Number

Counting, skip counting, fractions, negative numbers, and more.

10-minute reading time

10-minute reading time

A while back, bedtime was spiraling out of control. The kids share a room; they would be wound up at bedtime and the transition to sleep was not happening smoothly. We had a big, big problem on our hands. We solved the problem with 10-minute reading time. The...

Twister

Twister

Tabitha received a Twister game for her recent birthday (7 years old!) She enjoys a version of the game in which one person spins and the other follows instructions until, as Tabitha puts it with much delight, the cookie crumbles. The players switch roles for...

Peeps

Peeps

This is one of my favorite tasks in recent years. The idea is that we will compare two sets of Peeps. Are there more of one color or the other? There is so much fun to be had counting Peeps. Now that Valentine's Day is past, Peeps (a common Easter candy) are back...

Baking cookies

Baking cookies

Talking Math with Other People's Kids Month rolls along... Jennifer Lawler wrote up the following conversation on her blog. --- Jennifer is in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies when her son Ian (8 years old) wanders in and observes her methods. She has put...

Book shopping

Book shopping

Math teacher mom (and long ago former student of mine), Megan Schmidt sent in the following report for Talking Math with Other People's Kids month... --- Her husband (who is not a math teacher) and three-year-old daughter—we'll call her Marian—are...

Legos

Legos

The dirty little secret about Legos is how very many pieces there are to be cleaned up after building. And how very ugly the clean-up battle can become. I try to keep calm. I try to turn the clean-up battle into math talk from time to time. Here is how it played...

Playlists

Playlists

Parenting is a tremendous amount of work. Within that work are beautiful moments of love and joy. For Tabitha and me, these moments often involve music. We had an impromptu dance party in the kitchen the other night that began with my putting on some music to do...