My seven year old and I have been getting in the swing of things lately with a morning math routine (although it's ok if we don't do it til the afternoon--my daughter coined it "Mommy Math Meeting" this morning). I like starting off our day with this routine because it's excellent for review and kind of gets us revved up for school.
Currently, this is what we are doing:
Counting
- Count to 100
- Skip count by 10s (forward and backward); count dimes (eventually we'll move onto 5s and 2s, inshaa Allah)
Calendar Concepts
Months/Year Concepts - I use a reference chart I made up and she:
- Tells how many months are in a year, when asked
- Recites the names of the months in order (with me)/li>
- Identifies the last and first months of the year and her birth month
- While looking at our chart, tells me what month comes before/after a month I call out
- Tells me the number of days in a year (right now, I have it on the chart and I just tell her and as she gets more familiar, then I will have her tell me when asked, in shaa Allah
- Tell me what a year is (the time it takes for the earth to go around the sun
- Eventually, we'll get to the concept of leap year, in shaa Allah
- I emphasize that the months of the year cycle (repeat)
Days of the Week - Again, I have another chart with the days of the week that we use and she:
- Tells me the number of days in a week
- Tells me what day comes before/after a day that I call out
- Tells me what day is 1st, 2nd, etc
- I emphasize that the days of the week cycle (repeat)
Seasons - we use another chart and she:
- Recites the seasons in order, starting with the current one
- Answers questions about what season certain events occur in such as:
- leaves falling off trees
- it snows/is very cold
- new plants/flowers grow
- it's hot, people go to the beach often
- sometimes she offers up other activities/phenomena that occur in different seasons
- Again, I emphasize/remind her that the seasons are in a cycle (repeat) and I often mention that this is something beneficial for us that Allah has created (cycles that help us keep track of time and help us depend on this regularity)
Change the Wall Calendar
We have a cute wall calendar and so after we are done with the review activities, she changes the date for the day.
Number of the Day
I pick a number (right now we are just going in counting order and I started on the number 49 which was in the lesson of Saxon that we started on this past week. With this number we do several activities:
- Tell if the number is odd or even
- Make the number with place value blocks (or draw what they would look like in place value blocks)
- Add 1 from it, subtract 1 from it, add 10 to it, subtract 10 from it
- Write the number in word form
- Show a few different ways to make that amount in coins
Lately I have just been asking her to do the above activities on a blank piece of paper, but in the past we have used Number of the Day worksheets. You can check them out in my
Number of the Day Tag or view my
Calendar/Morning Meeting Board at Pinterest for worksheets from others.
Name/Date Writing
Lastly I have her write her name daily along with the day of the week and the date and season. ( I give her a sample to copy from) This is mostly for handwriting practice as well as for her to start to learn how to spell words simply by daily repetition
This routine may sound like a lot based upon what I have outlined above, but it typically goes pretty quickly. Here's is how our morning meeting went today:
- Calendar Concepts: 4 minutes
- Counting/Skip Counting: 7 minutes (my daughter likes to skip and jump around the room as she is doing this and she gets distracted easily. Today she proclaimed "it was very breathtaking!"
- Number of the Day: 6 minutes
- Name Writing/Date/Season Writing: 5 minutes
So all in all, we spend roughly 20 minutes on our morning meeting.
At this point after the routine, I kind of gauge where she is and see if we go onto actual math class or do math later in the day. (sometimes she is gung ho to continue and other times it's a lost cause). My goal is to at least do this routine everyday even if we don't get actual math class in.
Printables
When we started back up with our morning meetings, I used hand-drawn reference charts, but this week I finally got around to making some up on the computer. I like these as they have my prompts/questions on there so all I really have to do is grab each chart and ask the questions on there (though after doing it often, I generally know off hand what questions I want to ask, but this helps me not forget)
(There was a typo on the Days of the Week printable, but it has been fixed!)
In addition, check out my Calendar/Morning Meeting Pinterest Board for more ideas for morning meetings (which can be held in the afternoons as well!)
