Getting kids excited about math and other subjects.

[Dirt Boy 2]

My soon-to-be 1st grader has a great aptitude for math. He can do double digit addition and subtraction in his head. He understands there can be negative values. Knows at least small numbers multiplying and dividing. We got a lot of practice calculating during basketball season calculating how much ISU was ahead of their opponents.
Did a little research and found a Beast Academy puzzle book for first graders. I like it because it had a lot of breadth in skills without getting too far ahead and confusing him. He can do the puzzles but they do take more work than just a simple calculation. Now it is work and dad hasn’t been to great at finding what motivates him. He can do them, just may take a couple tries. I was never great at math and find it amazing he does so well.
I don’t want him to lose the skills. I taught him to throw a ball at 4 one winter. By summer it was like he never touched a ball. Still trying to get that one back.

 

[Cyclonepride]

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[pourcyne]

My advice is not to push any one thing too hard or he might come to resent it (and you). Help him be interested in any type of learning, be it math or science or languages or reading - reading - especially reading on a large variety of topics. Encourage him to talk to you about what he's learning, what he wonders about, what he likes about knowing a certain fact or practicing a certain skill.

Do not despair. Children grow and change on almost a daily basis.

And remember that while a skill may get "rusty" from lack of practice, it is never truly lost, especially if the learner remains curious about everything.

Good on you for the work you have done so far with him. Not every kid is that lucky, unfortunately.

 

[NATEizKING]

I like the IXL Ultimate math workbooks. My son is skipping 3rd grade math so I bought him a few this summer to close the gap. Got 70% on end of year 3rd grade test in 2nd grade. We do 5 pages a day Mon-Fri and he has started to fight it a bit but last 30 pages are this week and pretty quick stuff. Was going to start 4th grade but will probably just have him do multiplication and division worksheets a few days a week to give him a break until school starts. Don't want to burn him out.

My other son will be 1st grade and is more advanced than the first so he has been doing 2nd grade workbook easily. I wanted to buy him the 3rd grade book and teach both kids at thr same time but wife talked me out of it. Shouldn't have listened to her.

I just offer a reward for each week to keep them motivated.

 

[Cyientist]

Prodigy was an online math game that I think really helped both of our boys. It's basically like original Final Fantasy, but you have to answer math questions correct to get your attack points. It then progresses you levels.

They also enjoyed duolingo for some Spanish training. I can't say if it is better or worse than other programs, but they did learn some phrasing and it didn't appear to turn their brains to mush.

 

[cytor]

There are 3 types of people out there: Those that are good at math and those that are not.

 

[Dopey]

 

[Dirt Boy 2]

I like the IXL Ultimate math workbooks. My son is skipping 3rd grade math so I bought him a few this summer to close the gap. Got 70% on end of year 3rd grade test in 2nd grade. We do 5 pages a day Mon-Fri and he has started to fight it a bit but last 30 pages are this week and pretty quick stuff. Was going to start 4th grade but will probably just have him do multiplication and division worksheets a few days a week to give him a break until school starts. Don't want to burn him out.

My other son will be 1st grade and is more advanced than the first so he has been doing 2nd grade workbook easily. I wanted to buy him the 3rd grade book and teach both kids at thr same time but wife talked me out of it. Shouldn't have listened to her.

I just offer a reward for each week to keep them motivated.

I have asked my son about rewards and he kind of gives me a look like, “I see what you’re up to and you can’t make me do it.” If I start offering Lego sets I’m going to get a look from the wife. We have a good sized pile of Legos from her childhood and those get expensive quickly. He can spend hours building different things on his own.
He is in speech the last two years to correct a few things. This past winter I printed off a bunch of tongue twisters and riddles we would do them together for 10 to 15 minutes a night. It was fun for a couple weeks until he connected it to speech therapy. Then it was a giant no.
When he was 2, I read him Green Eggs and Ham. He would not read that book again willingly because he understood it to mean trying new things. He still had to try new food, mom and dad’s rules.

 

[ISU22CY]

Prodigy was an online math game that I think really helped both of our boys. It's basically like original Final Fantasy, but you have to answer math questions correct to get your attack points. It then progresses you levels.

They also enjoyed duolingo for some Spanish training. I can't say if it is better or worse than other programs, but they did learn some phrasing and it didn't appear to turn their brains to mush.

Another suggestion is Spanish Dictionary if you want them to do more of the traditional route BUT it focuses a lot on phrases/sentences instead of just single words (but they do have loads of those kind of levels as well). I started using it when I have a couple minutes of spare time between stuff and liked it a lot better (so didn't my niece) then Duolingo.

Now if you want your kids (or yourself like in my case) to get into learning Spanish and they already like watching youtube like videos then I suggest Dreaming Spanish. It's all about Comprehensible Input. They have a load of videos for super beginners and beginners to more advance. Coming from 2 years of crappy HS spanish (so basically 0) I started with it and it's kind of wild how much you can simply follow along to get the general idea of what is being shown in the videos and then can remember in future videos the same stuff or in my case when my neighbors are talking you pick up stuff.

Sorry to derail off of of math but seen spanish mentioned. Wish I would have started learning it years ago but better now I guess. Looking forward to being able to have simple talks with my neighbors in their native language (even though they are pretty good at English). Spanish isn't slowing down here in the US and I have my niece working on it because in the future I know it's going to help her in whatever career she ends up pursuing.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

He's still young. Their attention span can only take so much. Just be consistent and do things together that involve math and science. Encourage reading in general and talk to your kids.

 

[nfrine]

Play card games that require adding and substacting. We play a game called "golf". Our 5 year old grandson loves it and really does the math.

 

[AuH2O]

My experience with my kids was they were going to get excited by different topics as they got older. Outside of making sure they were equipped to succeed in the classroom in the fall, I don’t think there’s much benefit. Summers are meant for kids to forget things, play baseball and do dumb ****.

It sounds like your kid is way ahead, like mine were. There’s only so much extra they are going to get in school at most schools until middle school where they can really accelerate. Unless you are going to do something really unconventional in terms of school, being more than 2 years ahead on math vs the avg student (which isn’t an incredibly high bar) you are going to have to constantly find extra things to keep your kid advancing. Sounds like a lot of work and risk of burnout for minimal benefit.

 

[CascadeClone]

If I have learned one thing about teaching in my life, its that for kids - not teens, but kid kids - you can't and shouldn't force anything. Just make it fun and make opportunities available, and they will keep coming back, and eventually they will learn things.

With the math thing, puzzles and games seem like the ticket. Both doing things with mom or dad, and alone. Maybe some astronomy? Lots of numbers, equations, and geometry in that.


*also, when I first saw the thread title, I thought it said "getting kids excited about meth" which is disturbing yet funny

 

[Antihawk240]

Again- I am just a little old long time high school track coach. How do I trick an athlete who doesnt want to run 800's into running 1:56 800's and loving them all while saying he is a 400 meter runner. Personally I would do away with letting him know he is learning or studying. It's what seperates good teachers from average teachers, good coaches from average coaches. Take your lesson plan, understand the lesson yourself and incorporate it into everyday life. Cooking supper? Building a deck? Fixing the car? Not sure, but find a way to take the lesson and instill it in everyday principals so that he accomplishes the lesson while see how math can relate to real life and how fun math is to real life.

 

[ISUTex]

My soon-to-be 1st grader has a great aptitude for math. He can do double digit addition and subtraction in his head. He understands there can be negative values. Knows at least small numbers multiplying and dividing. We got a lot of practice calculating during basketball season calculating how much ISU was ahead of their opponents.
Did a little research and found a Beast Academy puzzle book for first graders. I like it because it had a lot of breadth in skills without getting too far ahead and confusing him. He can do the puzzles but they do take more work than just a simple calculation. Now it is work and dad hasn’t been to great at finding what motivates him. He can do them, just may take a couple tries. I was never great at math and find it amazing he does so well.
I don’t want him to lose the skills. I taught him to throw a ball at 4 one winter. By summer it was like he never touched a ball. Still trying to get that one back.

Lemonade stand. Can collecting. Have them help build you a garage bar. On line betting. Just some thoughts for some fun real world activities.

 

[Dirt Boy 2]

Play card games that require adding and substacting. We play a game called "golf". Our 5 year old grandson loves it and really does the math.

Want to teach him cribbage but my folks think he’s too young. I’m a horrible teacher, so I was hoping to rely on them. Lots of adding practice but was more intrigued by the patterns you need to learn.
I have played golf a lot. Will have to try it. Forgot about that one.

 

[Dirt Boy 2]

My experience with my kids was they were going to get excited by different topics as they got older. Outside of making sure they were equipped to succeed in the classroom in the fall, I don’t think there’s much benefit. Summers are meant for kids to forget things, play baseball and do dumb ****.

It sounds like your kid is way ahead, like mine were. There’s only so much extra they are going to get in school at most schools until middle school where they can really accelerate. Unless you are going to do something really unconventional in terms of school, being more than 2 years ahead on math vs the avg student (which isn’t an incredibly high bar) you are going to have to constantly find extra things to keep your kid advancing. Sounds like a lot of work and risk of burnout for minimal benefit.

That’s why I liked Beast Academy puzzles. Lots of different ways to use numbers that doesn’t require learning new concepts that might be reserved for later grades. Some of those puzzles require some thought are not just sit down and start pushing a pencil.
I tried a fraction book from the library. I stopped about a third through and was like nope, this is too much.

 

[Dirt Boy 2]

Again- I am just a little old long time high school track coach. How do I trick an athlete who doesnt want to run 800's into running 1:56 800's and loving them all while saying he is a 400 meter runner. Personally I would do away with letting him know he is learning or studying. It's what seperates good teachers from average teachers, good coaches from average coaches. Take your lesson plan, understand the lesson yourself and incorporate it into everyday life. Cooking supper? Building a deck? Fixing the car? Not sure, but find a way to take the lesson and instill it in everyday principals so that he accomplishes the lesson while see how math can relate to real life and how fun math is to real life.

My goal was to incorporate math like we do with reading before bedtime. A little each day. Once a week this summer is about all I can get.

 

[Dirt Boy 2]

Again- I am just a little old long time high school track coach. How do I trick an athlete who doesnt want to run 800's into running 1:56 800's and loving them all while saying he is a 400 meter runner. Personally I would do away with letting him know he is learning or studying. It's what seperates good teachers from average teachers, good coaches from average coaches. Take your lesson plan, understand the lesson yourself and incorporate it into everyday life. Cooking supper? Building a deck? Fixing the car? Not sure, but find a way to take the lesson and instill it in everyday principals so that he accomplishes the lesson while see how math can relate to real life and how fun math is to real life.

I have a game called shut the box. We had a lot of fun with dice and making different math equations with 2 dice. And then he figured out it involved learning and he shut it down. I make him play it with me every once in a while still, cause I’m the dad. And he still has fun, but more than once every couple weeks is it.

 

[BryceC]

My oldest is 14. He’s going into his freshman year and he’s been fast tracked trough math - he’s already done Algebra and Geometry and he’ll be in junior year math.

I never did any of this stuff with him. Kids will naturally gravitate to the stuff they are successful in.