Learning by Design develops innovative math materials. Based on research about how the brain works, we have developed new tools to make math fun, challenging, and easy to remember. We listened to what parents and teachers had to say, “Our children need to remember the basic math facts!” With this goal in mind, Equals: The Game of Strategy for the Basic Facts, with rotating cubes and polyhedron dice, was designed. The game gives math students a chance to make choices among the basic facts and discuss math facts as they play an elimination game. Students can play addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division. Children and adults at different levels can play at the same time, and it is likely that a student can win when playing against a highly skilled mathematician! As playtime increases, so will recall of the basic facts.
To help students at all levels with spatial sense, Quadrilateral Pieces: A Geometry Puzzle was developed. Students practice recognizing right, acute, and obtuse angles as they problem solve to create 5 unique quadrilateral solutions. Students practice flips, turns, and rotations as they discover how to solve the puzzle. With green and blue sides, students also can discover the principles of symmetry within quadrilaterals. Students can also be creative with their own designs as they use the pieces to apply principles of supplementary angles.
Learning by Design has also developed a model for liquid measure using cups, pints, quarts, half gallons and gallons. Liquid Measure Fractions is a three dimensional stacking puzzle that shows each quantity of measure embedded within the next larger quantity. This model makes learning about conversions between liquid measure units easy. Students are able to experiment with and visualize the actual units, making comparison among units a simple task. With this base of learning, it will be easier for the students to apply these principles to units of liquid measure that they see in daily life.
For early learners, the Rainbow Number Puzzles were created to allow students to directly relate the number symbol with the actual quantity. As the students put the Rainbow Number Puzzles together, they will gain a visual representation to accompany the each number symbol. With the Rainbow Number Puzzle graphics, the Ten Star cards can be used to play games with several representations of the same number, including tally marks, dot cards, and ten frames ranging from 0 to 10. Go Fish, War, and Memory are some of the games children can play as they develop number sense with the Ten Star cards, based on the STAR of our number system, the number 10.
Kids learn that 10 is the STAR of our number system as they play with a deck of STAR TEN © cards. Instead of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, these cards have Ten Frames, Tally Marks, Rainbow Numbers ©, and Dot Cards! No queens, kings, aces or jacks, only ALL the digits that make up our entire number system… 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and the STAR number 10! Every star has 10 sides, so the top of each card in the deck has a star and the number ten on it. Children can play war, go fish, and odd man out. In playing these games, they will build number sense. Skills in counting, identifying numbers, comparing numbers and ordering numbers will increase with these traditional games. Blank cards are included so kids can use dry erase markers to draw a favorite digit to include in the deck. |
