
Ask HN: Good math books / activities for children? - aaronetz
My 5 year old son knows a lot of math for his age. He seems very interested in exploring it further (e.g. making up his own math problem, asking questions, etc.) We gave him a few Kumon books, but they are quite repetitive (and I don&#x27;t want to associate math with boring in his mind.) I&#x27;m trying to spend time with him and show him interesting things (e.g. geometry, negative numbers, fractions, roman numerals, playing board games, etc.) but I can&#x27;t be with him 100% of the time. Do you know any good, interesting math books &#x2F; workbooks for young children, that encourage problem solving, thinking, and the love of math? Ideas for home-made activities are welcome too.<p>Thank you!
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DanBC
Cuisennaire blocks / rods are useful to show fractions etc. available in wood
or plastic. Here's one cheap set but many others are available.
[http://www.woodentotsmk.co.uk/Library/0330%20cuisinaire%20ro...](http://www.woodentotsmk.co.uk/Library/0330%20cuisinaire%20rods.htm?gclid=CMuL9eeB77ECFSsntAodB0QA7w#)

Pound o dice: you can buy a pound (weight) of dice with diiferent numbers of
sides from amazon and ebay etc. these are usually Chessex (a quality brand).
They are bright and shiny and fun. Don't eat them. You can work out your own
dice games and problems. Button men is a simple quick game to play
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_Men](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_Men)

Use estimation in everysay life - how many bricks in that wall, how many
leaves on that tree, how many cookies in the packet?

Rules and tape measures are fun and lead to simple arithmetic. How many cm
taller is A than B?

Math teaching techniques might be different now than when you were taught.
Heres a good book
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0224086359](http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0224086359)

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jweather
Dreambox is a good online option for self-directed math exploration. Otherwise
the best results will come from interaction... be prepared to answer lots of
questions, and ask lots of interesting questions.

There are plenty of fun games you can introduce, one of my favorites is graph-
paper racing:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racetrack_\(game\))
Also Monopoly or any money-based game where you can learn to make change. Set
and Quirkle are good logic-based games. I'm experimenting with some tabletop
gaming with my 7yo, starting with Battletech quick-start rules. It's a hit so
far. Not very challenging math-wise, but a lot more fun than Monopoly. :)

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innertracks
Life of Fred is pretty entertaining. Though you may need to read the stories
to your son. Teaching Textbooks, my older daughter's favorite, has video
tutoring. Singapore Math is good, too. There are programs you can look for
that have lots of manipulatives. Don't recall the company names.

Learning how to use an abacus was something the kids enjoyed and helped with
ways of thinking about numbers quite a bit.

You may find researching what home schoolers are doing for math programs
helpful.

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tokenadult
The Miquon Math materials

[http://miquonmath.com/](http://miquonmath.com/)

have a playful spirit of exploration and go well with the Cuisennaire rods
already recommended by DanBC, a recommendation I heartily agree with. My
children all began their initial math instruction with the Miquon Math
materials, and my oldest son, grown up and working as a hacker, definitely
benefited from playing around with mathematics a lot as he grew up.

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matryoshka
Our 5yo and 8yo have been playing DragonBox a lot to learn algebra:
[http://www.dragonboxapp.com/](http://www.dragonboxapp.com/) and it has been a
great way to teach complex concepts to younger kids. We always try to find
some fun apps and online games that has a dual purpose plus we always have a
whiteboard at the ready to explain what they find perplexing.

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Beliavsky
Art of Problem Solving is a good web site for math enthusiasts, and their
"Beast Academy" books may interest your son. A math curriculum I like is
Singapore Math.

I suggest searching the Davidson Gifted Forum
[http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/](http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/)
for posts about math resources and posting there.

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nmc
You do not need to be by his side. Math requires a lot of personal, intimate,
lonely thinking.

Many problems can be formulated in just a few words. You apparently have some
mathematical culture yourself, so just give him a handful interesting
problems, at the edge of his intellectual reach, and let him wonder for some
time.

When he was a child, Gauss discovered by himself the formula for the sum of
integers from 1 to n, because his teacher asked him about it for n=100.

~~~
nmc
Why the downvote?

Could you please explain how you find my suggestion inappropriate? Thank you.

~~~
aaronetz
I personally appreciate your comment (and upvoted it too), Not sure about the
downvote. Could be someone's mistake (those buttons are way too tiny on
mobile.)

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neduma

        How about Khan Academy?
        How about Common core?

