1. Make sure your child understands the concept
- Use Manipulatives ( beans, blocks, pennies) to help build the problems
- Use manipulative to solve the problems
- Solve the problem without manipulative
2. Do a pretest and see what your child already knows.
3. Practice the facts:
- Create flashcards
- http://www.aplusmath.com/flashcards/Flashcard_Creator.html
- Play games with dice:
- Use a timer and 2 die, roll the dice and answer out loud. See how many problems can be solved in 1 minute or 2 minutes. Keep a chart and track progress.
- http://www.enasco.com/math/Math+Manipulatives/Dice/
- Play computer games
- Computer math practice:
4. Create worksheets
- Math Worksheet creator:
- http://www.math-worksheets-generator.com/
- http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/
- Practice writing the answer
- Review errors, demonstrate patterns
5. Practice times facts with pencil and paper
- Horizontal
- Vertical
I thought you may be interested in a math manipulative that I invented called the ZeroSum Ruler. it makes working with negative numbers much easier and more concrete. My graduate thesis results showed a 62% decrease in student error on a delayed-retention test one month after the last of three activities with the ruler. Before the ruler, I was getting a lot of “-22 + 5 = -27, etc., where my students were confusing addition with the rules of multiplication. You can check out my site at http://zerosumruler.wordpress.com/
This a great idea! Concrete tools for working with negative numbers are very helpful. Thank you for sharing your idea.