Brilliant Minds Montessori Math Kit

[Joha]

You are so sweet. Thanks! 

[Sarah108]

http://homepage.mac.com/montessoriworld/mwei/Course1/VideoCourse1/The_Course.html

Karma to you Maquenzie, this link is absolutely fantastic!!!!!!!!!!

[Joha]

Thank you for recommending the "They might be giants" videos, my dd really liked them. Karma to you!

[nhockaday]

Yes, thanks for recommending them. I've never haerd of them before, but they look really cute so I ordered them.

[nhockaday]

We got our TMBG DVDs, and we are watching Here Come the 123's right now. I like this song.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/geTSBFb_GR4&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/geTSBFb_GR4&rel=1</a>

[annisis]

Haha! That's my husband's fave!

[Joha]

I actually have not bought the DVD's. I just created a play list in youtube with their videos.

[annisis]

We bought them for convenience we still watch them on youtube. If you look them up on Amazon, you can get a list of all the videos they have on each DVD.

[lzp11]

We mainly listen to TMBG in the car - really great fun.

We are having fun with throwing the foam dice and shouting out the number (although DD tends to shout random numbers for fun!).  Also Cheerio maths has proved extremely popular  We have a mat with numbers and animals on at the dinner table and we use cheerios to feed the different animals (e.g. 5 ducks -so we feed them one Cheerio each and then she can eat them).

Numicon arrived last week so it's a bit early to give much of a review but DD really seems interested in it.  In fact she keeps getting it out and asking to play with the board, pieces and beads.  I was impressed with the kit so far, it seems very relaxed and there are lots of ideas for games and progressive activities and how to take things forwards over time.  We are starting just by playing with the different shapes and placing them on the board.  She can only concentrate for a few minutes but I'm sure we will be able to build this up and then be able to start to work on patterns and more complex shapes.She also enjoyed the beads, which come with several threads and you can also use them on the board.  Although DD is probably more enthusiastic at the moment about throwing them all around the kitchen (we already have quite a few under the kitchen cabinet) than being particularly constructive - I'm hoping this phase will pass. There is also a CD of music songs, I was not so impressed by this - I found it a bit annoying to be honest, but we will see how DD likes it.  I think there will be enough here to keep us going for a long time and it would compliment other approaches later on (e.g. when she becomes ready for workbooks, although I don't think this will be very soon).

I also noticed from another thread that some people are using the site http://www.ixl.com/  This might be the next step for us to try but again not for another few months (there is a free version if you only do a few questions each day).  If anyone has tried this, I'm interested in how their little ones actually used the site - it seems like you need quite sophisticated mouse / keyboard skills?

Joha - how are you getting along?

[Joha]

Thank you for asking lzp11. For now LM is out of the question as soon as I started loading it she said no, no. She does count a lot uring the day, but my concern is that most things she counts are up to 10. She mastered her numbers up to 10 in English. When counting up to 20 she always skips 13 and 16. In Spanish she does so much better, she can count up to 20 no skipping numbers. I'm just still struggling on how to introduce number beyond 20. I created a playlist of videos for counting in youtube and my dd really likes them. I got some pompoms so she could sort them by color and then put as many pompoms as the number the flash card was showing, but she just wants to play with them and not do the exercise. I just found a matching game I had bought last year that has the number, the word and the picture to be matched. I'm going to try that tomorrow. I got my foam dice last week, but I had not used them because wasn't sure how to make a game with them. I think I'm going to have a couple of containers, throw the dice and out as many beans in the container as the number on the dice. Having the couple of containers will help when doing addition or subtraction. The set of dice I got had two dice with numbers, two with dots and two with signs. I'll let you know how it works.

I'm still thinking about getting Numicon. Which kit did you get?

[lzp11]

Hi Joha

Yes, LM is out of the question for us too.  DD also says no as soon as we start.  I am missing the structure of being able to work through both programmes during breakfast and finding it more difficult to get into a regular maths routine now.

I think it sounds like you are doing great - I would not worry too much as your daughter seems to be making lots of progress!  Counting in two languages is really impressive.  I agree it is hard to move up to numbers over 20 - the youtube videos are not so fun after 20 - I find them quite uninspiring for the higher numbers. I might start trying to teach her some skip counting next, using beads on the numicon board.

I have been quite inspired by the recent thread about teaching via the RightStart Abacus method and I'm now swaying towards this as our next step (of course it will not be for some time yet - maybe even a year away).  I liked the idea that actually needing to count too much is not necessarily an advantage in maths, and it is more important to be able to conceptualise numbers in blocks of 5 and 10 and that this enables highly complex calculations of much larger numbers. 

Anyway, whether we do go down this route or not, it has helped me to de-stress a bit about our counting progress!

The numicon that i bought was the first steps at home package:  http://www.numicon.com/resource_overview/numicon-kits/1st_steps_with_numicon_at_home_kit.html

We only have one dice so far (it's really big!) with dots - I might buy one or two more.  Because it's about the size of a football, we tend to just throw or kick it around the room!!  I'll be interested to hear how you get on with yours.  Also, i like the sound of the matching game that you mentioned - I might be able to make something similar.

Let me know how your progress goes.  I hope you are feeling well and not too tired.

[MonkeynoseMomma]

Wow, what great ideas everybody has.
I just wanted to say that my daughter loves Right Start Math which is Montessori based. I find it super easy to use. the instructions are very clear.
We haven't spent a lot of time with it because of my slacking off and our current house remodeling. However my girl begs to "play math" since we got it. I think it is a real steal for the price.( around $110 new, I think).
Anyway it looks like there are plenty of good ideas to keep you and yours busy on this post. I definitely going to use some of them.
P. S. my girl is 31/2

[Joha]

Thank you for the Right Smart program suggestion. I just checked their website and it definitely looks like it is something that will work for us. I'm going to wait a few months since they new baby will be here shortly and probably will not have much time to spear. As soon as I get it and use it, I'll give you an update. K2U.

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