Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How to debug/correct basic math problems

Forget imaginary numbers and imaginary money - pah!

How about imaginary gifted education?

I've only skim read so forgive me if this has already been suggested but I found the most helpful learning tool for numeracy facts teaching to a gifted child was to explain the system. We use the decimal number system and so I explained what that meant. I demonstrated how it differed from other number systems (ones they were familiar with like roman numerals and others unfamiliar to them) but essential explained the system, ensured it was logical and there was nothing weird or complicated about it. The best visual tools for this are the base ten blocks (which come in handy for decimals and much more later on too)

A toy cash register, some toy or real money and some stock for a child to set up shop with can be a fun way to practice addition and subtraction.

I also made some 'rulers' that were ten evenly spaced (marked and numbered) units long out of paper strips placed side by side into 'columns' to demonstrate the 'overflow' into the column to the left for addition to account for the full addend and the 'drawing off' from column to the left for subtraction if the current column runs out before the subtractend has been fully accounted for.

My DD found this super easy to understand and she got the idea in minutes if not seconds. But like me she gets pictures and diagrams quickly - not sure if that makes us 'visual learners' or not - I call it mechanical aptitude but I am not a psychologist.

YMMV

Update. We've been discussing this chart:

http://www.eduplace.com/math/mw/background/2/01/te_2_01_overview.html

and filling out all the number bonds up to 20 on these blank sheets:

http://fivejs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/number-bonds.pdf

And talking as we go about the relationship between the patterns on the chart and how many number bonds there are per number, it seems to be going exceptionally well.

Great update and resource find. Funny how many resources there are to try to train kids as top-down thinkers, but how sparse when they come to the table with a top-down skillset.

Indeed. And I feel stupid for pulling her to homeschool and then making the se errors myself... Never mind.