Homeschool World Forum

At that age I don't know that I'd buy anything at all. There are so many ways to teach math while living your life day to day that is great for such a young age.

However Math u See is something we've used. The kids like it. They are highly kinesthetic learners. I think what works best with a particular child has to take into account how they learn best. We didn't start home schooling until my kids were in 4th and 6th grades though.

I'm using Time4Learning and Singapore Math (Earlybird Kindergarten) with my 4 year old. He absolutely loves it, but I had to play with curriculum to find the mix that worked for him.

Thanks for the advice! I really appreciate it!!

I use Math-U-See but also a lot of other things with my daughter. She is a kenetic type learner who isn't much into workbooks and if I only did MUS or some other work book each day she would quickly become grumpy over school. So I am constantly changing things around to keep it varied. So one day it will be MUS, the next a game, the third day a diffrent workbook with stickers, the forth day maybe I will have her jump on numbers or make them from play dough or some other activity. I do the same with phonics. She likes simple online math games, but mostly plays on starfall and study dog for phonics but even then she would get bored if we did only that.

We uses my site, but also many things from "real" life.
All the best
Amir

I have been a teacher for 20 years and would like to give you my honest advice.
This is what I think.
I thought pre school was meant to be fun. If he's bored change preschools. Don't buy a maths program for a 4 1/2 year old. Get him into another preschool. Don't let him use an excuse of being bored. You'll spend the rest of your child's upbringing chasing around after him. Tell him it's back luck if he's bored. Teach him to deal with it, not make excuses!

I agree...don't worry about structuring a curriculum for him. Have fun and come up w/ everyday ideas that help him understand concepts. He will have plenty of time to work in workbooks and handouts. Let him play and discover stuff that interests him. Then you can question him about certain concepts here and there. For instance, let him play w/ bubbles. See if he can blow 2, then blow 3...How many do you have in all? What if 1 pops - how many are left? What if Daddy blows 4 bubbles and Mommy blows 6 - who made more bubbles? How many more?

If you are looking for a book to use for more than one year, you could get this one: Family Math for Young Children: Comparing Features comparing, counting, measuring, estimating, sorting, observing and describing. Create puzzles, build mobiles, discuss patterns and more in a fun way.

It is for ages 4 - 8, and will help your child enjoy math. Here's some more about it at Amazon.com, in case you want to read reviews of it.

I have the book for older children, titled Family Math, and we have used it with great results.

Pre-K and K math: Counting to 10 or 20 for K, recognizing numerals 1- 10 or 20 for K. Identifying shapes, circle, square, triangle and rectangle at the least. Identifying differences and similarities (triangle vs circle), greater and less than (3 apples is less than 7 apples), weight difference (what's heavier telephone book or a cup) height or length difference (which is shorter or longer) basically any physical opposite or similarities, colors the basic 8, being able to draw shapes and write numerals, directions left and right on a number line the concept of 0. That's about it and you don't need anything special to teach this, it can be done in the grocery store, or with legos or whatever. I bought some bears that came in a bucket of about 4 basic colors and 3 different sizes. You can even print out printing practice for numerals for free online.

I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN THIS REPLY PREVIOUSLY ON THIS SAME THREAD - and I think it's worth repeating, regarding math "curriculum" for a 4.5-yo child. I've also added a couple new items at the bottom:

Here are my suggestions about activities (NOT curriculum) for a 4.5-yo:
1. If your child will "respond" better, make any of the following activities be "a school lesson" - I've included math-justifiable topics in parentheses for each of the following. Make it fun and informal.
2. Cooking and baking (fractions; dimensional analysis - volume, quantity, weight): baking in particular is good for "math you can eat" (!!!!!) - it's great to show that 3/4 cup is 3 of the 1/4 cups, or that 3/4 of a cup is 3 of the 4 equal parts of the stick of butter, etc. Temperature also comes into play.
3. Anything with a tape measure (fractions, number sense, mixed numbers): particularly working with wood, and sewing.
4. Skip count songs (number sense; pre-multiplication; FUN-FUN-FUN): go to my website (www.AlgebraForKids.com) and check out the skip count song CD's there.
5. Lots of enrichment and math games (number sense; counting; addition; sometimes place value; spatial sense for some games): You can also check my website for math games - both computational games as well as problem-solving/spatial games, too.
6. Walks around the block (spatial sense, units of measurement, estimation): count your steps; bring in a directional compass; make maps of the neighborhood on graph paper.
7. With the skip count songs, practice and use this skill in everyday situations - count things in groups - "3, 6, 9, 12, 15 - that's 15 pencils" - "2, 4, 6, 8, 10 - that's 10 vans in the parking lot" - "8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 - that's 48 chairs in all these rows" - etc.
8. Ask your child, "Which numbers that are on the 4's chorus for skip counting are also on the 6's chorus?"
9. Also ask, "The number 12: which skip count choruses is that number on? [It's on the chorus for the 2's, the 3's, the 4's, not the 5's, the 6's, and the 12's (if there were a 12's song!). How about the number 16? Or the number 18?" etc.

Remember to introduce every activity as "this is a lesson just for you!" - that should help. Have fun. Let kids be kids - but enrich them with fun activities like this.

all the best,
Bob Hazen

Bob, these are great suggestions. I love them. These will work for older children, too, just modified to the appropriate level. We did some similar games and activities for our DD, but we also used a Wal-Mart workbook.

But the real love for my daughter was the Disney CD Rom games. Since her older brother was a game geek, these allowed her to copy him. She started playing them at about 12 mos. and kept going until about age 5. Sometimes she'd play for over an hour. She was reading by age 3 and could do complex addition and subtraction by age 5. Thank you, Disney, as it made my having to teach her minimal.