I’m working on a $0 budget for Christmas this year. And now that I’m in the wrapping phase, I’m noticing some missing checkboxes on my list.
So my big question this morning was, “How do I stay at $0 — but still give something they’ll love?”
Make something cool!
My abilities redefine crafty. Well, they defy crafty anyway.
I remembered seeing this number puzzle in a textbook a few weeks ago:
I dissected it and came up with a formula for recreating the number puzzle using any numbers I wanted.
And I figured out how to make it so the end result would be anything — not just the number you picked at the beginning.
Personalized number puzzles as gifts!
So I’m taking each person’s “special number” and creating a number puzzle out of it. For some, that’s their birth year. For others it will be their favorite number or last four digits of their phone number.
And I’m making them into a pretty little gift sheet:
You can do it too.
I’ve put all this neatly in a spreadsheet so you can put in your own numbers — and make a number puzzle gift for your cherished math people!
Billed as “Your Child’s First Game,” this helps the little ones understand game play. Non-competitive, but fun. All activities are marked on the cards with pictures as well as words, so they are easily deciphered by the non-readers of the family.
Moving pawns or putting up fences. Deceptively simple. Ridiculously challenging after you and a friend have played 5 times. Which will your strategy be?
Ages: Ages 8 and up Players: 2 to 4 Review: Coming soon! Cost: $29.95 on Amazon
Helps children build equations and do advanced math using the basic operators. Players place their tiles in crossword fashion either horizontally or vertically to create valid equations.
Playing Rush Hour helps build sequential thinking, reasoning and planning skills. Challenges range from beginner to expert, so everyone in the family will enjoy it! Rush Hour can be played at home or on-the-go — perfect for on road trips, airplane rides or physician waiting rooms.
These tactile, colorful translucent Magna-Tiles stick to each other for fun 3D exploration or practicing basic shapes and colors. Magna-Tiles develops patterning, shape recognition, building and motor skills. They store nicely on the refrigerator too!
Complete the colorful animal pictures with geometric shapes. The 47 geometric shapes come in a rainbow of bright colors, and can also be used outside of the boards for counting, sorting and original designs. Great for developing shape and color recognition, fine motor skills and language skills!
Exotic, beautiful, and instructive, this “mathematical folktale” by author-illustrator Demi emerged from her love of India. This retelling of the classing “doubling” story is about Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days.
This special counting book visually explores the concepts of factoring and the role of prime and composite numbers. The playful and colorful monsters are designed to give children (and even older audiences) an intuitive understanding of the building blocks of numbers and the basics of multiplication.
