Math Dictionary for Kids Book Review

Looking for a quick reference guide for mathematical definitions, formulas, measurements, and perhaps the proper strategy for calculating answers to everyday mathematical equations? The Math Dictionary for kids is an excellent resource not just for your developing student, but also a valuable asset for any teacher, homeschooler, or tutor. If you have a classroom where math is taught, you'll no doubt benefit from this information-packed mathematical dictionary.

Prufrock Press sent me a complimentary copy of this awesome reference book in exchange for my honest opinion. Before receiving it, I contemplated turning my review into a giveaway, but to be honest with you... I simply value this book too much to part with! lol It's conveniently geared towards children in grades 4th through 9th, and my kids are in 3rd and 5th, so I'm keeping it! lol

If only such a book had existed when I was in elementary school perhaps I would've experienced fewer brain cramps. Ever had one of those? I think I'm still recovering! Those cramps not only hindered my confidence through jr. high and high school, but well into my college career. Math was not something I was fond of... today I have a 10 year-old son who despite having an engineer dad, seems to have inherited my math brain and consequently we shall be keeping this book in our library! lol  We're so blessed to live in a day and age where there are resources like this math dictionary to refer to and learn from. My 8 year-old daughter LOVES math and had a great time flipping through this book. She told me "Hey mom, we need to keep this for when I start 4th grade!". lol I second that!


Unfortunately, text books don't always do an adequate job of connecting the dots for those who struggle with numbers. Imagine having a reference book you could easily hold in your hands (not a dinosaur of a read) loaded with definitions and simple to understand steps towards mastering mathematical principles? I believe this book should be on every parent's bookshelf, within easy reach of their children.

The definitions in the Math Dictionary for kids are well worded (without being wordy), easy to understand, simple to follow, and come accompanied with colorful visuals. It's the perfect book for any math student... as well as for the parent helping them to understand, or explain the operations needed to find the correct answer... especially if it's been awhile since you've opened a math book!

Just a few facts about this book:

• Includes over 400 full-color illustrated definitions
• Provides definitions, illustrations, explanations, and examples of math problems
• This book includes algebra, geometry, measurement, fractions, decimals, probability, and statistics
• Available as an iPad app
• You can read reviews of this book, as well as sneak a peak at the inside at Amazon.com
• You may wish to learn more about Prufrock Press and their complete line of advance learning tools and resources by visiting their website.

I received no compensation in exchange for this post. Prufrock Press provided a "review copy" of the Math Dictionary for kids in exchange for my honest opinion. 

  If you're not reading this post on The Homeschooling Blog... the content has been hijacked without permission.

AWESOME & FREE Multiplication Game! My Son is FINALLY Learning!

I'm elated to share this with my readers and to be living the dream of witnessing my son FINALLY want to learn his multiplication facts. Answered prayers! He learned 5 facts just last night, which may not sound like much, but it's 5 more facts than he was willing to learn with me. lol If he learns 5 facts a day it will be no time at all an he'll have them all burned in his brain forever and ever! teehee Can you tell how giddy I am?

Want to hear more? Ok.... so last night my new computer came (yah!). One of my primary motivations for purchasing this (very affordable, yet much more hip pc than what we currently own) was to give my son an avenue to play online computer games... to help him in math. The ancient pc I normally blog on won't do that!

Would you believe (thank you Lord) that the first game we find, is the winner? I found Big Brainz free download and hit that magic button with really no expectations. I wasn't even sure it would work... fact is I had a little trouble figuring out how to download the free version and initially thought it was a trick. lol However, it was there, it worked, and my son is LOVING it! So much in fact that this afternoon, about 15 minutes ago, we downloaded a paid version, because I wanted to give him more room to play and grow.

The name of this game is TimezAttack. The graphics are amazing for a free game, even for a game that isn't free. What's more, the music isn't annoying. That's a huge plus for parents! This game gives your student ooooodles of repetition too, which if it were me giving my son ooooodles of repetition his brain would shut down. Not so when it comes to a good video game. The other thing going for this game is the little guy (or gal) your child plays as, looks somewhat like an alien (which he loves). I can't tell if he really is an alien or a dinosaur, but either way, it's all good. The enemy is a grumpy troll (hopefully you're not singing the Dora song in your head right now like I unfortunately am) who can be destroyed with math!

Here's the link: TimezAttack

When you get to the main page, there will be a video that shows you what the game looks like in action. In order to find the free and paid versions, click on the multiplication icon. This will take you to the appropriate screen where you can download the FREE version. Yes, I promise it really is free. I don't know how far you can go on the free version, but my son and daughter played it for several hours before we decided to go ahead and upgrade.

TimezAttack COUPON CODE: 

If you decide to upgrade, check out this coupon code I found online... it's based on the honor system, so PLEASE respect their wishes and if you happen to use the discount code, tell friends with children how amazing and effective the game is. You can save as much as $10 off the price if you tell 4 families, and as much as $15 if you find someone to sign up with you. This is a great savings and I'm all about saving money! I don't know how long this coupon code will remain active. If it doesn't work, do an internet search and see if you can find another... try Big Brainz, coupon code.

Please let me know what your kids think of this game. I'm so happy right now my toes are warm and they're never warm! lol I hope they have fun attacking that troll with those math facts! In 2011 Big Brainz is coming out with a Division game, as well as games for subtraction and addition. Can't wait to see the division game!

Blessings!


By the way, as the honest lady  that I am, I did want to share that upon becoming a buyer of this game, I also became an affiliate. So... the link you see here for TimezAttack is an affiliate link. If you decide to upgrade, we will receive a commission, which would help us sooo much in paying for our little guys therapy, which isn't covered by insurance.

Update on Memorize in Minutes... Decision Made!

You may remember that I recently shared an interesting find for teaching children to memorize their times tables. My son has had a horrible time with this and making matters even worse, he hates to study anything having to do with numbers. I suspect he takes after me in that regard... math was never my best subject either.

I actually found Memorize in Minutes by accident... I was looking for math set to music, hoping I'd find something catchy to help specifically with memorizing 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's... but wasn't all that impressed with anything I ran across... then there was this.

I went ahead and ordered the book and will be introducing it to my son tomorrow once I've further familiarized myself with it's content. What I like about the book so far, is exactly what I expected to like... it has goofy drawings set to goofy rhymes, which help the multiplication facts and their answers stick in your child's brain. I'll let you know if it works for us! lol Fingers and toes are crossed so tight I'm starting to feel dizzy.

The only thing I see thus far that I don't love... I was hoping the flash cards were not part of the bound book. I'm not sure whether I should carefully pull them out and have them laminated or what? Seems like flashcards should be loose, but I really don't like removing pages from books. Sorta makes me cringe a little.

That's a small concern though and one I can totally live with should this system help my son tackle his multiplication monster. I'm really praying he can start 4th grade with the facts firmly planted in his head so we can then take on division without the level of anxiety he carried through 3rd grade. Poor guy!

Here's my original post on this resource, should you wish to check it out! Memorize in Minutes 

I'm not receiving any compensation for this review, either monetarily or through a product exchange. This review was unsolicited by the producer/manufacture and was initiated solely by me. Any books or supplies were purchased through my own pocketbook. 

An Interactive Web-Based Program to Teach Your Child the Value of Money

I'm really excited to share this web-based piggy bank designed to teach children about the value of the almighty dollar... everything from saving and investing to spending and general fiscal responsibility. The Ekomini interactive money box  resembles a little treasure chest that actually counts your child's money and interprets it's value into a web-based video game platform, expertly designed by educational professionals.

This little bank plugs into your computer's USP port, and together with the software teaches your child economics through game playing and goal setting. They'll have the opportunity to participate in virtual adventures in the land of Ekominiville where they'll learn valuable monetary lessons. This interactive program will teach children how to earn money from chores at home, donate to those in need, set aside money for responsible spending, and finally the program teaches your child how interest works and the benefits of investing. Pretty cool!

This remarkable learning program is designed for children ages 6 to 12 and allows you the parent to see what your kids are saving for. It's a great find and perfect for homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers alike! Check out Ekonmini today  and start preparing your children for real life economical responsibility!

Online Student Skills Builder... Math & Language Arts

I'm thrilled to have discovered Sadlier-Oxford's website fully loaded with online skill builders for grades K-8. They are one of my favorite publishers of mathematics textbooks; my children have both used their Progress in Mathematics textbooks, 1st grade and 2nd grade editions. The lessons are well written, colorful, easy to follow, and include great instruction and illustrations and are constructed like workbooks.

A friend recently asked where we had purchased the kid's math lessons, so I went looking online for the publisher's website and found not only the textbooks, but a wide variety of tutorials, skill update exercises, worksheets, and more! This is where my kids and I will be brushing up our math and reading skills this Summer. No doubt about it!

Here's the starting point for your student: Student Pages

Another link provides shopping... if you're so inclined: Shopping Pages

This site offers online manipulatives like an online abacus, online algebra tiles, base blocks, dueling calculators and more! Check out the pages of virtual manipulatives and consider how they could supplement your homeschool curriculum! Very cool... trust me on this... you don't want to skip over this free resource!

Free First Grade Printables

Sometimes it's beneficial (and fun) to examine what a public school's curriculum looks like... what they're expectations are for their students and how they structure their day. Not for the sake of taking a carbon copy approach in our homeschools necessarily, but simply to serve as a tool for comparison. After all, homeschooling moms are notorious for comparing their own curriculum to what everyone else is doing... common you know it's true! lol

You can definitely get a feel for one first grade classroom at Mrs.perkins.com. Granted, there's not a lot there... you might find a few goodies to enhance your curriculum. It looks like the printables on this site are remnants of something grander in days past.

Things I'll likely print and keep for my own use:
First Grade Skills Assessment Might use this in lieu of a report card for First Grade. Something to keep in my children's school recorder... check it out!
Math Speed Drills There are a lot of other printables here as well, but I'll probably just print the math drills.
Vocabulary Lists Not a lot here, but you'll find a few vocabulary lists for grades 1-3

Dice, Addition, Graphing & Shhhh! He's Doing His Math!

Shhh! My 7 year old doesn't know he's doing his math, please don't tell him! lol Oh, this is great.

What are we doing? I made a simple table using Microsoft Word with 11 columns and 20 or so rows and numbered it at the bottom from 2 to 12. The kids each have a copy of this table and a set of dice. They're rolling their two dice together, adding those numbers, finding the sum on the table, charting it, then rolling again. This has been keeping them content and busy now for a good 5 minutes. They'll keep rolling and charting until one of the numbers reaches the top! I got so excited to see my son having fun with math (shh!) that I had to step over to my computer and tell you all about it! Took a couple shots of the game in action as things started really getting exciting.

Oh, he didn't want to do math today, so I told him he could wait until later. He doesn't seem to realize that this is his math for the day. Before this activity I had him and his little sister see how many squares they could draw on a piece of paper in 100 seconds. Then they had to go back and count them, while placing the number of the square in each box. That was a good exercise too and no one complained a bit. This morning I made up a few silly songs about numbers and we practiced multiplication. Oh, I'm sorry... can't share that with you. Maybe I can find someone who can sing... but until that happens you'll have to write your own songs! lol

This is very basic math mind you. I realize that the largest sum he'll reach is 12, but it's still good practice for a 7 year old. Not a bad exercise for a 5 1/2 year old either! Still, I may need to get fancier dice for future games. I've actually seen dice with larger numbers and more than 6 sides. Pretty cool!

Updating as I finish this post to say that they kept at the dice rolling for about 12 minutes and then had to take a break. Short attention spans yes, but hey... they both did about 70 math problems in that amount of time!

Math Games/Activities Teaching Base-10

I'm going to start posting a handful of the games that I we play in our own homeschool... thinking those games might fill a hole for someone else. After realizing that I simply cannot afford to buy a game for each and every concept I need to teach, creating my own games or tweaking games I already have seems like the perfect answer.

My kids are just now 7 and 5 1/2 and we've not done nearly enough with money... at least not hands on. I'm in the process of introducing a couple new money games a week to give my kids more than just workbook pages. I think the workbook pages are great for what they are, but honestly money play probably should have come first... I see that now. I think even a very basic game or two would have gone a long way in binding together basic money concepts in their minds. Not only that, but what kid doesn't like a good game?

Today we took an idea from the first grade My Father's World curriculum and added a twist. MFW has a great learning activity that requires the creation of base-10 sticks to give your child a hands on way of counting by 10's. You basically glue 10 beans to a Popsicle stick. Each stick represents one "10". You can then use loose beans to represent the ones. It's a great tool that we just never did anything with... until today.

Since my kids love games and we have a great play money set and a couple good rolling dices, I had my kids take turns rolling a dice, declare their number, find that amount in our money drawer, add it to their own bank (basically a pile on the floor) until they reached 10 or more cents. At that time they calculate how much they need to pay mom for a Popsicle stick and 10 beans... and announce to the group how much money they have remaining in their bank. They pay me for the stick and beans, keep their change, then roll again. We played until each of my children had 10 sticks and 100 beans.

They then glued the 10 beans to 10 sticks and at this very moment the base-10 sticks are drying in our living room window. When dry, they're going to either use markers or paints to give them some color.

Now, my kids know how to count by 10's and have for a long time, but I like that this new tool can be used to teach money concepts and even place value. My son is having a bit of difficulty with place value and in fact confuses it with adding numbers together. Just needs more practice and having a visual should help with that.
More photos coming, but this one shows you what we have so far. The money set here can be purchased at Amazon.com and while it's not the cheapest there is, I like it because it has a nice wooden sorting/storage case. The dice in the box weren't included, I'm just storing them in the case for future games. ;)

Pattern Animals & Pattern Blocks

For those of you who've been to my blog before, you may already know we're using My Father's World, first grade. Part of the curriculum includes the supplemental activities provided by Learning Resources Pattern Animal book and pattern blocks. My kids go back and forth between loving the activities as outlined in this book and loving only their self-made games using the blocks. Either way, it's cool to watch!

The Pattern Animal book comes bound like any workbook, but I tore the darn thing apart and slipped the pages into page protectors, then threw the whole thing into a binder. Ahh... much better.

This book really only works this way... you can't place the pattern blocks on a page that's bound inside a book... it just doesn't work. Plus, sheet protectors... well, they protect the sheets! You could also laminate these to make them more durable and reusable.

The book also includes worksheets, which I've placed inside the binder.
The blocks that I bought for this book are also made by Learning Resources, so they were made to work with the pages within the animal patterns book, however there are many many other styles of geometric blocks... what they call tangrams, which look to me to be the same type of thing.

So, are these blocks just about playing? No, they're actually brain builders too! The book includes counting, sorting, graphing, sequencing, estimating, and symmetry exercises and is recommended for grades 1-3. My 5 year old would technically be pre-K and she's loving the blocks too. So don't feel constrained by the age recommendations... so long as they've passed the stage of putting toys in their mouths, it's all good.


Here's one of our pattern animal activity sessions. My kids usually do 2 or 3 animals before we put everything away and we choose one worksheet from the book to make the learning experience a bit richer... and recordable! lol

Free Math Worksheet Generator

Oh, this is just the coolest site... and a good chunk of it is absolutely FREE.

I found The Math Worksheet Site today while doing an Internet search for free homeschooling resources.

The free portions of the site include customizable worksheets for basic math (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions) and also include worksheets for number lines, measurements, and learning to read a clock. The printables are nice and sharp too... not grainy or amateurish in appearance.

If you'd like to open the door to even more cool worksheets, the individual monthly price is $2.50. Not bad at all. A year subscription is only $25. You can check out the preview portion of the site to see what sorts of things a paid membership entitles you to. There's a lot there and it's all somewhat customizable. So, there's a lot of freedom to make multiple worksheets with different math problems.

Oh, and guess what parent/teacher! You can print all these worksheets with an answer key, making your life even easier. ; )