Cuisenaire rods and the such

Sag and I did some "table activities" this morning (code for school-y stuff). We started by playing the Ugly Doll card game (which has an element of the card game "Spit" in it---one of my childhood favorites). We moved on to "Toot and Otto" (which combines elements of Connect Four and Tic Tac Toe) and Gem joined in for some rounds.

Then Sag and I did some "Math" (in quotes because math is a naturally occurring element of so many things including the games we had just played) . I pulled out the Miquon Math work books.

I introduced Sag to some terms like: set, element, and collection. He used Cuisenaire rods to combine elements and realize that the combinations formed new knowable and familiar entities.


I taught him how to use tally marks to count and represent totals (he was familiar about the concept, but we worked on firming up the fifth slashing tally mark).

Using the information from this one worksheet, he worked on 1:1 correspondence which though "easy" on the surface really is a foundational concept which needs to be firm and secure in order to expand from it.

He also answered questions which spun him into the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) without his ever knowing it (you can bet I heard the words "but, I don't know subtraction!" later on...math phobia it can start early!)

Here he put together his nine cubes and the "nine" blue rod. (Looks like teeth! said he :-) Cuisenaire rods are a great visual and hands on (kinesthetic, my fave way to learn) tool for introducing/reinforcing mathematical, particularly numerical, concepts.

He then moved on to other pages of his choice in the workbook. He loves sequencing numbers.
I've decided for now to focus on him relearning some of the mechanics of his handwriting so that he is forming letters and numbers from "sky to earth" rather than from down to up.

He's not too happy about it, but there's something about imposing that order which is supposed to connect to neural pathways in the brain, making things, ultimately, easier.

He had a really hard time writing the number 8 this way today. It was fascinating. He couldn't get his head around it and his body had no muscle memory of doing it. His fingers, holding the pencil, was literally poised over the paper as his face scrunched up in frustration. He could not start for the life of him.

I placed my hand over his, with permission, and we made a few 8s together, and his hand and brain picked it up. Of course the whole "sky to earth" cannot be taken literally with an 8 because you have to come all the way back up with this number.

Gem joined us to play with the Cuisenaire rods. Here, he had illustrated (among other things, I'm sure): 10+0=10, 9+1=10, 8+2=10, 7+3=10, going to 5+5=10, and then back up to 0+10=10. Then he added the 10+1=11 border :-)



Sag moved on to some addition problems. He likes to know that he's done something "right". So when he looked to me for that stamp of approval, I handed him some rods and showed him how he could self-check. Cool.