When 4 x 8 = Frustration and Tears…Check out These Free Teaching Ideas!

Whether it’s your own memories of struggling with “new math” or dealing with your child’s incomprehensible math homework, I think we can all relate to this blog post from my friend Dan.  I’ve found that he almost always knows exactly what he is talking about, so I’m glad to have these resources for future use…because I’m sure that 2nd grade math will be way beyond me.

The past few months, I have watched as my daughter struggled to memorize her multiplication tables- especially the “4’s”. At times, it was as frustrating for her to learn them as it was for me to watch! Fortunately, math always came easily to me.

I even remember my 3rd grade teacher’s “multiplication worksheet center” where the math was self-taught and self-paced.  My parents did flash cards with me, which was no fun at all.   There wasn’t much joy in our math learning unless you had the internal motivation to get it done before everyone else!

So we’ve been doing lots of alternative math fun like playing darts. Darts is a great subtraction game. You can change the rules of course, and do any kind of math. The kids have also enjoyed playing farkle, which is a dice game where you have to recognize patterns and probabilities.

What’s funny is our parents thought “fast-paced” MTV was ruining our ability to pay attention in class. MTV’s got nothing on today’s apps, phones, tablets, games, phones, iPods. . . the list goes on and on.  So don’t underestimate the power of leaving traditional ideals and looking for something fun to teach math.

Recently, I discovered some amazing math tools, games and resources to help teach kids math in a fun and active way at Dr Lindas Blog.  She has a FREE Dyscalculia Toolkit that can be downloaded with all sorts of songs, games and activity ideas to help elementary aged students tackle their math disabilities. There is also an inexpensive math fact card game set that would be great for any skill level. And there are plenty of other suggestions for creative math lessons.

Whether you get the cool stuff at Dr Linda’s Blog, play darts, turn “horse” into a basketball math game or invite some friends over to play farkle, math isn’t a “subject” when it’s fun. And you don’t get bonus points on the SAT for flash cards.

And for those of you who say “why did I ever have to learn this stuff?” keep this in mind: Mathematics may not teach us how to inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide or how to love a friend and forgive an enemy. But it gives us every reason to hope that every problem has a solution.

Dan R Morris is the author of LettersFromDan, a marketing strategy program dedicated to improving your revenue stream from online efforts. Dan is an infomercial producer, niche website owner, product developer, author and Mastermind leader. Dan actively encourages marketers to take that extra step so that “Hope” doesn’t become the marketing plan.

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