It's as easy as ABaCus - lots more math

Alright, some of you might be thinking I should change the name of my blog to 'math for tots' or something like that. I have yet to download some of our more lefty stuff and have been so busy with the nuts and bolts of homeschool that I haven't had time to write much more than the ideas I think are good enough to share lately.

Anyhow, my obsession with math literacy (yes I know it's numeracy but I use literacy to draw parallels between what I perceive as an illiteracy in numbers for much of the popoulation) is an old one, harking back to my own struggles to understand mathematics and eventually my success at tutoring it.

From my limited experience with teaching 'very' young children, I am beginnning to believe that it is better to introduce ideas such as fractions earlier and give them time to develop a flexibility with them, than later.

My eldest is happy to not only to attempt basic addition and subtraction but also to delve into negatives, divide, multiply and describe simple fractions. She even is gaining an understanding of the connection between fractions and division. Is she some kind of math genius?

Really, I don't think so.

If you can count, you can add
If you recognize more and less, you can subtract
If you can add more than once in a row, you can count by '2' '5' whatever AND you can multiply
If you can add, recognize that 1 is 1 and 2 is 2 (or share evenly), you can divide
If you can divide, you can do basic fractions
If you can divide and add, you can start to add fractions
Etc...

Maybe it's not that simple, but it really helps my kids to work at these concepts together.

Some activities my kids liked to follow.