Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Suggestions/ideas for Math?

We're finally back from a loooong overseas trip. Not sure I recommend 17+ hour flights with a 2yo and 5yo.

We had one of those "cool story" moments during the trip. DS5's grandfather was telling him about square roots (he knows his squares to 12 and cubes through 6). After going over it a few times, DS gets the concept that a square root is an inverse function of squares. Pretty neat. At any rate, the next morning, DS wakes up and immediately proclaims "the cube root of 27 is 3!" (We hadn't talked about cube roots)

Anyhoo we're back in the states and we've initiated a dialog with the school. We'll see where that goes and what they suggest. One way or another we plan on getting DS5 tested. (See the thread on skipping Kindergarten)

DS is a pretty good reader, but probably even more advanced mathematically. Most of what he's picked up he has picked up over dinner conversations about Math. He has a relatively insatiable appetite for numbers and patterns (absolutely fascinated with factorials and Fiboncci sequence numbers). We have some of the popular books like G is for Googol and the Greedy Triangle. What would be helpful is suggestions on what topics might be fun for the mathematically inclined child. Loves big numbers, starting to learn fractions, has place-value down pat (although refuses to do anything with carry over!), and so on. This is more on the recreational side as opposed to formal home schooling.

Thanks in advance...

JB

May I suggest Penrose the Mathematical Cat? There are lots of fun, recreational math ideas in there. Also the "Sir Cumference" series is good.

Cool topics:

Sequences, functions, graphing stuff, fractals, binary/other bases, other number systems, codes, pentominoes, tangrams, money. My mathy DS5 likes to play Descartes' Cove with me. He needs help but he is fascinated by it and learns a lot of math from it. I think of it as a fun teaching tool.

Please post any good stuff you find. I'm always looking for things, too!

My DW and I were wondering about getting Descartes' Cove. We weren't sure if it would be too much for him at this point. Sounds like you like it?

JB

I really have to sit with him and explain stuff as we go. I had ordered it thinking I would show it to him in a year or two but he didn't want to wait We reason out how to solve the problem and then look up the formulas in the secret notebook. The game also allows you to "buy hints." DS can't do all the calculations yet but I let him do the ones he can do. Sometimes he comes up with his own methods (like drawing a diagram and estimating or something.) If he wants to use my calculator to figure it out I let him do that too.

You can see a demo on the CTY website.

Oh, that reminds me, another fun math thing is calculation tools like abacuses, slide rules, calculators or finger calculation tricks.

DS and I made up this finger math game where you use sign language numbers (so you can go from 1 - 10 using one hand). So one person makes a number in each hand and then the other person says which is greater or if they're equal too. We started really simple with the ability to do positive and negative numbers (an upside down hand means negative) and then we added a sign to denote adding two numbers together. By the end of the week it *really* complex ... you could do all the basic math operations and squares and cubes. We still play that game at bath time.

JB

Cool idea! I'll show my DS--thanks

Another good book is The Number Devil.

A fun geometry toy is Zome.

http://www.zometool.com/

I hope you old timers are not tired of seeing my math book links:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art28465.asp

hth!

Never! Such great help!

Don't forget the Hoagies links:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/math.htm

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/physics.htm

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/mathematics.htm

I also like the Mathing Group off at yahoo for links/resources of fun stuff.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MathingOff/


My son enjoys the Zoombinis games, Crazy Machines(more physics than true math) and Math Blasters on the computer. He also loves any and all math oriented puzzle books. Zaccaro's Primary Math Challenges is also his idea of a fun evening! Games he's enjoyed include Count Across, Count Down and Set.

I like Zaccaro's Primary Grade Challenge Math. I also like Venn Perplexors and math material from The Critical Thinking Co.

I second the suggestion regarding Penrose the Mathematical Cat. We started reading it last week and it seems like a great fit for DS5 right now.


It makes me wonder if it would work for my mathy DS5. He works on 4th grade level, but I think Descartes' Cove is 6-8th grade. Let me know how it goes. If your son stays with it for a few months I may consider it too.

I stumbled across the BBC's website when another poster mentioned one of the adventure games you can play

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/

DS5 loves the reading/math games listed in the KS1 area

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/

I was a bit surprised by the difficulty of some of the time/clock based games. But you know what, it was good because DS really had to think to answer.

JB

I've been considering Descartes' Cove for my almost-7yo, too. He's doing geometry and loving it right now--we did parallel lines cut by a transversal yesterday, and he got a big kick out of seeing all the congruent and supplementary angles in the "puzzle." Then I read this thread and it made me think that the DC game might be right for him after all...

So please keep us updated on how your DS likes it as the newness wears off, would you, Cathy? Thanks!

I just found this page on Hoagies today:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/puzzle_books.htm#logic

Lots of ideas for puzzles!!!

We also found this during the weekend when I was trying to find cut outs of geometric shapes:

http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games.html

DS gets limited computer time each day. When he's not making "booklets" of Wikipedia printouts he likes playing educational games like these. I think I liked the BBC games better, but there are a few pattern types of games here on PBSKids.

BTW, if anyone has a link to 3D shapes that can be cut out, please post. That is what I was looking for originally. Something like this http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/23dgeometry/index.html but with more shapes.

JB

Search for "nets". I found this: http://www.mathsisfun.com/platonic_solids.html

http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php
I've never actually downloaded the software itself, but you can figure some of them out just by looking at the photos.

Erica

Found another! Just paper models to print out on this one -- no downloading

http://www.korthalsaltes.com/

Erica

I stumbled upon a website that shows you how to fill in the multiplication table without learning all ~120 multiplication facts. Like 4 x 5 = 5 x 4, so you could fill in all those and there was a trick for the 9s columns. I thought it was through Hoagies but I can't find it. Does this ring a bell for anyone? I thought I had saved it but can't find it.

Squirt, was it this article by Dr. Silverman?

http://www.visualspatial.org/articles/mthstrat.pdf

I know the nines trick--

1x9=9
2x9=18
3x9=27
4x9=36
5x9=45
6x9=54
7x9=63
8x9=72
9x9=81
10x9=90

Notice that as you go down the column the tens digits of the answers are counting up and the ones digits are counting down. Also, the sums of the digits in the answers always equal nine, i.e. 7x9=63, 6+3=9. So to get the answer you take one away from seven (7-1=6) to get the tens digit and then the ones digit is whatever you need to add to make nine (6+3=9) so the answer is 63.

I just saw this recently in Dr. Silverman's article and thought it was so cool! I had never "seen" it before. I had one of those silly lightbulb moments that I should have had in elementary school but didn't happen until my 30's, lol.

http://www.dynamicgeometry.com/

This looks interesting. Is anyone familiar with it? The Algebra portion reminds me of Hands on Equations but computerized!