This week, we’ve been playing math games!
While Aubade takes her naps, I’ve introduced the boys to dominoes (just the number matching beginner version – they aren’t quite ready for the multiples-of-five scoring version yet, but I wanted to lay the foundation for it as it is one of my family’s traditional games) and to war with playing cards. For war, we mess with the rules a bit by either playing addition war, where we pull two cards at a time and the person with the highest sum wins, or subtraction war, where we again pull two cards but the person with the smallest difference wins. (Multiplication war – highest product wins – and division war – smallest remainder wins – are other possible versions of the game but Rondel isn’t able to do that math quickly enough yet for the game to stay engaging and fun.)
I thought it might just be a fun novelty, but the boys have both really enjoyed it. Handling the cards, especially with our old sticky set, is good fine motor work, and the game itself is great math practice since the symbols on the card allow the boys to count to the answer if they need to. I also spent one game writing down the rounds in math language, to introduce the boys to symbols like “-“, “+”, “=”, “>”, and “<“; they liked the greater and lesser than signs the best, of course, because they are alligator mouths trying to eat the bigger number!
When we play games like these, Limerick gets super excited every time he figures out what his sum or difference is, and Rondel gets super excited every time he wins the round 😛 It’s interesting to see Rondel developing a sense of competitiveness, though I’m definitely grateful that he still has no negativity associated with losing. It’s also interesting to see how little Limerick seems to care about who wins or loses: he just loves the process of playing the game, and I wonder if that is connected more to his age/developmental stage or to his personality.
A note to add is that we don’t approach these games as a “math lesson” or as “doing math.” It’s just a way to have fun together – to incorporate Rondel’s newfound love of games (thanks to speech therapy) and Limerick’s passion for numbers. Especially at their age, it is far more productive to follow their interests than to try to force them into something they don’t want to do or aren’t ready to learn yet!
little thoughts 