child's silliness, in seconds or in minutes).

Explore patterns. Get some poker chips and lay some out in a pattern; ask you child what color poker chip would come next and why. Ask your child to set a pattern up for you to figure out.

Cut an apple in half the horizontal way and admire the 'apple star' design. Look for 3-dimensional challenges. Play pick-up sticks.

Fiind dice with 8, 10, 12, and/or 20 sides, and explore them. Look at a soup can; make a 'can' out of cardboard and realize that the can is really just two circles and a rectangle. Separate piles.

Take out a lot of something, like nickels, and have you child separate them into 2 or 3 equal piles. Using a round paper plate, have you child color it as a pizza. Then 'slice' it and play with halves, thirds, equal amounts, portions, etc.Find shapes.

Where in the kitchen can you find a circle? A triangle? Can you find a rectangle that isn't a square?

Count everything. How mny cars are we walking past in the parking lot? How many books are on your shelf?

How many sleeves are there in all the shirts we just folded? If you enjoy playing with numbers, shapes, and patterns, your child will, too. You're a lucky mom with a lucky child.

Have fun! .

Involve her in your math-oriented tasks! I'm a big fan of 30-minutes per day on education computer software -- there are some REALLY fun ones on the market nowadays. But that wouldn't involve you in the fun, and I've found that kids learn best when they're getting one-on-one with mom or dad.

Involving your brilliant daughter in your own daily math-oriented tasks is the best. Here are a few suggestions, and yes, a lot of them are related to personal finance...but our kids need to learn early how to manage money, right? Ask her to help you estimate how much your bill is going to be while you're at the grocery store.

Tell her you have a budget of $___ and ask her to help you stay within it. (Keep it simple and small at first, but over time, increase the budget. ) When it's time to balance your checkbook register, have her help you with the addition.

Show her how to do double-digit addition. Cook with her -- the ingredients in recipes deal with fractions, portions, and percentages. Make jewelry with her -- lace the strings with patterns of beads.

Use smaller beads to enable more complex patterns. (Also, working with small beads helps fine-tune the little muscles that help her hold her pencil for writing well. ) Find something she desires, and have her work for an allowance to save up for it.

Make a chart on the wall that shows how much she's earned compared to how much she still needs to save. (Like the charity thermometers that show the goal and how much has been donated so far. ) I hope this helps.

:) Sources: my brilliant and creative mind :) Chosen7Stone's Recommendations Hooked on Math: Addition And Subtraction: Ages 6-7, 1st to 2nd Grade (Hooked on) Amazon List Price: $64.99 Used from: $34.89 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 1 reviews) It's for ages 6-7, but if she's interested, there's never a problem with giving it a try.

Glad to hear of your child’s interest in math! What a great gift she has received! An interest in math is a great blessing.

I am glad to hear you are wanting to foster her inquisitiveness. By the way, you are right not to have her do worksheets at this time. She will get plenty of that in school.

Here are some ideas: Encourage sorting and counting: When she is eating her favorite cereal (dry of course), playing with beads or investigating a new toy, or a looking through a bag of fun looking pasta pieces, encourage her to sort out all the same shape, color... basically pick a characteristic and then have her count them. Have her tell you how that number relates to the whole. This is the begining of understanding fractions.

Discover music... Music is math in action. Have her play patterns on a toy piano. Also check out the book on music below.

Play with puzzles: It may seem like play, but time spent with puzzles helps her develop connections in her mind. One thing I used to do when I was young was mix peices from a few (say 40 piece or less) puzzles in one pile and then figure out what puzzle they went in and then where they went. As she gets older try the math games offered by Conceptual Math Media: conceptualmathmedia.com/ One more thing, speaking from my own experience.

Please don't overlook her reading, spelling, writing and speach skills. As a child I loved math, but didn't get spelling. I think I was allowed to get away with not studing the verbal skills because I excelled at math skills.

Sometimes it is most important to foster creativity in areas they aren't as gifted in. As with everything, moderation is best. Sources: My experience.

HappyWife&Mom's Recommendations Musical Notes on Math Amazon List Price: $30.00 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 4 reviews) I don't own this book yet, but it looks very intresting! .

It is important to ask her problem solving questions and develop her math vocabulary! Let's face it... worksheets are boring and no fun... what is fun is for her to create problems for you to solve. Give her an idea that there are 10 cookies... what are the math problems she could create that give the answer of 1o cookies.

Give her different kinds of coins and ask her all the different ways to make 25 cents. The key here is to develop the thinking and reasoning of problem solving and to do it in a fun way. Kids this age love to play school and they get a kick out of teaching you!.

The other things that is fun is to have them create a math machine... have them draw a wacky machine pathway and at each stage something different happens... the number 1 is added and then 3 are added and then 4 are added and then one is taken away.... have her put all sorts of numbers into the machine to see what happens. Create all kinds of machines. Anyway the key is to have fun with math.

Measure the world around you with all sorts of objects... compare the measurements of a paperclip versus a shoe... always ask why is it different. Encourage her to have fun and count everything. Each day can be a special number.... 3 day.... find groups of three everywhere you look.

I could go on and on. But most importantly have fun and keep the learning fun .

There are tons of software that might be useful There's a list of what might be good products for your situation at the source link. Generally, if it consists of some kind of game that requires math skills it can really help her stay interested and improve her skills. When I was in 4th grade, our teacher came up with an innovative way of helping us learn to quickly multiply and divide.

He'd throw us a ball and shout out a math problem and we had to throw it back immediately and shout at the answer. If we got it wrong or we were too slow we would get eliminated. Obviously, this won't work with just one player, but a game like that or something along those lines might be useful.

Sources: http://www.educational-software-directory.net/children's/math. Html .

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