Math U See Race to 100 Game and Update

Yikes! Alyssa is only one lesson away from completing Math U See Alpha. I wasn't expecting her to finish the curriculum so quickly. We started the program late during the month of September after our move. She will most definitely finish before Christmas because I can no longer stretch out the program. She mastered her addition facts a long time ago. I assumed that she would need a little more time with subtraction but I was dead wrong. In the past, we discussed fact families so that may have helped her understand subtraction better. She is ready and willing to move on to more challenging mathematical concepts. She asked me about trying more multiplication activities since I have gently touched on and introduced the topic. You can read about her multiplication bead board here. We will continue using Montessori Math activities, play mathematically-based games, and cover several math concepts using hands-on activities. The concepts that I will focus on until I decide what I will do for her math curriculum for the rest of the year are time, money, addition with regrouping, place value, measurement, geometry, fractions, multiplication, simple division (equal shares), and more.

She really enjoyed her Math U See Alpha lessons. One of the games that she LOVED was called "Race to a Hundred" from Lesson 15. We have played this game before many times using a 100 board or chart, but it was a nice change playing it with the Math U See bars. Furthermore, we played this game using place value or base ten blocks. Alyssa would trade in the unit blocks for ten blocks also known as rods until the 100 flat was filled.

We played this particular game several times in a row with playing cards, but a die or number cards can easily be used. The first time we played it by adding the bars to the 100 square. She would draw a card and choose the bar that represents the number flipped over. This bar was placed on the hundred square. The idea was to even out each horizontal line or row making combinations of ten. We started off playing the game the way it was intended to be played, but then we just practiced her addition facts after Alyssa played a six bar vertically.

My 100 square board - I tried hard to show bars that were equivalent to 10.

We also played "Race You Back" by removing the bars from the 100 square which definitely helps with clean up. She did need to "trade in" a few blocks in order to remove certain numbers. For example, let's say she had an eight on the board but she flipped over a card with the number five. She traded in the eight for a five and three. She then removed the five yet the three bar remained on the board. We played until the exact number card was flipped over and the last bar was removed. It was so much fun!

Can you tell she likes playing this game?

She asks to play this game quite frequently. She even wants to play this game with her father. It is a great way to make combinations of 10, review addition facts, recognize bars, work on subtraction, and more.

Thank you for visiting. God bless! Please leave a comment below - I love hearing from my readers!

Do you use Math U See? What are your thoughts and experiences with the curriculum?

Love2Learn2Day hosts the Math Monday Blog Hop linky - I will link up this post. Please explore the blog and linky for more inspirational and creative math ideas.