Math Play the Star-Wars and Board Game Way

As a homeschooling preschooler, my son is more along the lines of an un-schooler. As a formal preschool teacher and director (as well as operating a home-based child care program for the past 2.5 years), it has been a journey for me to let go a bit and respect his learning style. I LOVE lesson planning and offering activities which focus on a theme. I pour over blog posts and books that have creative ways for children to learn math, science, literacy, geography, and music/art in a hands-on way. I am constantly asking the Littlest One if he wants to try this activity or that...and I am constantly getting turned down. Nothing says rejection like from the honest mouth of a 3-year-old. "Want to check out this moon dough?" "Um...no, thanks." "How about we write our own story and draw pictures about our trip to the park?" "Naaahh..." "Want to build with blocks?" "Not right now..." What I CAN snag his attention with is pretend play. He has an imagination that is astounding. And since our family is big board and card game players, he has started to enjoy playing some games from time to time. This morning we were able to satisfy both my need for curriculum and his need for pretend play and game playing through a math-filled morning.

We started playing a matching game called Mix and Match Vehicles. This is a memory game, but also used his skills of noticing details, comparing, and contrasting. When all vehicles were matched, we counted up how many circle cards each of us had to determine who had the most and who had the least.

"Don't take my picture! Play the game!"

We then played a couple rounds of Sequence for Kids. This game says it is for ages 3-6, but compared to other games I think the strategy and multi-step process needed makes it more for ages 4-8 in my opinion. Regardless, he was able to keep a total of three cards in his hand at all times, match up the animals in his hand to that on the board, strategically place his blue tokens on the board to make four in a row, and anticipate where I would put tokens next to make my straight or diagonal line of four. He did get a little frustrated when I won, but we had a big talk about what is fair in games: you win some, you lose some.

Then, he headed to his homeschool shelf. This month I decided to try a new strategy for his preschool learning. I dedicated a shelf in our office to his "homeschool" and set out activities directly related to our study of Outer Space. (Like I said...I feel the need to lesson plan.) We agreed that he would choose one or two things off the shelf each day to do and each week I would rotate most of the activities so that he would have new things to choose from. I told myself that I wouldn't get too attached to the level of his enthusiasm or if he completes all of the activities. If he was into it, I would do it again in February. If not, I would let it go. So far this week, he has explored five out of the nine activities, although to be fair we did have the Oldest One home to play with until yesterday and New Years thrown in there.

Our 'Preschool Homeschool' shelf. Complete with colored pencils and water color with circles for planet creation, marble spooning with numbers on ice cube tray, moon sand, lacing, number rocket game, magnetic wands and items, unifix cubes, and circle builders.

He chose to take out the unifix cubes and started putting one on each line of the strip as I changed our little child care friend's diaper. Then, he started building patterns of one orange and two blue. I sat with him as he then decided to build "light sabers" using the unifix cubes. (Or "life savers" as he calls them...) As he built them, I asked him to guess how many cubes it took to make each one. We then counted the number of cubes to see if our estimate was right. Once he completed more than one light saber, we placed them side by side to compare how long they were. He told me, "This one is the smallest, this one is medium, and this one is the largest!" Our pretend play then took over and he gave me a light saber and we had a fight. Each time he hit my light saber, I took one of the cubes off and we counted backwards until I had none and he "won" the fight. He then built mine back up and we compared to see if we had equal amounts before the fight was on once more. Who would have known that math could be so fun? ;)

Counting and comparing...

Comparing Unifix Light Sabers

May the force be with you!

These activities were so precious to me because they not only allowed my son to practice his emerging math, reasoning, and turn-taking skills, but it was done to where he was engaged in his own way and we were able to connect while we did them. I'm using this as a reminder to let go and allow learning to flow in it's own natural way. Learning surrounds us, regardless of lesson plans and curricular goals.

Happy Learning~
Amber