Creative Solutions: Math

I was talking to my sister yesterday who was saying that her six year old Neleh wasn't doing well with Math Mammoth and so she was looking for something more hands on. Since we had only used it one day I didn't have much input except the knowledge that math is probably the most individual subject out there so what works for one might not work for another even in the same household. Now my son Gryphen is only a few weeks younger than Neleh and I really need Math Mammoth to work for us! I really just can't afford to switch around right now! So I decided to just forge ahead and if we started having problems I would have to think creatively. Well today we started Less Than< Greater Than, this was one of the issues I know Melissa had had with Neleh so I was nervous. Gryphen seemed to catch on but then when I gave him "extra" problems he couldn't remember which numbers were "eaten" and which were "pointed at"...so we decided to make this hands on.



Our "everything room" has spanish tile floors which are perfect for turning into math grids. So Tristan and I took our "Gnome Jewels" and made about 14 greater than, less than and equal problems across the floor and then allowed Gryphen to use colored popcicle sticks to make the symbols. He loved it! It all seemed to snap into place and he kept asking for more and more problems to solve! For us this was ther perfect solution..just adding a little practical hands on fun made things really stick for Gryphen, and to be certain of it we will probably do a few problems each day when we do our math games...(really this is just us using our manipulatives to do problems on the floor in different ways)