Math Question (For My Daughter)

Make flashcards and quiz her on a few every day.
Is she doing multiplication yet? If not then her addition facts and subtraction facts.
I used the Summer Workbooks from Barnes and Noble, Walmart has them too, but not yet. They have a rainbow on the cover and they are geared for the grades between,so it will say Summer work for the summer between 2nd and 3rd. My kids liked them. They also have grammar drills and spelling, not just math every day.

Have her bake cookies with you and double or half a recipe.
Have her give you the percentage for a tip. At first she won't be able to do it but if you teach her $3f or every $20 eventually she'll be able to do it.

There is a FREE website called KHANACADEMY.COM it's a site where you can practice all levels of math and with each math module that you do, if you are stuck, they have online instruction whereby you watch a youtube video. I find it very helpful.. We also send out son to one month of Summer school and while he gets to take fun classes, he ALWAYS takes a math class.... he is currently in 5th grade so this Summer, he will take pre-algebra.. So while he does go to Summer school, it's only for a month and the rest of the Summer he gets to have sheer fun..

www.khanacademy.org
Free.
Even Bill Gates is a fan of this site.
Developed by a Harvard Grad for his niece.
My kids use it, as well as my Husband when he was going to school.
It is for any age.
My kids are 5 and 9.
Many schools are also adopting this teaching technique.

You could also enroll her in summer school, during the summer.
Or get her a Tutor.

Just as an FYI: in 4th grade, the Math takes a huge leap... in what will be learned, per Math. My daughter is in 4th grade now. They are doing Algebra, Geometry, etc. This is public school.
Multiplication and Division is a needed "foundation" in 3rd grade. To prep for 4th grade. And also, Fractions and fraction equations. And of course, word problems, or they also call it "story problems."

Play "Go fish for Tens" : Get a regular deck of cards and take out the K,Q,J, and 10. Play like regular go fish and make pairs that add up to ten. IE: I have a 7, so I'm going to ask "Do you have any 3s?" b/c 7+3 is ten. This will help her memorize which numbers go together to make ten since almost all elementary math is in base ten. So she'll hopefully eventually internalize that "7+4...well 7+3 is ten, so 7+4 is just one more than that. Eleven!"

If you do your 'count the change' thing .... make it fun. Go to Wendys or McDonalds and ask for a few empty wrappers/cups. Get styrofoam and cut pretend french fries, wrap a pretend burger. Have her help you make the price tags and/or menu .... then get to shopping! She can add your total for you. She can subtract your total from your $10 bill, etc. Great lessons/practice on "borrowing" with all those zeroes. BTW - it's not "borrowing" anymore. It's "GO next door and get ten more" when you subtract and need to 'borrow.'

Start memorizing those multiplication facts! Have her practice learning the phrase "groups of" so that she learns that 3x4 is "three groups of four". Have her use hands on beans or blocks and make 3 groups with four in each. Then find the answer. Then try 4x3, teaching her that "four groups of three" looks different, but the answer is the same! Fun eh?

You could also find your state's standards. (I found yours here): http://www.pdesas.org/Standard/Views#108|774|0|0 Print it out and use it as a checklist of what you have seen her master. Go ahead and print out 4th grade's standards and see what she'll be learning next year and try to give her a heads up on some parts. You can likely get old state exams offline (Here's Texas's http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/taks/releas... ) and work with her to see how she solves the math problems and try to find a solution for her (ie, "Draw a picture of what you read is going on. She had 7 apples, her friend has 10. How many "MORE" does she have "THAN" her friend has? So draw the 7 apples. Draw the ten. Who has more? The friend does. How MANY more ..... three more than the girl. Right!").

Can you tell I used to teach 3rd grade? HA. Good luck. PM me if you have any other questions. Sorry I'm fresh out of websites.

We do a program called "Kumon", it's a program that uses repetition and it keeps kids at or above grade level using international standards, which are higher than american standards. My daughter was the best in her class because they had to memorize their times tables. I'm very happy with it. You do have to pay for it, but definitely worth it. I teach college kids, and I see how bad they are at math...it really holds them back. I do recommend this program (I'm not being paid to say so!)

What type of learner is she? I taught math to my 2 girls. One was a kinesthetic learner and we did alot of "count the change" and used manipulatives for her. The other daughter loved seatwork and enjoyed learning from workbooks. You might want to find out how your daughter learns best and how she might best enjoy supplementing her math lessons over the summer.

Check out your local library and talk the librarian there and at school if available. They are familiar with resources and can help you find some hidden gems in their libraries, or on the web. Teacher's stores are a fun place to visit, too. Take your daughter and pick out some fun kits or workbooks with her.

www.ixl.com

Our school recommended it as extra work and practice during the school year. It's free and it has great tools for tracking progress etc.

Although, it's not "playful." It's very much math problems - here is the problem and select the answer. It's not an educational "game" site - it's just educational more like school math problems.

Also, it's organized by grade level, so there is no guessing on what may be too easy or too hard for her. If she practices all the 3rd grade skills over the summer, she can move on to 4th grade and get a head start.

I know you don't want her to lose it over the summer. But remember to give her time to breathe and time to let what she's learning to seep in. The balance is oh so important.
Also talk to her when working with math from a whole perspective to the parts. Like when you're counting change, say, I have 89cents, then count out the money. Or instead of saying 7+5=12, say what makes 12 ~ 7+5, 5+7, 6+6, 3+9, etc. the 12 doesn't change only the other numbers, this will help her, and of course you can do with sub and other things. Another thing you may want to do is get her a Shut the Box game ~double sided ~ she'll enjoy this. If you can't afford it make the same kind of game with caps from the milk carton - save the caps, put numbers 1-12 on them. The game isn't very expensive though. Moving from the whole to parts is important for kids as they think in whole pictures. Use a lot of imagination pictures and stories with her. Think of a story and stick to it this will get her motivated. Like a story about a king,queen,princess, prince -- the king divided things up the queen multiplies, etc. in a kingdom called Equals -- something like this. Get motivated and inspired and she will. I painted a castle I got from Michaels that opens like a box and the children love it. I made a little king Equals and other characters (ours are gnomes ~ + - x and divide sewn on them and a wise woman called Cipher) but our children are younger - 1st grade. These little characters are always busy figuring out problems. You can have her draw out the characters and the math problem too. Also have her recite her multiplication tables you say it with her and have fun with it, clap your hands, clap your knees, cross hands to shoulders, stamp the feet - when doing these actions while reciting it brings it into the body and the child connects with it and with the rythum of it it brings in to memory.
When our first grader spells her spelling words she marches and claps, she says the word, spells, says the word again then does it again backwards. (of course she writes them too) These kinds of actions work wonders for math, spelling and all kinds of things. Get her moving with lots of jumping rope too, this helps to build the rhytum the brain and helps math a lot. If you know how to knit, teach her, it will also do wonders for math and other things too. The flexiblity of the hands build the flexibility of the brain.
There are lots of bloggers on this ~ maybe type in waldorf math blogs
Have fun

ClueFinders!!!!

Such great games.

My son has the opposite problem, math is his strongest subject, but he 'gets' things so fast that he digs in his heels refusing to practice them. And because he doesn't practice, he forgets, and then has to relearn everything or just stares at you blankly (this is the kid doing algebra at 7, and applied maths at 8... but at 9 going over his times tables won't know them if he hasn't been doing multiplication in the 'new' stuff he's learning.

ClueFinders TOTALLY circumvented the 'no practice'!!! Unfortunately they're older, and not set up for the new Mac operating systems... but when we had a PC, or an older operating system... did he love love love to do the thing he hated most; practice.

ClueFinders starts in 3rd grade, and goes through 6th or 7th. They're (the CDs) about $10 for each grade level, and are one of the most fun interactive math games I've found.

Carmen San Diego is another one, but ClueFinders is our house fav. Lots and lots of silly stuff, story lines, puzzles, etc.
_________

Another thing we do (for all subjects) are 'swing quizzes'. Right answer = a push. :)

yes, the best website for all levels of math is
http://www.khanacademy.org/
If you scroll down the page you will see lists of topics.
Each topic has a short video.
It also has other topics.

My triplets use firstinmath.com through their school so it's free for them. Not sure how much it costs otherwise. It's learning games and you go up in levels as you go.

K. b
mom to 5 including triplets

Singapore Math books are excellent. Order online (you can get them on amazon or on signaporemath.com). They start out with the basics in each grade level & work their way up. For each new topic they start with concrete/tangible examples (i.e. working with beads or blocks to solve a problem). Then they move on to less concrete examples using pictures in the book. Finally, they move to completely abstract, using only numbers.
The books are about $20. They have a textbook & activity book or each level. If you can only get one I would get the textbook.
As to the person who said your child needs balance....when I was a kid my mom bought each of us a book for the summer to work on. We would only spend about 15 mins a day working on it (3 to 5 days a week). We loved it. My brother even liked it & he hated school.

there is a website called the math mom....
Maria Laniado...I would write to her and ask for a recommendation. She has 2 kids if I remember.

www.themathmom.com

I think your best bet is to ask her teacher. A lot depends on what in particular she is struggling with (speed, problem solving, word problems, memorization?) and also what curriculum they use at her school. You want her to work on what they expect at the beginning of fourth grade and that can vary from school to school :)

I agree with the other people who recommend khan academy. It makes learning fun and was made to be similar to a video game.