Christmas Story Math (CGI: Addition)
It's Friday and we have a Story Math Freebie for you! We are obsessed with story math and hope your little one loves practicing math this way!
Weekly Targeted Skill: Addition Problem Solving
This Holiday-themed Story Math problem is based on the principles of Cognitive Guided Instruction (CGI) Math. It is an addition story problem where two items join together and the result is unknown (Join Result Unknown).
A couple of tips for doing Story Math with your child:
- Read the story to your child and have them visualize what the story is about (it helps if you act it out)
- Give your child something tangible to count with (Cheerios, pennies, unifix cubes, etc.)
- Scaffold: if your child needs more support, walk them through the process step-by-step. Have them count out how many toys Tony made and then count out how many toys Sparkle made and then put them together to count.
- After your child solves the problem, encourage him to draw a picture or at least explain how he solved it.
- Do NOT teach your child how to solve this with a "traditional algorithm," i.e. don't teach him how to stack the numbers and add them. Story math is about children solving the problem on their own.