Most children respond well to movement ,Between the ages of three and six children develop fundamental movement skills which are the building blocks that enable them to progress and develop a full range of skills
research confirms that we learn better by movement and this is how I taught math and had great success. When my son was in school the teachers reported that he did not understand math concepts and they suspected he had dyscalculia . Through movement he mastered the math concepts and learnt to love math !
I started a home program where we jumped and counted . Jumping up the stairs and counting to 10 , jumping on the trampoline and counting , hitting a ball and counting to 10 .
We learnt addition through jumping
Simple addition while jumping
We also created some fun ways to add to the learning like a 100 square with velcro where the odd/even numbers are in different colours.
And adding +1 /-1 and +10/-10
We learnt to tell the time through movement .
We learnt about angles through movement .
We learnt coordinates in a fun way where we would jump to the points I requested.
We also liked using the Numicon and Dienes blocks.
- Dienz Blocks (great resource to understand place value)
- As stated by Harry Wachs in his book Visual/Spatial Portals to thinking, feeling and movement “These blocks are useful for developing numerical literacy and can help the child develop the visual infrastruction for mathematical thought”. (Visual/Spatial Portals to Thinking,Feeling and Movement page 426) .
Numicon :An apparatus which I found very useful was the Numicon . A proven approach in teaching math in the primary national curriculum . It develops fluency by using a visual, practical base to develop conceptual understanding and fluent recall.
