DIY FUN Home ‘Math Kit’ for beginner learners

Here’s a fantastic DIY FUN ‘Math Kit’ for beginner learners that’s easy and affordable to make! It’s such a great way to help motivate children to learn at home.

All of these tools are aimed towards hands on learning and are also based around making learning Math FUN for beginners.

What we used to make our ‘Math Kit’ – 

• A Pencil Case to hold all the items in our kit
• Foam Number and Letter Stickers to decorate the ‘kit’
• Measuring Tape
• Pegs
• Double Sided Counters (buttons would also work well)
• Printable work sheets (links found below)
• Numbered dice
• Coloured Craft Sticks
• Rubber bands
• Shoelace
• 100 Coloured Beads large enough to thread onto the shoelace (these should be in 10 colour lots or 50/50 black & white)

How we use each component:

Shoelace Bead Counter (100)

This DIY Shoelace Bead Counter is so easy to make at home. Simply tie one end of your shoelace and have your child help you string 100 beads in lots of 10 solid colours (as pictured below), then simply tie the opposite end allowing plenty of room for the beads to move and make gaps along the shoelace.

There are so many uses for these Bead Counters – here are the ones we most commonly use at home.

1. Ask your child to pick a number from 1-100 and then have them slide each bead along the line until they have counted the correct number of beads. This can then be used to count how many more beads make up 100 (by counting the left over beads). For example I have counted 20 beads and now their are 80 more that make 100.
2. Count how many lots of 10s there are along the shoe lace, counting up in 10’s. 10, 20, 30 and so on.
3. Slide the beads to a number yourself and then ask the child which side of the beads has the more or less (the right or left side).
4. Count backwards from 100
5. Make up your own Math stories together and find the answers using the beads. For example  “John picked 5 flowers for his Mum, then John picked 3 more flowers. How many flowers did John pick?”
6. Roll the dice and count out the number of beads that the die lands on.

Using Counters to solve Math problems:

With a 10 frame Printable.

Understanding that numbers are composed of tens and ones is an important foundation for early mathematics. A ten frame is a valuable graphic ‘tool’ to help children ‘see’ numbers and they can ‘physically’ alter the outcomes to arrive at the correct answer. Using a ten frame children can easily see that 4+6=10,  2+8=10 or any other combination. *as pictured below. You can use two different coloured buttons or these double sided counters.

Counting to 100 using Craft Sticks:

This activity is as simple as it sounds! Have your child count their craft sticks and bind them in lot’s of 10 using a rubber band. Then ask them to help you group them in lots of 10, 20, 30 and so on until you reach 100.

Measuring Tape and Pegs:

We use this Measuring tape to not only practice measuring lengths and widths of objects but also as a counting tool. My daughter loves to count up the tape placing pegs in a number pattern *pictured below. She has made a number pattern in 5cm increments with every 10cm marked with a different colour peg.
You can also use wooden pegs and number them from 1-100 for the child to match each peg with it’s corresponding number.
The tape measure we used can be purchased here however a regular sewing tape measure would also work.

The above are just a few ways to help introduce Math concepts to your early learner in a FUN manner! My 5yo loves to get her ‘Math Kit’ out and we often solve math problems together in the afternoons.

We hope you enjoy creating your own DIY Home Math Kit and have FUN teaching your child the basic Math skills using these FUN tools.

 

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 {WIN, WIN, WIN!!}