Did I mention FREE book downloads are among some of my favorites!
I came across this fantastic vintage book of simple math stories for children when I was looking for other books similar to MathStart…we have started playing with it, and planning quick demonstrations (she is in charge of teaching her stuffed hen!) as we go… Gets progressively harder but starts at counting!
Keri, I MUST see a pic of her stuffed hen. 
It’s getting famous now
Thank you for the link to the books! I cannot get Mathstart here in my country though I desperately want it! I’m constantly looking for a children’s book that my daughter will read on her own that teaches math. Thanks again!
Nadia0801-
There must be a way to make it my little picture lol I will see what I can do!
Have you tried the Life of Fred math books? They are SO much fun, Apples has Alex giggling, although there are still things I have to do some pre-work on before we read a chapter!
@ nadia0801,
I was just going to suggest the Life of Fred books. They are quite silly and should be right up Cammie’s alley. Ella loves them. I have seen them in National bookstore in paperback.
Nadia here are the math start books with free world wide delivery 
http://www.bookdepository.com/search?searchTerm=Stuart+Murphy&search=search
I grabbed some from the library today and my kids devoured them! Jaykob happily counted out, even the level 3 books. Don’t bother buying any about money as obviously it is in another currency.
The library doesn’t have many sadly 
Thank you so much for the info aangeles and Mandabplus3! Isn’t this the happiest forum ever
Keri, thank you so so much for this book. It looks very good. I’ll print it out and we’ll use it as part of our read aloud. Please keep posting whatever excellent but free books you find, especially those from archive.org. I love free books too.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you. I’m very grateful.
Today we had SOOO much fun playing math, for one very simple reason:
We bought number stamps!
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Jumbo-Numbers-Operations/dp/B0007CXGZW/ref=lh_ni_t
Alex seems to want to fly in math, but has really been held back from so much of what she wants to do by her inability to write her numbers well…even the ones she can do turn the math lesson into more of a handwriting lesson, with her getting upset because she wants to do ‘Maff’. RS is great that you can use the abacus to show answers and tally sticks, but she often wants to do other parts of various math supplements, and doesn’t like to have to tell me the answers on the JJ worksheets-she wants to do it.
Also, she LOVES using the 1-stamp to make her RS tally marks! She can do those by hand, BUT…some are a cm long whilst some seem to approach twice that lol She is such a perfectionist that this will give us some breathing room and time to work on her handwriting without losing her love of math.
I happened to be revisiting Ellen MCHenry’s Basement Workshop site regarding her Elements book today, and came across one of her free downloads for math…so much fun! She has written a series of games and adventures of Professor Pig, to teach LOs their math facts up to ten…I thought some might like to take a look. Whilst you are there, take a look at all her other free downloads and materials. Some really great ideas.
http://www.ellenjmchenry.com/homeschool-freedownloads/math-games/professorpigmath.php
I love this site! its truly full of wonderful stuff! love the brain hat! so cool.
I have tried twice but I cant open the professer pig files.
Manda-
I had trouble doing it on my computer as well. There is a note at the bottom of the downloads page about updating browsers, Adobe,etc., and whilst I didn’t want to deal with that in the wee hours of the morning, I tried opening them on my IPad and into the Kindle App…
SUCCESS! lol (it was rather slow…)
Hooray!
Website with a fantastic list of favorite fun-filled books to read to children on math ideas, organized by topic and level!
http://www.the-best-childrens-books.org/math-for-kids.html
OH wow! Wow! WOW! What a find! Do go and check this link out! These books are actually readily available! Love it! Thank you!
To everyone who’s used Singapore EarlyBird Kindergarten series with toddlers and prewriting kids, please how did you modify the exercises to your prewriting kids?
I’ve seen samples of the book here (http://www.singaporemath.com/Earlybird_Kindergarten_Math_STD_Ed_Txbk_A_p/ebstdta.htm) and here, (http://www.christianbook.com/earlybird-kindergarten-math-textbook-a/9780761470151/pd/470151?item_code=WW&netp_id=830372&event=ESRCG&view=details). And it appears to require a lot of penmanship which tiny kids may not be able to handle yet.
And I found that Singapore even has another Kindergarten book called ‘Essential Math Kindergarten A and B’ (http://www.singaporemath.com/Singapore_Math_Essential_Math_Kindergarten_A_p/emka.htm) . I googled to find what parents say the differences between EarlyBird and Essential Math was, and most parents said they prefered Essential Math over EarlyBird as it was cheaper (I love cheaper), more straight to the point, and their child liked it more. Most of those kids were aged 4 and above, hence they were able to deal with the extensive writing required.
I have checked for samples of Essential Math here (http://www.christianbook.com/essential-math-kindergarten-a/9781932906141/pd/906141?product_redirect=1&Ntt=906141&item_code=&Ntk=keywords&event=ESRCP). Again it requires a lot of penmanship. Granted, the child may know the right answers to questions asked but because the writing is not there yet, I get confused on what to do. Kerileanne99 has mentioned number stamps, but apart from that, what else would one need to use the book with a prewriting child? How about the tracing and coloring required?
In summary my questions are:
Thank you so much for your responses. I am grateful for any suggestions.
First I like to butcher my books. I rip out all the pages. Then I do several things. I go though the pages with James and have him just answer me verbally.
Or I slip the pages into plastic protector sleeves and he tries to write on them with dry erase marker or crayon.
I also have a set of wooden numerals and I have James select the numeral for me as he says it. Sometimes I write in answers he gives me.
I also use little magnetic numbers. I lay the worksheet onto a cookie sheet (most are magnetic) then I have him put the magnetic numeral where it needs to go.
I do want to get stamps like Kerileanne suggested too.
Jaykob can write now but he can do triple the number of problems before he has had enough if we do it verbally. So we do a few written and a few verbal until he is over it. When he was prewriting I sued to write the number in pencil and have him trace it in coloured textas. He had to tell me what to write of course. His penmanship got better really quickly doing this and now he writes them himself. I think using a combination of as many methods as you can would be best. To keep in interesting and still easy enough not to be frustrating. Any math program can be adjusted if the kid is only expected to give a verbal answer…
Nee1-
Regarding Singapore maths- we actually have both sets, the EarlyBird A and B, the Essentials, and the accompanying activity books. Here is the thing. There is not a tremendous difference in the type of materials and difficulty level. But I found quite a big difference in presentation styles! If I had an older Preschooler, definitely essentials. But we started these when Alex could barely hold a pencil properly, and found that the EarlyBird is very nearly perfect for toddlers and preschoolers not proficient in writing or cutting. They have beautifully colored pictures, and the illustrations themselves are very toddler friendly, like barn scenes.
We found it very simple to adapt to an extremely young child. Many of the activities we just talked about and she would point to things. I also like that many things just involved circling, drawing a connecting line, or ‘x-ing’ out. I took all of the pages out and put them in a binder with plastic protectors as she really liked going through some things again and again like a book.
For me, one of the best parts about the Singapore EB program are the optional set of accompanying readers. These are a set of classic story readers (like Goldilocks, Hickory, Dickory Dock, etc.) that have been supplemented with additional math concepts…for example, in ‘Goldilocks’ they stress the size differences like large, medium, small, have added clocks to the wall to teach time and sequencing, patterns throughout (Papa Bear has squares on everything, Mama Bear has Rectangles, Baby Bear has hexagons)…every time I read these we discovered a new little detail. There is actually a chart to show which of the story books are used with each lesson, but Alex actually enjoyed doing all of the concepts as we read the books…they could be used with Essentials as well:
http://www.singaporemath.com/Kindergarten_Math_Readers_PER_SET_of_10_books_p/krdaset.htm
We have really found that almost all of the math programs we play with/do can be adapted for the very young toddlers with a bit of creativity! Alex will use her fingers, tally sticks, an abacus, number stamps, etc. To show answers versus writing them, following RS methods. I also made her a set of math manipulatives ala Jones Geniuses…I took a set of Melissa and Doug wooden/magnetic numbers, then added the correct number of dots to each, according to Dr. Jones’ dot system. (I did this by using a black sharpie to color self-adhesive labels, then a hole punch to make perfect circles to adhere to the numbers). The set also comes with the four major operation signs and an equal sign, so these live in the kitchen to ‘play math’ when I am in there. We also use them on a cookie sheet for equation work, place value, greater than/less than, etc…
http://www.melissaanddoug.com/magnetic-wooden-numbers-learning
Oh! In the very early days we used a rollout vinyl number line to practice ‘hopping’ counting forwards, backwards, skip counting, addition, subtraction, etc…we still break it out on rainy days!
http://www.learningresources.com/product/step-by-step+number+line.do?sortby=ourPicks&sortby=&&from=Search
Not to mention, places like discount school supply sell LOADS of chunky teaching tools like child-appropriate measuring tapes, beakers, graduated cylinders, you name it for hands on teaching of concepts like measurement, volume, etc…
Hope this helps a bit…
I wanted to share a fantastic set of books I just found that are perfect for toddlers! If you are familiar with tha Scholastic sets by Liza Charlesworth like Punctuation Tales, Parts of Speech Tales, Grammar Tales, etc., these books are the same style!
The set, Number Tales, comes with an individual little story book for each number 0-10, 20, 30, 100, addition, subtraction, skip counting, etc.,! I wish I had these a year ago even! Still, Alex still likes them, and many of you will be thrilled to know that the last pages are sort of ‘spot the sets of…for each number’ .Awesome for subitization practice! For example, in the book for the number five, there are loads of items in the picture at the end that are groups of five! (but not all!)
http://shop.scholastic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_30614_-1_10001_10002
Mandab, Korrale, and Kerileanne99,
Thank you sooooooo much for the ideas. I’m very grateful.
Tyrannosaurs Math!
Oh, wow. If you have a toddler or young child that loves dinosaurs and math like Alex, this picture book is awesome. It arrived by post yesterday and I can’t even tell you how many times we have read it…
Very, very cute-a baby T-Rex pops out of his shell counting fingers and toes, so his mother names him Tyrannosaurus Math. He soon learns to count by twos ( Ornithomimus footprints), counting by fives with small groups of Triceratops, then by tens, addition, subtraction, geometry, reasoning, beginning multiplication, etc…I think something like 15 math concepts about a happy little dinosaur and his family.
Really great, and I could see Alex getting more and more out of this book-plus it is just a fun read!