Addition without Worksheets or Flashcards: POINT

If you have a child at home practicing addition, Point is a great game to print off and play with them. It is much more engaging than flashcards or worksheets, and involves much more mathematical reasoning.

This game has two types of cards - numbered dot cards and tile cards. The dot cards are dealt out to all of the players and the tile cards are placed face down in the middle with the first one turned up. The tile card shown has 9 gold bars. Players have the opportunity to use 2 or more numbers to total 9. The player must prove to the other players their cards add up to the tile card number before getting rid of their cards. The winner is the player who gets rid of all their cards first.

Tile Card

As you play with your children, watch to learn how they count and add. Ask them to explain how their combination adds up to the tile card's number by asking, "How do you know that adds up to 9?" Do they always count one at a time? Do they count on from a larger number (Example - the tile card on the right has 9 gold bars. Do they start with 5 and count on 6, 7, 8, 9? Or do they start with 1 and count each bar up to 9? Be prepared to explain your combination cards as well!

As you play more games, you may find them figuring out the strategy of saving their small cards (1s and 2s) to make larger numbers to be able to get rid of their cards more quickly.

Keep a tally of who wins each hand and add again to figure out  who won the most.

Click here for a PDF to print all the game cards. We include a backing for the dot cards and tile cards, but you can eliminate those to save ink. Important: When you are ready to cut apart the tile cards, cut on the red lines.

Cooking breakfast in a Pandemic

Yesterday, I ran across a Facebook live video of April VanSickle Graff, someone I knew as a creative young learner when I taught first grade in Laurens, Iowa. April is now a nutritionist for Hy-Vee in Mankato, Minnesota and posted a video of cooking French Toast in a Mug with her daughter in her role as a nutritionist. Engaging young learners in cooking experiences is an integrative STEM experience.

Food assembly has long been a part of early childhood curriculum. There are many examples of how mathematics is embedded in preparation of ants on a log, or sandwiches. What is often overlooked is the STEM involved with actual cooking experiences.

As children make their own servings of pudding, pancakes, muffins, quesadillas, eggs, or in this case - French toast in a mug, they engage in vocabulary that often has multiple meanings. In cooking we whip, beat, sift, dice…all words that have different meanings in different contexts.

There is mathematical thinking such as of more and less, shorter and longer in terms of time, number of scoops or spoonful’s and experiences connecting children to the concepts of volume and fractions.

Cooking experiences can introduce cultural dishes previously unknown to children, or regularly enjoyed.

Finally, cooking experiences immerse children in observations about properties of materials or ingredients, and how those properties may change when heat or cooling is applied to a mixture, and if those changes are reversible.

French Toast in a Mug is a recipe adapted from the August 2019 issue of Hy-Vee’s Seasons Magazine. We adapted the recipe calling the measurement of Tablespoon a “big spoon”, the ½ teaspoon a “little spoon”, and the ¼ teaspoon a “tiny spoon.” Seriation of sizes matches the development of math with preschoolers and kindergarten. When children are in first, second, or third grade, they can begin to make sense of standard units of measurement.

Parents staying at home with their prek-grade 2 children can turn breakfast into meaningful learning experiences when they cook with them. Visit the link below to find the recipe to French Toast in a Mug along with other recipes available to download on our website.
https://regentsctr.uni.edu/ceestem/recipes/french-toast-mug

The video of April and her daughter can be found here:
https://www.facebook.com/HilltopHV/videos/807652576391609/

I made myself a mug  this morning. Tasty!