HN Gopher Feed (2017-10-05) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Mathematical games interesting to both you and a five-year-old
child
424 points by lainon
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/281447/mathematical-games-int...___________________________________________________________________
navalsaini - 5 hours ago
You could teach them chess variation known as minichess or
halfchess. I have created a game halfchess.com for adults - but
plan to add a learning mode for children in future.I have given
kids crash course on chess and it starts like this.1. Ask them, how
many squares are there on a board2. Tell them about Pawns and make
them play on a mini chess board with Pawns. Start with 3 pawns and
slowly increase to 4,5,...,8.3. Show them the knight. Some possible
games with just knight are as follows:- a. Puzzles on how one
knight can capture another knight placed in nearby squares. b.
Play a game where one knight has to catch the other knight. The
knight that is catching takes two steps every move, the running one
takes one step. c. You can play above game with a dice and let
two players battle just their knights. Even throw of dice gets 2
turns And so on, introduce them to new pieces. You can tell them
stories about each of the chess piece as you introduce them to
it.There are several mathematical concepts that you can teach
children via chess - for example backtracking from a solution (when
solving the puzzles with knights).
Moru - 5 hours ago
I find Arimaa is a fun and much easier game to learn the basics
of. And you play it on a chessboard :)
rmetzler - 3 hours ago
Domino is one of the mathematical games, I play with my daughter.
You have to make a chain of domino pieces which represent one of 28
possible combinations of two out of 0 to 6. She plays this very
good.She is a little bit too young yet for Backgammon and Chess,
but I plan to play these with her.
Splines - 7 hours ago
I'm not sure if this is serious or satire:
https://mathoverflow.net/q/281475I mean, it feels like satire, but
who knows...
zokier - 5 hours ago
> Printing, or playing by means of some graphics software, seems
safe.emphasis mine
gjm11 - 6 hours ago
I'm voting for some combination of "honestly oblivious", "ha ha
only serious", and "actually this isn't as bad as it sounds" over
"satire". My 11-year-old daughter was recently introduced in a
school mathematics lesson to a game in this family, which she
enjoyed and eagerly asked me to play with her.It wasn't described
in those terms, though. Their class has been looking at factors
and multiples, so the game was presented like this: you have the
numbers from 1 to 100 written down; one player picks a number
(constrained to be no bigger than 50 for reasons as an exercise
for the reader) to start with; then each player picks a still-
unused number that's either a factor or a multiple of the one
before. So a game might go like this: 25, 5; 15, 3; 99, 33; 11,
22; 44, 4; 8, 16; 32, 96; 48, 24; 12, 6; 18, 9; 27, 81; 1, 97 and
now the first player has no legal move and loses. (I do not claim
that either player played well in that game; I just picked random
legal moves.)If this game sounds like fun to you or your child,
you can find an implementation here: https://nrich.maths.org/5468
and you may also see how long a chain of factors-and/or-multiples
you can construct (imagine both players are now cooperating to
make the game last as long as possible).
a-saleh - 7 hours ago
I think it might be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but when I look at the
game as written, it actually sounds fun.-I think the real game
there might be inventing such graph for your oponent, so that you
have a chance for a draw? :)-Wow, finally finished reading the
comment. This looks quite interesting and deep.
fjsolwmv - 4 hours ago
It's a math post on math website. The discussion is for
mathematical adults, but the games described are fun for kids --
kids have been playing pencil and paper graph games for many
decades
mquander - 4 hours ago
I don't think it feels like satire since it sounds like a fun
game? I'm actually astonished that I never played a game in this
family before.
tebruno99 - 38 minutes ago
I work for a company that makes Math games based on neuroscience
research. https://www.mindresearch.orgI find a lot of the games
very interesting and founded more on actual learning (you're
encouraged to make mistakes in this program). Turns out to learn
you need to make mistakes and see why you were wrong, more than
simply answer correctly.(Product is currently in Flash but we are
working very hard to move to HTML5)
indescions_2017 - 6 hours ago
5 is tough. Although I suppose Terry Tao was working out proofs by
then ;)By 8-9, something like the Japanese city-building card game
Machi Koro is great for learning about variance, expected value,
and optimization.
weinzierl - 5 hours ago
A while ago Terence Tao posted a a problem from his son's Math
Circle. It is in his own words "surprisingly difficult":> Three
farmers were selling chickens at the local market. One farmer
had 10 chickens to sell, another had 16 chickens to sell, and the
last had 26 chickens to sell. In order not to compete with each
other, they agreed to all sell their chickens at the same price.
But by lunchtime, they decided that sales were not going so well,
and they all decided to lower their prices to the same lower
price point. By the end of the day, they had sold all their
chickens. It turned out that they all collected the same amount
of money, $35, from the day's chicken sales. What was the price
of the chickens before lunchtime and after lunchtime?https://plus
.google.com/+TerenceTao27/posts/CR1ZoNe9ojQEDIT: From what I
found online, I believe Terry Tao's son was 10 at the time.
fjsolwmv - 4 hours ago
Terry Tao seems to be forgetting some of his basic math as he
spends most of time on super advanced stuff. He also has a post
where he discovered the surprising fact that if you stay in
your arrived airplane's seat until most people have exited,
after the crowd clears you can walk off the plane more
quickly.
eru - 6 hours ago
Kakerlakenpoker (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11971
/cockroach-poker) is a game of pure bluffing that even small kids
should fine enjoyable. The cute critters on the cards, like
spiders and cockroaches, should help catch kids' interest.The game
itself is more about reading body language clues, but you can
easily introduce a small amount of game theory mathematics in your
deliberations.(Ironically enough, Kakerlakenpoker has exactly the
right structure for a drinking game. Lose a card: take a shot.
Lose the round: finish the bottle.)
pwaivers - 7 hours ago
Wow this is a really cool question and even better answers!
eric_h - 6 hours ago
I like that the game Set is mentioned. I haven't played in a few
years but I've always loved that game. The only problem with it is
that for whatever reason some people are _significantly_ better at
it than others (right off the bat; obviously you can get better
with practice, playing with a group of relative noobs and having
one of them drastically outshine the other can be frustrating for
the other).
aethertap - 5 hours ago
We like Set, too. We also play a similar game called Qwirkle
(played by laying tiles in interlocking groups). Qwirkle is
played in turns, so some of that pressure of not being fast
enough is eliminated.I play a game with the creative name "make
10" with my kids sometimes that was inspired by Set, except that
you have to pick groups of cards that add to 10 (or other
numbers, if they're too good at it). My daughter has to find
groups of three cards and can use addition and subtraction, and
my son just uses addition on groups of two cards. We use regular
playing cards with only A-9 included.
Karrot_Kream - 6 hours ago
I'm terrible at visualizing things and I lose almost every game I
play. I've convinced my friends who are good at Set to play a
variant based on natural numbers and operations in them, but
turns out they're a lot worse at that and it's a lot less fun for
them...I think my point is that Set really lends itself to
someone with strong visual abilities, and is much much harder for
everyone else.
eric_h - 6 hours ago
> I've convinced my friends who are good at Set to play a
variant based on natural numbers and operations in themI'm
curious about this and would like to subscribe to your
newsletter ;)
edanm - 1 hours ago
Many years ago, when I was first starting a company with 2 other
partners, we used to play a few games of Set every lunch. We did
this for months, maybe even a year.Needless to say, we got really
good. After the initial learning curve of "getting" the rules, it
becomes almost entirely a game of memory and recognition. You
just remember sets, having seen them so often, that you can
almost instantly spot them.It loses a lot of its mathematical
shine at this stage, of course, so I consider it less of a
mathematical game.
dahart - 6 hours ago
Set is awesome. And my 6 year old can crush me!
tomhallett - 5 hours ago
I'll have to give set a shot. My 3.5 year old (now 4) could
consistently beat me and other adults at memory matching games.
:)
eru - 6 hours ago
I'm colourblind. I can sort-of distinguish the colours in set,
because they still differ in some attributes like brightness, but
it takes me much, much longer.And of course some people are
better at spatial stuff then other.
eric_h - 6 hours ago
Well shit, color blindness would definitely make the game more
difficult, but I bet a grayscale version of the game could
actually be made to work.> And of course some people are better
at spatial stuff then other.Of course. My remark was really
that the starting skill level of players can differ so
dramatically that some people will literally have no fun at all
(because they can't possibly win).I've never come up with a
reasonable handicap system to make the game more fun for
everyone.
jdmichal - 2 hours ago
Probably best to follow standard guidelines: Don't
distinguish anything by color alone. Using color and a
pattern within the color would work fine. Figuring out how to
make that work with partial fills is another question...
eru - 2 hours ago
Coloretto
(https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5782/coloretto) is
really good at this.For Set, it might not be enough to
bridge the gap: being able to differentiate by colour and
some pattern might still be faster for a player than
relying on pattern alone? (But still better than the
status quo.)My vision ain't gray scale. I'm just red-green
deficient.
spot - 4 hours ago
I can't recommend go highly enough.Not only are the rules simple
enough for kids (mine are 5-9), but counting the score is directly
mathematical (counting for the little ones, multiplication and
addition for the older ones).the key to go for kids is a small
board. 9x9 to start, then 13x13. none of them has graduated to
19x19 yet.
guiltygatorade - 5 hours ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_GameMaybe 5 is a bit young for all
of multiplication and division (but you could include the face
cards). The game is still playable without -- there would just be a
lot of "welp we shuffle these back into the deck" situations.
appellation - 25 minutes ago
Recently i've been trying to find an app like Duolingo but for
math. Essentially, a way to practice bite sized pieces of
mathematics to keep proficiency up.Unfortunately the current
selection of apps are fairly low quality and only allow very basic
arithmetic. Any suggestions?May just build it myself otherwise.
weinzierl - 4 hours ago
Bret Victor (of Apple fame) made Alligator Eggs which could be fun
to play with a five year old. The game represents the untyped
lambda calculus. You can download the PDF from Bret Victor's
website.http://worrydream.com/AlligatorEggs/EDIT: Thinking about
it, when I studied Petri nets at university someone showed me a
Peri net board game.https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9727/play-
net
onychomys - 4 hours ago
Once you tell them that the game represents the untyped lambda
calculus, you'll probably need to lock them in their rooms to get
them to stop playing, I assume.
weinzierl - 4 hours ago
I only realized after your comment that what I wrote was
unintentionally funny. Rewrote my comment.
codeulike - 7 hours ago
I've written a game that's a mix of algebra and maze solving. I
believe its pretty relevant to this question. There are easy levels
but also it can get surprisingly complex even for small mazes. Its
called Numplussed and its free on Android or
iOS:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/numplussed-number-puzzle-maz...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codeulike....Exam
ple of a hard level:https://twitter.com/codeulikegames/status/91172
5658929291264some easier
ones:https://twitter.com/codeulikegames/status/890246328290332672
krisives - 2 hours ago
Hi everyone I make a product called DnsLearning it turns the
internet on and off based on progress made on supported sites.We
currently use PhantomJS to login to sites that don?t have API
support, which is all of them except Khan Academy.Are any of you
guys who run these sites interested in setting up an OAuth API? We
are glad to give some love and send users to sites that are
improving.Please respond or email me at kris@dnslearning.orgI feel
bad posting anything like this on HN but it?s not often this space
is on the front page and in general it?s not seen as a sexy enough
subject :(
jotux - 6 hours ago
I bought this book last year and found it really interesting with
respect to how children interact with math as their brain develops:
Math from Three to Seven [1]. There are a lot of little experiments
and games that teach kids basic concepts and show how specific
reasoning develops. I'm looking forward to doing some of them with
my son in a few years.[1]
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082186873X/ref=oh_aui_sear...
[deleted]
jrimclean - 7 hours ago
Natural deduction for propositional logic? Simple rules, real math.
There are lots of good problems of varying difficulty in Logic in
Computer Science by Huth and Ryan.Edit: Perhaps this doesn't
qualify as a game per se, but I think it might be a fun activity to
work through the proofs together.
Jtsummers - 6 hours ago
I don't see why that wouldn't be a game. As a kid (maybe not at
5, closer to 10?) my parents were giving me puzzle books that
included puzzles based on deductive reasoning.Clue is based on
this form of logic. Or that's how I played it at least.https://bo
ardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/1039/deductionMore games of
this form.
Findus23 - 6 hours ago
I haven't heard of set yet, but I have a wooden board game with a
quite similar premise. All pieces are laying around and two players
take terms putting them on a 4x4 grid. The first player to finish a
row with 4 pieces with the same feature (there are 5 with two
variants each) wins. I am normally quite bad at board games, but I
am winning this one nearly every time, as others always seem to
overlook one feature.
alexbeloi - 6 hours ago
I have this game too, it goes by the name
Quarto.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto_(board_game)
xydinesh - 4 hours ago
I've been playing IQ Twist with my 7 year old and 3 year old. It is
fun for all of us.https://www.amazon.com/SmartGames-SG-480-IQ-
Twist/dp/B004TGV...
StevePerkins - 5 hours ago
I imagine that a good portion of HN's readership (and probably
MathOverflow.com's) were intellectually gifted as children. Or at
the very least, remember themselves that way.I would therefore
caution people on two things: (1) your personal memories of early
childhood are often quite distorted, and (2) it's not fair to
impose upon a child today the expectations that come from your own
ego-distorted memory.This post caught my attention because I happen
to be the father of a 5-year old son, and I myself have been
searching for interesting mental exercises to share with him.It's
been an exercise for me as much as for him, teaching me about
patience and tempered expectations.Five years is YOUNG. A
generation ago, early childhood educators in the U.S. didn't even
typically introduce reading until age six. We start reading in
kindergarten now, but typical 5-year olds can generally be expected
to recognize repetitive words and basic arithmetic concepts (e.g. 1
+ 2 = 3). Even that is limited to short periods of study in each
sitting.Children may vary, but I believe that many of the
suggestions on that MathOverflow.com page (as well as comments here
about chess, etc) would be better suited for around 7-8 and up. I
think it would be unrealistic to expect the majority of 5-year olds
to handle much of this, and it would be a mistake to push too hard
at that age.
Swizec - 5 hours ago
> Five years is YOUNG. A generation ago, early childhood
educators in the U.S. didn't even typically introduce reading
until age six.We used to start reading in 1st grade when I was a
kid. That was 7 years old back then in my country. We learned
letters and stuff in kindergarten, but reading was the main task
of 1st grade.My parents decided I was pretty smart so they tried
to encourage me to learn how to read sooner than 7.I vehemently
opposed this idea and said that I'm not old enough yet to read
and that they should leave me alone and that I will read when
it's time to read. I was upset, I think, that people were pushing
me to do things beyond my age and it seemed somehow like that was
not what I want.Somehow I was a fluent reader on the first day of
1st grade. I suspect I actually knew how to read before but
refused to do it until I was the right age.I'm not sure what my
point was in sharing this story, but here we are.
khedoros1 - 4 hours ago
I started learning to read around 4 and was reading pretty well
before the end of kindergarten, basically because I had the
expectation that I could. First grade had a few tracks, based
on reading ability. Some wires got crossed, and I ended up in
the remedial class. The teacher wouldn't let me go, and the
principal supported the teacher. That year was hell.
philipov - 3 hours ago
I had a similar experience with remedial reading in 6th
grade. When we were asked to bring in self-chosen reading
material, I brought in "Complete Works of Shakespeare," as a
protest. Turned out my reading level was measured at grade
12+, but despite being off their scale, rules gotta be rules!
openfuture - 3 hours ago
I have the _exact_ same story. Parents thought I was reasonably
smart so while the school starts teaching reading at 6 or 7
years old they tried to have me learn it earlier but I was
extremely opposed to it since I didn't want to have nothing to
do in school (and I thought that was all you'd learn there -
which I guess is sort of true :^)
bdamm - 2 hours ago
That and what it means to have "protection".
fny - 4 hours ago
I think the bigger issue here is interest.I sure as hell would
never have enjoyed these games, except maybe Set, as a 5 year-
old. My attention span was fit for assembling legos and catching
lizards, and a few years later, I became interested in math and
programming. Not because my parents foisted them upon me: math
because math showed up in school, and I had questions that needed
answering; programming because my dad was building a website, and
I wanted one too. My siblings took very different paths as well
that were similarly organic.
wslh - 3 hours ago
I agree, a lot of interest in math/programming starts up
without a plan and without external pressure. Less when you are
a child.
mudita - 1 hours ago
An interesting case is famous educator L?szl? Polg?r, who
believed that "geniuses are made, not born" and raised his three
daughters to become very, very successful in chess with "two of
them becoming the best and second best women chess players in the
world" (Wikipedia). He did this especially by beginning to teach
them, when they were very young - four years old. "Judit was able
to defeat her father at chess when she was just five"Wikipedia
article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L?szl?_Polg?rAnother
discussion: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/30/hungarian-
education-iii...
jowalski - 3 hours ago
Great observation. There is more pressure on kids than in the
past. My daughter (1st grade now) was assigned homework every day
in kindergarten (age 5), at a regular public school in the US,
albeit a small amount and she didn't seem to be too bothered by
it. These do seem possibly above a 5-year-old's level, and
potentially a turn-off if they don't latch on quickly.However,
I'm actually impressed that the Math curriculum at schools today
is much less narrowly arithmetical, and much in the vein of some
of the puzzles mentioned here, in particular the "sets"
game.These games are good ideas, I will definitely try them, at
the same time if the kid just isn't into it, no need to give up
on them going to college. Let them try something else, or just go
outside and play.
ineptech - 2 minutes ago
If anyone wants to try Set out with their kids, I made a
free[0] Android version a while back. It's called Pipster[1]
and it uses dog/cat/rabbit pictures instead of abstract shapes.
"Beginner" difficulty is 3 dimensions (shape/color/number of
stripes) which is much more appropriate for young children;
"normal" and higher difficulties add color-of-stripes as the
fourth dimension, which is equivalent to the normal Set game.0:
no ads or anything, this was a "teach myself android" project
1: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bogus.trio
wvenable - 4 hours ago
My mother-in-law was a kindergarten teacher many many years ago
and she said it was typical to have to teach 5-6 year-olds the
names of colors, shapes, and to identify letters. Then Sesame
Street became widely available and the next generation of kids
already knew everything they would normally teach.
evincarofautumn - 1 hours ago
Fascinating, I wouldn?t have expected that. I?m sure it depends
on the family, too?my parents read with me from a young age,
and I liked it, so I learned quickly.In retrospect, 3 was a big
year for me, haha. I remember going from not being able to
read, to my parents finding out that I could read on my own
(when they discovered me reading aloud the opening of Legend of
Zelda for the NES) to reading proficiently by myself (thanks,
Dr. Seuss!)And at 4, I remember being very surprised when I
went to kindergarten, and some of the kids made me read things
for them because they couldn?t yet. I thought they must have
been joking or making fun of me at first, but it turns out my
parents are just great.
secabeen - 1 hours ago
It's not just the parents. Some kids just don't take to it.
My wife and I are both voracious readers, we read to our kids
every day, and our 7-year-old is just not that into reading
yet. On the other hand, her 4-year-old sister is picking it
up great, and is only a few steps behind her sister. Each
kid is different, and engaged parents are helpful, but
necessarily everything.
aidenn0 - 1 hours ago
Indeed, our 10 year old didn't start reading independently
until she was almost 9, but now goes through a book a week.
Our 4 year old and 6 year old are both at the point where
they can read common words, and sound out simple
phonetically spelled words (and we neglected reading enough
to our 4 year old because we had 3 older kids we were
dealing with), so the difference innate ability and
interest have is huge.
failrate - 4 hours ago
I don't have much respect for the school system's standards for
what age is appropriate to start teaching different subjects.
Children in my family start reading around 3. I consider reading
a power tool that bootstraps further learning. If I had waited
until school to start learning, I would have been held back in my
development for years.
akie - 2 hours ago
Children have wildly different capabilities. I've seen quite a
few who probably wouldn't be able to read at age three. As the
father of two highly intelligent kids myself (according to a
few unprompted remarks by a number of people), I don't see what
the rush is either. Kids are kids, let them play! They can be
serious the rest of their lives. If they are intelligent enough
to read at three they'll be fine anyway....
pervycreeper - 2 hours ago
The worst potential harm in exposing a child to stimulating
problems too early is that he could fail to become immediately
interested in them; the potential harm in failing to do so is
that he will never fulfill his maximum potential.
StevePerkins - 1 hours ago
"avip" nailed it already, better than I could.I'm just replying
to say that if your username is "pervycreeper", you might
reconsider whether to weigh in on exposing a child to
anything...
avip - 2 hours ago
No. The potential harm is experiencing failure, in the very
field she feels strongly is precious and important to her
beloved parents.The potential harm is having a kid less eager
to try new things because he's afraid of something.
ideonexus - 7 hours ago
I've been writing little one-page javascript pages to introduce my
four- and six-year-old to various mathematical concepts like
cardinality, place-value, sets, factors, equivalency, etc,
etc:http://ideonexus.github.io/Explorable-Explanations/The boys
love some of them (others not-so-much). Based on this article, I'm
getting lots of ideas for new ones to code. Most of the code is
original, but I try to be careful to give credit to anyone whose
code or ideas I build upon.
eliben - 6 hours ago
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
theoh - 3 hours ago
That's a good idea. On the topic of place value, I've been
wondering whether either of these concepts is suitable for
entertaining youngish
minds:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeckendorf%27s_theorem (leads
to a number
representation)https://oeis.org/wiki/Primorial_numeral_system
(could be base for applet game: represent a number in this
system)Or, also https://oeis.org/wiki/Factorial_numeral_system
dunham - 6 hours ago
The "Dragon Box" game on iOS is a fascinating way of presenting
"algebra" (isolating a variable in a linear equation). It starts
with a very abstract presentation of the rules (using cards with
monsters on them - gradually introducing the rules) and
eventually subs in letters and numbers. I suspect it might also
be useful for adults who've had anxiety and poor success with
more formal approaches.It's a progressive game, where you have to
complete a puzzle to get access to the next one. One thing that
was surprisingly effective at motivating my four year old boy
(almost five) was that they change the appearance of a cartoon
monster at the end of each puzzle (or every 2-3 puzzles). He kept
wanting to do the next puzzle to see how it changed.
kej - 4 hours ago
As a footnote to your comment, the Dragon Box game is available
on Android as well, and there are actually a series of games
for different age groups and different skills.
MirandaJanell - 6 hours ago
The ones I tested have really good content and work well on
mobile. Our 5 year old has been begging us to play with "her
phone," so I'll be sharing these with my partner. Thanks for
sharing these, they're fantastic!
ideonexus - 5 hours ago
Thanks! I struggle to make them mobile-friendly since younger
children have a hard time with using the mouse and touchscreens
are much more accessible for them. I keep learning a lot of CSS
on the way, but it's really not my specialty. I would love for
someone with CSS skills to rework my mess.
mkl - 24 minutes ago
Looks interesting. You have a typo on the main page:
"Mathmatics".
skissane - 1 hours ago
Your "Pattern Blocks" game isn't working for me, or is it that I
don't know how to use it??? I drag the shapes to the grid and
none of them want to stay...
mkl - 23 minutes ago
I tried that first too. You have to just click the shape, and
it appears.
rmetzler - 3 hours ago
Oh, very nice.I earned my first money programming little games
which looked like the coordinate one.I always dream about
recreating something like this, but keep deferring it. I should
kick myself in the butt and deliver.
r_klancer - 6 hours ago
This is excellent. I've been meaning to do something similar for
my five year old. As always the hard part is finding the time to
get started. This will get us started.(It was easier back when
building this stuff was my day job! --
http://mw.concord.org/nextgen/)
jpfed - 5 hours ago
The word families page is great! I'll have to sit my daughter
down with it today.I should probably bite the bullet and get
comfortable enough with javascript to take your approach. Here
are some pico-8 demos I made with similar ideas:https://www.lexal
offle.com/bbs/?tid=3846https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3259ht
tps://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=3136
rmetzler - 3 hours ago
In the Factors Demo, could you change the degree when you paint
the next star? Maybe even change the degree between the factors
the same as the first one. I think that might look a little
nicer.
eru - 6 hours ago
For a slightly older audience, https://www.redblobgames.com/ has
awesome interactive explanations.(But I'd say you probably want
to be at least around 12 years old and interested in programming
games to seriously benefit from them.)
agentultra - 2 hours ago
A surprising series of computer games that you might not even
recognize are based on algebra (at first): http://dragonbox.comI
play games mostly of pattern recognition; repeating tiles, shape
combinations (sets), etc. I mostly let the little ones drive and
don't expect anymore than 20 minutes of focus.What I'm paranoid
about is the focus on literacy in schools and how formulaic and
uninteresting maths can be. I'm hoping my kids won't be turned off
of a beautiful subject just because they're taught in a rote manner
to recall formulas and equations.
disconnected - 7 hours ago
Not strictly mathematical, and maybe not exactly 5 year old
difficulty (some of these are HARD) but here
goes:https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/There's
an Android version of these puzzles and Linux packages (usually
called "sgt-puzzles" or something similar). Apparently (I just
found this out) they also work on the browser, which is pretty
cool.
msoucy - 6 hours ago
I gave these to the high school kids that I mentor Robotics for -
they each seemed to find different puzzles that they liked, so I
consider that a win. These are the same kids who had fun learning
binary search as a way to always win "high-low" guessing games,
so they were already interested in logic.My personal favorite
from Tatham's puzzles is Net - I have it on my phone, with 15x15
wrapping being a nice way to relax and spend some time.
zellyn - 4 hours ago
I have doodled away many hours on Net and Pearl :-)
ccvannorman - 2 hours ago
If your child is 8+, I would recommend trying out my game,
SuperMathWorld.com (or for ipad: Mathbreakers.com)
mdturnerphys - 7 hours ago
This one is huge among the kids here in NE Seattle:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks_(hand_game)The roll-over
and splitting variations are standard here, which makes the game
more interesting.
eru - 6 hours ago
I've only ever seen it as a drinking game in Singapore.