The "9 plus trick"

The "9 plus trick" is the last of the lessons presented by Professor Pig. All though Ellen has provided a few other activities to help learn this concept we primarily spent time playing the tricks and treats game.

Each player has his own game board. On each of the circles I placed a treat which they earn as they roll the dodecahedron and find a solution that makes nine on the game board. So each player takes a turn rolling the dodecahedron, they read the addition problem on the bottom side, say the problem is 7 + __ =12? The answer is 5, the player then finds a loose 5 card in the middle of the table and looks to see if when he adds that five to any of the white spaces that when the outer nmber suntracts that 5 from itself it will equal 9. On this card 5 will not work. The outer numbers are icked at random by each player.

We have had so much fun with Professor Pig. If you have not tried these fun, FREE lessons consider what Ellen says on her website:

Professor Pig's Magic Math is all about thinking like a mathematician. People who are good at math don't just memorize facts! They understand numbers and they see number patterns everywhere. Professor Pig begins by teaching his students the "magic numbers": the numbers that add up to 10. Using these five facts as a base, student are taught to see patterns that will allow them to easily add facts like 8+3 and 7+5, without any memorization. Stacks of many numbers are easily added using these number patterns.

Professor Pig uses oodles of games and activities to review and practice. No boring worksheets! When there is a worksheet, specific instructions are given as how to attack it.

If your student balks at traditional workbooks, I HIGHLY recommend trying Professor Pig's Magic Math.

Now we are moving onto learning how to use a Japanese abacus and double digit addition.

Ta ta for now!