DMG Blog

Articles tagged as pre-kindergarten (view all)

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24 August, 2012

We launched our Facebook page. Please visit and "Like" us!

Our first article was:

As school begins, remember to have children talk about math on a daily basis.
Each week, we will write activities that can be done with young children.
Have children count out loud as you are driving in the car or walking home from school or being in the classroom. Have them count starting with different numbers. Listen to hear if the words are in the correct order.
To begin the year:
Prekindergarten- Count up to 10

Kindergarten - Count up to 20. Listen for those tricky numbers from 11-20.

Grade 1 - Count up to 100. Start with different numbers. Listen for counting through the decade numbers (27, 28, 29...30)
Grade 2 - Count up to 120. Start with different numbers. Listen for counting past 100 (110, 111, 112 etc.)

Girls' Math Skills May Fall Short Of Boys' Because Of Male Impulsiveness

08 August, 2012

By: LiveScience.com, staff

From an early age, boys tend to take a more impulsive approach to math problems in the classroom, which might help them get ahead of girls in the long-run, suggests the latest study to touch on the gender gap in math.

The research claims girls may tend to favor a slow and accurate approach - often computing an answer by counting - while boys may take a faster, but more error-prone tack, calling out an answer from memory. The difference in strategies seems to benefit girls early in elementary school but swings in favor of boys by middle school.

"In our study, we found that boys were more likely to call out answers than girls, even though they were less accurate early in school," Drew Bailey, who led the study, said in a statement. "Over time, though, this practice at remembering answers may have allowed boys to surpass girls in accuracy." [Cool Math Games - See http://www.livescience.com/19453-cool-math-games.html ]

The University of Missouri study followed 300 students from first grade to sixth grade. During those first two years, the boys called out more answers in class than the girls but also had more wrong answers. Girls were more often right, but answered fewer questions and responded more slowly, according to the university. By sixth grade, the boys were still answering more problems than the girls and were also getting more correct.

Several recent studies have argued that gender differences in math performance have more to do with culture than aptitude - see http://www.livescience.com/5482-girls-math-culture-skewed.html ]. Research published last year found that certain countries - generally ones with more gender equality, better teachers and fewer students living in poverty - showed a smaller gap between males and females in math and some had no gap at all. [See http://www.livescience.com/17429-math-gender-differences-myths.html ]

Other research has pointed to inherent gender biases in the classroom. One such study found that high school math teachers tended to rate girls' math abilities lower than those of male students, even when the girls' grades and test scores were comparable to boys. [See http://www.livescience.com/19552-girls-math-teachers-bias.html ]

Gender issues aside, the researchers of the Missouri study - which was published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology - had some advice for parents based on the findings. "Parents can give their children an advantage by making them comfortable with numbers and basic math before they start grade school, so that the children will have fewer trepidations about calling out answers," David Geary, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.

OAEYC

21 April, 2012

Debra and I had a great three days at the Columbus Convention Center sharing our products with preschool teachers. We now have mats to use with the Bears and Chairs. We have created five different mats. The first is a game to help young children with counting, one-to-one correspondence and cardinality. We have a two-sided mat with five beds on one side and ten beds on the other. Children take the bears and use them to place in the beds. We are helping the young child see the relationship to five and ten. Our second mat is a play mat that can be used to retell the story of "The Three Bears." The next three mats were created so young children from pre-kindergarten through grade two can work on problem solving by acting out the story. We have a cave, table and zoo mat. These mats are two-sided and can be used to help students with all of the different types of addition and subtraction problems that are listed in the new Common Core Standards.

Check our product page to see what they look like.

We are off to Philadelphia next week to share our products with teachers who will be at the NCTM conference.

NCTM in St. Louis

23 September, 2011

October 26, 27, 28 and 29 we will have a booth at the Regional National Teachers of Mathematics conference in St. Louis. Please stop by and say hi and take a look at the many products that we now have to help teachers instruct in their classrooms. We will be presenting on Friday at 8:30 am. on the use of Bears and Chairs and our other products to help students learn the essential pre-number and early number concepts. We are excited to be able to share our experiences and knowledge with you.