I am not a blogger but I definitely like paying forward – Think I will begin with sharing what I experience every day as a parent – the desire to instill the love of Math in my 5 year old Montessori schooled, independence loving kid.

I am sure a lot of you will relate to the feeling of fearing math! I grew up feeling totally paralyzed every time I was asked to take a Math test. My strategy for success became memorizing the methods by heart and more often than not it worked in the Indian type of exam systems. However, once I was thrown into real life the fear of numbers, came back to haunt me in the various jobs I took on. I attributed my sense of fear to my lack of understanding of the concept of numbers. While over time I have come to a much better place through relentless practice (being paid to do it helps as well(smile)) and the patience of my managers, I would say that instilling a basic comfort with numbers really helps take out the fear of Math.

How do you do that?

1. Making Math business-as-usual and being comfortable with smaller numbers before you head into the big concepts of addition/subtraction/multiplication will ideally help
2. Visualizing the concept makes it even more easy.

These are opinions (not expert advice).

Anyhow, in my search for better methods of teaching my child, I have come to find some of the bestsellers below:

Glenn Doman, founder of The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential was famous for his pioneering work with brain-injured children and for the work in early development for well children. His books on “ How to teach your baby Math” are very simple and are based on the Dot method. I tried this method and must say that it needs discipline to see good results. Nevertheless, if you are able to follow the regimen, you will give your child a very strong foundation in the core concept of numbers.

Starfall.com - We started off with this website and realized that my kid loves this more than Dinosaur Train. She started with the free section and after she exhausted that we moved on to the More.Starfall.com section. This site allows you to print custom worksheets  and has a Kindergarten curriculum teacher’s guide and weekly plans in PDF format to download.

IXL.com – This is a subscription based math practice website for preschool to middle school children. My preschooler needed some direction with this website as by then she had not started reading. In my view this is a complete website for early education and has a variety of methods of teaching the same concept. You will need to assist your kid in reading out the questions but by and large the website is attractive for a kid who has a medium-long attention span

ABCMouse.com – We did buy the subscription for this website too but honestly this seems to be more of a ‘play’ website for preschoolers. It’s bold in colors and has great animation. My kid likes having her way and only plays in the art section. I would recommend this for people who are just starting out - preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten

LivingMath.net – This is my latest discovery and I haven’t tested it out on my kid yet. I  love the concept and I know it will be hard work but very effective in the long run. The website propounds the learning of math through non traditional methods – history, literature, science etc. As the author states “I’ve seen the results of early exposure to real mathematics in natural settings, without requiring mastery of arithmetic on a set timetable - this has been a key to the ease with which my kids attain mastery when the time is right for them” My favorite on this site is the Math Reader List

Besides this we have also purchased some Montessori Math Toys which make it easy for the kid to see the ‘numbers’ better than just memorizing them.

 -         Montessori Checker Board

-          Fraction Towers

-          Abacus - Best place to buy is Ikea

-          Numbers Chart 1-100

-          Movable Clock image (also available at http://www.montessorimaterials.org/Math/bigclockmovable.pdf)

Good Luck and keep sharing!