Tag Archives: 4 years old

Symmetry is beautiful!

Posted on August 17, 2013 by aofradkin

Today Katie and I spent the morning playing with symmetry.  This post will mostly consist of pictures because symmetry is better illustrated visually than verbally.  However, I would like to describe the rules of our ‘game’.  We had an axis … Continue reading →

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To win or not to win?

Posted on August 16, 2013 by aofradkin

I am sure that almost every parent has faced this dilemma when introducing a strategy game to their kids: in those first few critical games, how often should I win and how often should I give in?  On one hand … Continue reading →

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Functions – not so scary!

Posted on August 13, 2013 by aofradkin

In many math curricula, functions are treated as something complicated and mysterious and they don’t get introduced until some time in middle school.  But in fact, the basic idea is very simple and beautiful.  A few days ago I introduced … Continue reading →

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One-to-one correspondence – Not always obvious to kids!

Posted on August 11, 2013 by aofradkin

There are some very hard problems in combinatorics that involve showing that there is a bijection (one-to-one correspondence) between two set of objects, thus showing that the two sets have the same number of elements.  On the other hand, we … Continue reading →

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Making kids comfortable with basic arithmetic

Posted on August 10, 2013 by aofradkin

I am not a fan of drills and I think that making kids do daily worksheets with x addition/subtraction problems is the sort of thing that makes kids conclude that math is a boring subject.  That being said, I do … Continue reading →

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Kids can have the same revelation multiple times!

Posted on August 7, 2013 by aofradkin

Yesterday Katie wanted the dolls to have another ball (in general, we decided that the balls were going to happen once a week, but yesterday was going to be an exception).  While I was eating dinner, Katie took her dolls … Continue reading →

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Graph Theory With Dolls

Posted on August 7, 2013 by aofradkin

Katie really likes playing with dolls.  Actually, she will ‘role play’ with all types of objects (I’ve seen her even do it with pencils!) but barbie sized dolls are by far her favorite.  Recently she has been complaining that she … Continue reading →

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Colorful Tens

Posted on August 5, 2013 by aofradkin

Katie and I made this out of construction paper. I thought that we were showing all possible ways of making 10 out of two numbers, but Katie had a completely different explanation for my husband when he asked her about … Continue reading →

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