MommyTeaching.com

Promote Math and Science Intelligence by Enhancing Spatial Thinking: Pre-K - Grade 8

June 06, 2011

Spatial thinking is taught indirectly as other math and science content is discussed in schools and textbooks.  Children are given minimal opportunities to apply spatial thinking thus making it even more important for parents to make a concerted effort to teach our children to participate in fun activities that enhance their spatial reasoning. 

Spatial thinking is the ability to perceive the location of things, their shapes, their relation to each other, and the paths they take as they move.  Some very practical ways we think spatially in our everyday lives are: following directions to assemble something, imagining where a new piece of furniture would fit in our home, or using a map to find our way.   

Here are some ways to help your children increase their math performance through activities that develop spatial awareness.

Level One 

1. Teach geometric shapes using some strange-looking as well as the standard shapes for triangles, circles, and rectangles.
2. Teach spatial words such as middle, between, in, out, inside, outside, front, back, side, top, bottom, around, over…etc.
3. Have children tell you where items will go in an experiment.  Let us say you plan to drop a bouncy ball.  Before dropping the ball, ask child to imagine where the ball will land.  

Level  Two

1. Have children do jigsaw puzzles.  If you go to my technology tag and scroll down, you will find a list of websites for children. Several of them have jigsaw puzzles children can practice online.  Use spatial language as you help your children master puzzles.  Have children separate the straight edges from the others.
2. Use simple maps with your children or create your own.  My daughters and I used to play treasure hunt.  We would take turns hiding an object (the treasure) and then draw a map so the other player(s) could locate the treasure.
3. Read the book Zoom with your children.  Helping children deal with the intangible and detailed challenges in the book will increase childrens' scores on spatial tests.
4. Encourage young children to gesture when imagining movement of objects.

Level Three

1. Have older children practice using a real map. 
2. Highlight the element that is used to measure space.  Let us look at an example where children use number lines in math.  To measure the number of units from 2 to 5, it is the space between the numbers that is being measured.  Highlight this space so children measure the change from 2 to 5, instead of the digits from 2 to 5.  The difference(space) from 2 to 5 is three units whereas there are four digits from 2 to 5.  Students often make a mistake and come up with an answer that is one too many.
3. Encourage children to engage in recreation that enhances the use of spatial thinking such as:  

• Photography (scale changes from real life unit to the unit of the picture),
• Paper folding (turning a 2-dimensional object into a 3-dimensional one,
• Origami (combining shapes),
• Assembling something, building,
• Rearranging the furniture in a room, 
• Playing the game Tetris (rotates shapes to fit them together)
• Playing with any software for creating three dimensional objects 

Some information from this blog post was taken from American Educator, a Quarterly Journal of Educational Research and Ideas, Vol, 34, No. 2\ Summer 2010  in an article titled: Picture This on pg 29

Exceptional Play for Education and Fun

June 30, 2011

We have invested in numerous Lego sets, Lincoln Logs, City Blocks, and other building block sets. Aside from building the specific structures planned by the Lego kits, our favorite event in to see how tall we can build.

Skills enhanced by building with blocks:

• Imagination
• Inventiveness
• Attention
• Planning
• Application
• Organization
• Independence
• Fine motor skills
• Collaboration
• Cooperation
• Problem Solving

Different kinds of blocks: Lego, Kaplan or City Blocks, Lincoln Logs, Link N-Learn links, sensory snap beads, linky triangles, pyramid master builder blocks, textured building block set, Mega magnets construction set, Fiddlestix rods, Connector set, Geometric shape building blocks, Large hard plastic lego blocks (age1 -3), Master building system - Japanese system, Build a Link Clip Shapes, Criss cross shapes, Dacta Lego Set III, Star links…etc. Feel free to add to this list.

Share your favorite building experience.

Surprising, Quick and Easy Science Trick

July 07, 2011

I was always one of those teachers who hated to see my students act bored. My goal was  to have many quick lessons with tons of transitions from one activity to another. On this one particular day, my students looked rather lethargic sitting in their seats. As an effort to intrigue them, I recalled a quick and interesting science fact that could be turned into a mini activity.

Procedure:

One person is holding a dollar bill (or any amount) with two fingers upright in the air. Smooth the bill so there are no wrinkles.

The goal is for the other person to catch the dollar bill between two fingers before the bill falls past. The person to catch the bill must have two fingers open and ready to pinch the bill.  They should be positioned in the middle of the bill on George Washington's face. If the fingers are positioned lower, then it changes the outcome. A crinkled bill will also change the outcome.

Back in 1997 was my first year teaching. I was so confident that nobody would catch the bill that I offered a $20 reward. Most of my students attempted it many times but to no avail. If the catcher honestly reacts to the person letting go of the bill, it is impossible to catch. You see, the human reaction time is slower than the rate it takes the bill to fall through the air. In my 15 years working with students, I’ve only had two students catch the bill. Unfortunately, one of those times was the time I offered a $20 reward. Don’t remember my student’s name but I know he was a basketball player. He reacted before I let go of the bill and nonetheless was able to catch it. I’ve learned my lesson and now only offer a $1 reward.

My daughters got a kick out of trying this.  We discussed the meaning of human reaction time and the factors that affect the speed at which things travel in air. Our conversation went off on a tangent to paper airplanes. We discussed how the long skinny paper airplanes will travel faster than the short fat ones and the reason for the differences. Since we were discussing a topic that was important to them (paper airplanes) they didn’t mind all the science talk.

Are Your Children Bored?  Simple Ways To Get Them Physically Active While Sneaking in Math & Science

July 18, 2011

Children need many daily opportunities for exercise.  My daughters fail to choose physical activites to fill up their time. They have great imaginations and could easily spend the entire day with imaginative play: creating prompts and playing superheroes.  In their defense, they do get exercise swimming in our pool several times a week.  I have found that I need to make a concerted effort to create more opportunities to encourage them to exercise.  In the process of doing so, I’ve found ways to incorporate some practice with math and science as well. 

Here are some ideas for getting your children moving while sneaking in bits of academics.  In time-keeping activities,children alternate between keeping time and being participants in the activity.

Keep track of time with a stopwatch or regular watch (math) for the following physical activities.

• Potato sack race
• Create an obstacle course for children to perform
• Run races
• Swim races
• Have children time each other to see who can: hula-hoop, do jumping jacks, skip, hop, or jump rope the longest.  To tame competition, have children compete with themselves, trying to improve their own time with each try.  Different-age children should not compete since it creates an unfair advantage to the younger ones.

Counting (math)

• Throw a ball back and forth and count the number of consecutive catches before dropping the ball.
• Have children time each other to see who can perform the most of any given activity in a row: sit-ups, cartwheels, and/or jumping jacks. 
• Young children can play the game “duck duck goose” (counting)

Counting down (math)

• Play Musical Chairs

Measure total distance, length or distance away from a goal.

• Jumping the farthest
• Hopping the farthest without falling down or stopping
• Walking the farthest distance on an imaginary balance beam without falling off (Use tape to create one)

Keep track of the score (math)

• Any sport: basketball, softball, baseball, soccer, volleyball…etc.
• Beanbag toss
• Miniature Golf
• Bowling

Make a Map (Spatial Awareness, Science, and Math Scale Drawing)

• Nature Map: Have children go for a walk and try to remember landmarks.  Then upon arriving home have them do their best to draw a map including landmarks and other things seen on the walk. Remind them to keep the length of each part of the route proportional to the length of the whole trail.
• Map for a Scavenger Hunt: One child makes the map of the hidden items and the other children go for a walk to find the items.  They switch roles as needed.

Get a Smart Cycle and buy educational games to go with it. 

Play darts while jogging in place. (Spatial Awareness)

Play Simon Says (Following directions, Learning parts of the body: Science)

Imitate different animals and move around like those animals. (Science)

Have children make-up a dance routine with patterns in dance moves Try to include hoops, scarves, and ribbons to spice it up. You can also let them play Dance Dance Revolution DVD game.  (Patterns: Math)

Other great ideas for increasing exercise but these don’t involve learning. 

• If you have room, keep a mini trampoline available. Children can exercise during their TV time.
• Exercise video to do with mom or anyone else
• Hopscotch

To keep your children accountable for exercising everyday, they can log onto an incentive program at http://www.nick.com/thebighelp 

Education Games

July 26, 2011

I often find myself playing educational games with my children; games which are not so educational that they are tedious but rather just enjoyable learning.  Activities such as “Go Fish”, “Concentration”, or any matching games really help my kids with memorizational skills. When I was a teacher, I’d use these games with my students and they proved so effective, easy, and fun that they’ve become part of regular play at home. These games, by their very nature, are repetitive. Memorization comes from repetition in seeing and thinking about an association.

Today, instead of using a regular deck of Poker cards, I decided to switch it up a bit to provide variation. I made my own “deck” out of index cards (construction paper or cardboard would work as well), and wrote matching words on them. I thought that showing pairs in words may be more age appropriate for my girls. We played “Go Fish” with these word cards just as we would have with regular cards and the kids caught on instantly. Depending on the age of your children, numbers, words and/or pictures may be great choices.  

Below are some examples of potential categories.

If anyone has any other creative ideas for matching games, I’d love for you to share!