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Is it just me, or is it a little bizarre to give a 5 year old a head start on math and science? Why not just have fun with the kid?
Math and science is fun?
My son is almost 6. He knows the alphabet and can read some words. He knows addition and substraction (with fingers) and how to count to 169. I plan to help him expand in all of those areas during the summer, but naturally (not with homework) He likes puzzles and videogames. We made a couple Pico-8 games together. Lately he has been developing levels in Mario Maker 2. He builds legos. He enjoys going to the countrysi…
This is weird; counting is a set of repeating patterns, so getting to 99 should take him to 999. Maybe he's memorized the numbers to 169, or he's really a 12-yr-old boy who (without understanding why) likes to say "69!"?
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Math and science is fun?
No, definitely not at the experential level of a 5-yr-old. They enjoy the outcomes of math and science, like eating the M&Ms they jsut counted or seeing an exploding volcano. The act & outputs is mostly beyond their comprehension and boring as hell. Trying to give your preschooler a "head start" in math is sub-optimal at best.
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There is a real difference between giving your kids the tools to succeed and forcing them down a narrow path. IMO, everyone should know the basics of a wide range of things from cooking to statistics. It’s just a question of diminishing returns. Failing to understand the basics of say investing is really costly even if all they do is dump 90% of their money into a low cost S&P 500 fund and forget about it that’s vast…
> IMO, everyone should know the basics of a wide range of things from cooking to statistics. maybe, but the person here is 5 years old, and probably shouldn't be doing statistics nor cooking. >> teach your kids the basics of reading and math let’s them coast for years. Why would this be considered a good outcome?
Our child started stirring soup, mixing dough, and putting icing on cookies around the age of three. When he was four he started chopping tomatoes, and placing them on pizzas, as well as the other toppings.
I'd not trust him to touch an oven, though he sometimes watches the cooking occur and says "Daddy it's ready now", but I do let him stir things in a wok, or chop carrots/cucumbers/similar things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a real difference between giving your kids the tools to succeed and forcing them down a narrow path. IMO, everyone should know the basics of a wide range of things from cooking to statistics. It’s just a question of diminishing returns. Failing to understand the basics of say investing is really costly even if all they do is dump 90% of their money into a low cost S&P 500 fund and forget about it that’s vast…
> IMO, everyone should know the basics of a wide range of things from cooking to statistics. maybe, but the person here is 5 years old, and probably shouldn't be doing statistics nor cooking. >> teach your kids the basics of reading and math let’s them coast for years. Why would this be considered a good outcome?
Because it minimizes stress and let’s them better explore their interests be that dinosaurs or dolls. Even little kids find reading and arithmetic useful.
1. egg in water, slowly add salt till the egg floats 2. food coloring / oil / water 3. build a model rocket together then launch it 4. build a battery using a lemon, a zinc coated nail, and a copper nail 5. build a single diode radio 6. play hide and seek, it is a great way to teach them counting 7. make a small garden, plant something and have them tend to the plants 8. get a paper airplane book and make some paper airplanes together 9. get a copy of Anno's Math Games and teach them about patterns
A counterpoint: if you get your child far enough ahead, a teacher may not have time/resources to give extra content in kindergarten. This could be because the level other kids are at in that particular class, resources at the school, etc. One result of this could be your child may be bored and could get into trouble and could result in them not enjoying school. I don't know your kid so obviously that is one path, the…
I highly recommend getting a set of Tiny Polka Dot cards. [1] It comes with lots of ideas for games but it's also open-ended — we've had a lot of fun coming up with our own games to play with the cards. It's extra fun when you mix them in with toys; e.g. build a race track out of blocks and then draw cards to move your characters along the track to see who can get to the end first.
There's a BBC show called Numberblocks that my 5yo loves. I made an exception to my no-cartoons policy for this one and I'm really glad I did. It presents a whole slew of mathematical concepts in a very visual way. The full episodes are available on Youtube if you know where to look — beware that there are a ton of compilation videos that just show snippets which is frustrating. But if you go to the "Red Level" "Orange Level" etc. playlists, you'll get the full episodes. [2] We also got a set of buildable Numberblocks characters and he enjoys retelling the episodes with them.
There's a great blog called Talking Math with Your Kids that's full of little transcripts of conversations the blogger has had with his kids. (You can also pay a few bucks to get the ebook which is a little more organized.) The blog has good tips for how to ask questions and follow-up questions that give kids a chance to explore and express their thinking on different topics, as well as ideas for situations where you might initiate a mathematical conversation. [3] This blog sparked a #tmwyk hashtag on Twitter which I enjoy, since it's just parents posting their own little snippets of conversation. [4]
I haven't found a lot of resources for little kids that focus on computing concepts, so I just make up my own stories, some of which I've documented on my blog like "Pickle and the Boolean Logic Baby Gate" [5] and "Pickle and the Closet of Functions" [6]
I also recommend having some manipulatives on hand that can help with figuring out the answer to questions that come up. My son is very curious about math and will often ask us questions (the other day it was "what's four to the four?"). I can show him some things with paper and pencil, but he hasn't done much multiplication yet so after we figured out that 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 16 x 16, we got out the base ten set [7] to figure out how many you have when you have sixteen 16s. He carefully counted out 16 copies of a 10 rod plus 6 ones and then I showed him how we can exchange 10 unit cubes for a 10 rod, and 10 ten rods for a hundred square and he was able to figure out the answer from there.
We haven't done as much with science, but we like to go to the library and I'll find books in the non-fiction kids section that are relevant to his interests. E.g. he started asking a bunch of questions about sound and how it travels, so I found a library book that had some simple experiments we could do at home together.
[0] https://fairymathmother.com/ [1] https://mathforlove.com/games/tiny-polka-dot/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC_0LqcEsu8&list=PL9swKX1Pvi... [3] https://talkingmathwithkids.com/_blog/ [4] https://twitter.com/search?q=%23tmwyk&src=typed_query [5] https://bancosparenting.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/pickle-and-... [6] https://bancosparenting.wordpress.com/2022/03/13/pickle-and-... [7] https://www.amazon.com/hand2mind-Complete-Manipulatives-Kind...
My son is almost 6. He knows the alphabet and can read some words. He knows addition and substraction (with fingers) and how to count to 169. I plan to help him expand in all of those areas during the summer, but naturally (not with homework) He likes puzzles and videogames. We made a couple Pico-8 games together. Lately he has been developing levels in Mario Maker 2. He builds legos. He enjoys going to the countrysi…
>> and how to count to 169 This is weird; counting is a set of repeating patterns, so getting to 99 should take him to 999. Maybe he's memorized the numbers to 169, or he's really a 12-yr-old boy who (without understanding why) likes to say "69!"?
For math: - buy a bunch of math manipulatives (number blocks, base 10 blocks, Cuisenaire rods) - watch the TV show 'Numberblocks' on Netflix or BBC (there are ~50 episodes, and you can rewatch them) - use books like Beast Academy 1A and 1B if your kid is ready - Khan Academy Kids (free app) - Dreambox (paid app: $150 for 10 years) if your kid is ready
The episodes are also available on Youtube, though you have to dig to find the full episodes since there are many compilations that are just snippets. Here are the playlists that actually have full episodes (though not always in order, unfortunately):
Red Level 1: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviEpYtgsxNhSu... Orange Level 2: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviEor1JJ9oiJw... Yellow Level 3: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviErTKxhY3IGf... Green Level 4: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviEqiv2RFTd7K... Blue Level 5: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviErvKa4-7x8E... Season 5: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviEpLQxq7gp_c... Specials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9swKX1PviErsBiq9poHx...