May 2023
Welcome to EFM's May Newsletter!
EFM: Supporting families to play, explore, and love math
News
New EFM projects coming soon!
Playing Cards – EFM has a beta version of a deck of playing cards with the Level A and B Puzzles of the Week on their faces. Visit this page on the EFM website to see a PDF of the faces of these cards. If you are interested in receiving these playing cards in the future, please contact us. Also, if you would like to explore having other math content in a deck or two of playing cards, please contact us.
New Layout for Activities for Families – We have created a completely new look for our Activities for Families. The two-column, two-toned layout is gone, and we will be putting out a more colorful and friendlier version in the near future.
Spatial Reasoning and Math
I begin this month’s newsletter with a bit of trepidation. This month’s topic is about how playing with math will improve a child’s spatial reasoning, and that boost will help in STEM subjects in school and in future occupations. Every time someone suggests that you should study math because it will ... help with early vocabulary, early conceptual frameworks, logical thinking and communicating, problem-solving skills, executive function, general success through all the school years, solve real world applications, and improve diversity and equity, I get worried. Those are all true and they’re important. However, the fundamental reason to study math, which is too often ignored, is that it is beautiful and will help you grow as a person – it is important in its own right, just as art, music, history, and English are.
With that concern duly noted, let’s go ahead and take a look at spatial reasoning and math. Research has shown there is an important link between a person's ability with spatial reasoning and with success in STEM fields. So much so, that in the last decade or more, schools like Harvey Mudd College have created spatial reasoning classes that have successfully decreased the gender imbalance for students going into STEM.
There is no reason to wait until high school or college to work on spatial reasoning skills. It is tempting to focus on numeracy in early math education because it is what people think of when they think of math generally, and early math in particular. The first years of a child’s life are their best learning years, and it is an excellent (and easy) time to mix in spatial reasoning activities.
Spatial reasoning activities to do with your child
Choose activities that emphasize sensing, visualizing, orienting and locating, comparing, decomposing and recomposing, symmetries, and scaling – this is not a complete list, but it is suggestive of what to think about. Learning about object properties and comparisons is central to this, as is visualizing and manipulating actual objects in their environments. Here is a list of EFM activities that relate to these skills. The list was getting too long, so some activities have been left out.
Math Talk
Whether it’s spatial reasoning, or math in general, math education at home begins, and finds its strongest foundation, in Math Talk with your children. Have observations and discussions about topics like where things are in relation to others, how things compare to other things, and how something can get from one place to another. What is near, what is far, what is above or under, what shape something is, how big or small a thing is, what features a thing has, and what orientation in space a thing has – these all get your child thinking about spatial relationships.
Filling a container with sand, or climbing a play structure at the park, will get the imagery going. Cleaning up a room and finding places to put things away, or looking for things on a shelf in a store – they are all good ways to get your child thinking and imagining things in space.
Talk about how to get from where you are to a store, or a friend’s house, or school, or a favorite place to sit. If you have a drawing of a place, or perhaps a map, use it to discuss where you are, where other things are, and how to get from one place to another.
Spatial Reasoning Activities from Old Newsletters
Over the years, we’ve had quite a few activities in this newsletter that help with spatial reasoning. You can find these in the back issues of the newsletter on the EFM website.
May 2021 – String Number Line. This has you making a number line with string. Anytime your child is working with a number line they are thinking about the order of things and what goes before and after other things.
Other number line and ordering games in the EFM Chapters (not in old newsletters) are: The In-Between Game (Chapter 2), I’m Thinking of a Number (Chapter 2), Number Line Battleship (Chapter 2), Going Up (Chapter 3), and Creating Order (Chapter 3).
June 2021 – The Barrier Game has one person describing a two-dimensional or three-dimensional scene for the other person to construct entirely from the description.
June 2021 – Skyscrapers – This puzzle uses a grid of skyscrapers for visualizing how taller and shorter objects visually interact.
October 2021 – Connect the Dots – making pictures and string art.
June 2022 – Number Hunt, Object Hunt, Shape Hunt, I Spy – These hunting games have your child looking around their world and seeing which things fit and go together.
February 2023 – Geometric Art, Similar Shapes and Mirror Symmetry, and Pattern Blocks
March 2023 – Bouncing Billiard Ball – Where will a bouncing ball end up on a billiard table?
March 2023 – Bridges of Königsberg – This is the puzzle of how to find parade paths around a diagram without repeating any path.
Shapes Inside Shapes – Fitting objects in holes – Chapter 1
Cut different size holes in a box and watch your child fit things into the holes.
I watched my very young granddaughter play endlessly with this, putting round, square, triangular, and star-shaped blocks in different shaped holes. She was teaching herself what fit and what didn’t fit, and how these objects related to each other.
Cutting Symmetric Shapes in folded paper – Chapter 2
Fold paper and then, while the paper is still folded, cut out shapes in the paper. To really exercise your child’s spatial senses, have them predict the shape that is being created or challenge them to create a particular shape (such as a lamp outline).
Finding Squares – Chapter 2 & SimTriangle – Chapter 3
These games have players trying to create squares (Finding Squares) or avoiding creating triangles (SimTriangle). A lot of visualizing is needed for both games to create what you need and block your opponent.
Number shapes – Chapter 3 & 5
The challenge is to create interesting shapes using a given number of dots. Triangles, rectangles, squares, and trapezoids are among the shapes created.
Filling Regions with Shapes & Filling Squares with Squares – Chapter 5
These activities challenge a child to see how one shape can be used repeatedly to fill a larger shape. Lots of visualization is required to imagine what is possible.
Fitting Rectangles in a paper – Divide Up the Box, The Paddock Game – Chapter 5
This puzzle and game practice the idea of rectangular area. In the process, they also give practice for how rectangular pieces can fill a region.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them my way. I would enjoy the opportunity to chat with you. Also, if you are interested in collaborating with us or supporting us in any fashion, I would love to talk with you about ways we can work together!
Chris Wright
May 18, 2023
Chris@EarlyFamilyMath.org
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Early Family Math is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, #87-4441486.