Friday, April 11, 2008

Friday Brainwash 4-11-2008

Just a few nifty toys, books and ideas that I found this week to assist me in indoctrinating my two helpless children into the world of science, math and engineering.

My father and I have the same lame mantra "I love math, but I hate arithmetic." As dumb as that sounds, it is so true. I suffered through school math until 10th grade geometry, and then calculus changed my life. I still have issues with doing simple math in my head though, and I don't want Prospector and Panorama to be crippled by 5X7 and 9X6 the way that I am, so I am always looking for fun ways to work math into our daily lives.

For Prospector (Age 7 months)

Math Fables

I bought this book for Panorama when she was small and she loved it. There is a poem for each number from 1 to 10. Each poem works through a simple story (like an ant picnic or beavers working on a dam) with clever and catchy rhyme. Each poem has as much, if not more, appeal than most nursery rhymes with the added benefit of learning some simple arithmetic. I have a bit of an obsession with hand puppets, so I grab some from my collection and work up a bit of a math variety show for the little guy.

For Panorama (Age 4 years)

Leaping Frog Math Game

This game appears to be a simple Candyland-esque addition and subtraction game. You roll the dice, add the numbers and move your frog the correct number of spaces. I just ordered it today, so I will let you know if it is a hit.

We found this nifty little board game in our preschool's Scholastic Book Order flyer. I dug around on amazon for a few minutes to see if I could find it listed there, and I couldn't. It's made by Learning Resources, who appear to have all kinds of amazing kids' science things. If your school doesn't do the monthly book order, I think you can join directly from their website. I find the books and games offered to be of excellent quality and usually cheaper than I can find elsewhere.

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