If you've been around me long enough, you know I'm not much on doing one curriculum exclusively.  You can read all my "excuses" in previous posts.  Truth be told, though, there are so many good and fun things out there, that I can't bear to pass up many of them!  Hence, the reason I do a workbook math curriculum two to three days a week and jump around the other days.

I just posted about my "plan" for Mahayla from Kindergarten up to now, the 5th grade.  In that post, I mentioned that I would try to give you some ideas for the "other math" that I use.  So, here goes. 

Most workbook curriculums I've come across simply don't cover enough, if any, logic, real-life problem solving, hands-on problem solving, graph making, multi-step thinking and other what I call "meaty" work.  Over the years, I've collected many resources here and there that have these types of thinking skills activities in them.  I've also tried to bookmark good math sites, too.  As I run across something I want to do during the school year, I copy it and put it in a folder so I'm not searching at the last minute for a math activity to do on our days off from workbooks.

Some days, the activities will be short, so we'll do several of them (logic matrix activities like those found in Mind Benders are an example.)  Some times, we may work on one activity for a few days because it's so involved (like our candy math days that I'll talk about below.)

Four things to know:

1.  These are supplemental activities, so I DO NOT try to work through every activity in every resource!! 

2.  I try to find activities that are going to add to their math experience, not repeat what they already know.  In other words, if their math workbook program has drilled them to death on subtraction with borrowing, I'm not going to find some cutsie seasonal worksheet that drills them on subtraction with borrowing.  Now, I might find a thought-provoking activity where subtraction with borrowing is necessary to solving the problem. 

3.  I usually work through these sorts of activities with them.  They are challenging and often require more than one step.  I'm sure to be there guiding so frustration doesn't set in. 

4.  Please don't try to go out and aquire everything I'll mention.  I've picked these things up over many years and rarely ever spent more than a $1.00 or $2.00 on anything.  I've also run across the websites over years.  Trying to buy, search through or use everything I'll mention WILL throw you into overload!!  More than anything, I'm hoping to give you examples of what I add to our math curriculum and where I find it.

Logic 

*I love the Mind Benders books from The Critical Thinking Company.

*AIMS has a fun early logic book called Primarily Bears. 

*Logic Posters, Problems and Puzzles

*Puzzlers Paradise

Problem Solving - (includes pretty much everything else like real-life math, creating graphs, etc.)

*Problem Play and Problem Parade 

*Venn Perplexors

*Meeting Math Standards With Favorite Picture Books

*Menu Math

*Munchie Math

*Thinking Skills

Fun Individual Activities To Print From The Internet

*A Taste of Fractions

*Symmetrical Design

*M & M Math

*More M & M Math  (all M & M activities could be done with a variety of foods - Skittles, candy hearts, trail mix, gummy bears, life savers.......)

*Christmas Math

*Valentine Math

*Birthday Math

Internet Resources

*NC Math

*Math Lab

*Math Magic

*Literature For Learning Math Concepts

*Literature & Money Lessons

*NCTM Activities

*Auntie Math

*Menu Math

Online Activities

*Math Playground

*Math Cats

*The Golf of Mexico

*Online Manipulatives

*Rainforest Maths

My children are always so excited on our "problem solving" days.  I hope your children will enjoy a little spicing up of their math time, too!