Elizabeth Daisy

I’m taking a math class so I can re-certify my teaching degree. It’s been painful. The first day was a full Saturday as in 8:30-5. I woke up that morning feeling awful. I almost threw up and had to sit down and will myself to eat something and hold it down. I dragged myself to go to class where I sat in a cold elementary school library, sat on rock hard chairs, and attempted to focus on math. I was so cold I came home at lunch threw on another layer and wore winter boots.

It has been about six Tuesdays of going to math for four hours. Thankfully I sit with an awesome group of ladies, we bring all sorts of snacks for each other. They let me cheat off them and we all laugh a lot. I have learned a lot from this class and I know somewhere deep, deep inside me I’m glad I’m taking it. (I know not so deep down I’ll be happy when it’s over.)

I have learned a few things from this class though:

1. I will never teach anything over first grade. Really the lower level kids and I just get along better.

2. I don’t want my children to grow up. I’m going to have to learn math all over again.

3. May my children inherit my older brother’s ability at math. Both engineers.

I learned about a ten frame from Mary in my group. I love this! I’ve added it to my preschool routine with my five year old and I’ve seen her improve with it. I’m hoping it will help her in the future. What you do with ten frame is draw a table that looks like the picture above. Then draw or place a cheerio in one space. Ask the child how many cheerio’s there are. 1.

Then ask how many to get to 10?

9.

Continue on until you fill the whole chart in. What you’re trying to help kids understand is that if you have 1 it will take 9 more to get to 10. If you have 2 it will take 8 more to get to 10. It’s going to help them convert, slide, and move numbers around easier in their minds when they are adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

At first my daughter was loving ten frames now that we’ve done it for a while she’s getting bored. Mary and I came up with this new game for our kids to play to help them keep ten frames fun.

The rules of the game.

Be the first to fill in the ten frame.

Roll a die to see how many you can put in.

If you have one space left and roll a three you have to skip your turn. Can’t go over how many spaces you have left.

When you put your cheerio’s in you have to say how many cheerio’s you have all together and how many more you need to make 10. So the picture above my daughter would have said, “I have 6 cheerio’s and I need 4 more to get to 10.” Talking about math will help your child understand what they are doing instead of us always telling them what they are doing.