Lazy Man and Money

Welcome to the Summer of Math

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It’s been a strange year. On one hand, it feels crazy that it is already June. One the other hand, it seemed like a really long winter. Maybe that’s because we (in New England at least) skipped spring completely.

Teaching Kids Math

I don’t want to rush the year on too quickly, but for us summer is here. Our kids graduate their preschool classes on Monday and Tuesday, about two weeks before most other schools end their year and summer camps begin.

I’ve got a bit of Tiger Dad in me, so I’ll be picking up where the teachers left off. It won’t be too bad though because the kids have camp scheduled. We also have a lot of other fun activities planned.

My first academic love was always math. So far it looks like I didn’t pass the math gene on. It’s far too early to tell as pre-school math is mostly about counting and not much else. It can’t hurt to tilt their exposure towards experiences that focus on math.

I’m sure you are just dying to read about pre-school math curriculum. Hmmm, maybe you are not. While this may be a better fit for a parenting blog, let’s not forget that math is the foundation for personal finance. It’s not like this is a completely crazy topic for a personal finance blog.

Once we have a firm grasp at math the Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire’s Club Cartoon will make more sense. Bet you didn’t know that Warrent Buffet had a children’s cartoon about entrepreneurialism.

Teaching Your Preschooler Math

I don’t have a degree in education. I’m not known for my patience. I should be a horrible teacher. Maybe I am, but for whatever reasons my kids seem to get it. I’ve got a small sample size with similar genes, so this may not work for you.

Math is a very broad subject. For the 4-5 age group that I’m targeting, the focus is mostly on adding and subtracting. I’m throwing in fractions, because the concept of slicing a pizza is something that I think they can get. I’m also going to try to develop multiplication because… well… #TigerDad.

There are a lot of different ways to learn. I’m hoping by mixing a few different approaches, we’ll keep things fresh. I might as well start with possibly the most controversial…

Shock Therapy

… just kidding.

Learning Math Through Videos

Before I get to the good stuff, I should tell you that I’m linking mostly to Amazon versions of products. I will make a small commission if you buy product. However, you shouldn’t forget that your library can save you hundreds of dollars.

I get that kids are glued to their tablets nowadays. When I was growing up, it was controversial for kids to be glued to the “boob tube” (a.k.a. television). There is a lot of research that says that limiting screen time is for the best. I agree with that. However, research seems to show that tablets can be good and the same is true for television. The key is focusing on the quality of what is being presented. By the very nature of what I’m trying to teach, it’s going to be high-quality by almost any standard.

I’m going to start off with a few videos. These are short movies and something that be treated as a bit of a one-off.

  • Donald in Mathmagic Land

    Growing up I somehow missed this Academy Award-nominated film from 1959. I happened to find it on YouTube (not sure legally) and it was amazing. I think it’s exactly the movie to spark a child’s interest in math. It seems to cover everything, but I particularly like the focus on math in nature and music.

  • Flatland and Flatland 2

    I’ve never seen these, but they sounded extremely familiar to me. The original gets rave reviews. Some say that their high school class love it and others say that their 5 and 6 year old love it. My kids are doing well with basic geometry (flat and 3D shapes), but there’s always room to learn a little more.

  • School House Rock Multiplication

    I found this gem at my local library. It turns out that kids nowadays love School House Rock as much as I did. This focuses on multiplication tables taught through song. The interactive quiz part of the DVD was a great feature. My kids got every question wrong, but it was to be expected.

  • Older Kid Videos

    My kids are probably a few years away from some videos I found. However, rather than just move on, I’m include them here so I can research them in a few years. (This is another thing I love about blogging, looking back old ideas.) Let me know if you’ve seen or read anything good about Nova – The Great Math Mystery, The Science of Measurement, or The Story of Math

Learning Math Through Books

I’m still researching this area, but in the meantime I found a great series of math fiction books, Sir Cumference. These are fictional stories of knights and dragons with math spread throughout.

We’re still on our first book, Sir Cumference and the First Round Table and the results so far are mixed. I thought it was a great book, but they weren’t as interested as they are for other stories. Maybe I picked a bad night to read it? Maybe it is a year above their level.

I usually read to the kids before bed, so my hope was to get some mathy dreams percolating. We usually do two books a night depending on size). This is longer than most books we read, so I’m hoping we can stick with this series for awhile.

There are also a number of great workbooks at our local Dollar Tree. However, this is a different kind of book than what I was originally thinking about with this section.

Learning Math Through Games

This was really the inspiration for the whole article. It seems there are so many tremendous board games out there for kids to learn math. I want to have game night a few times a week. We have to see how the summer scheduling goes with the wife’s work, camp, and night events like sunset concerts and baseball games.

I found a pile of sneaky ways for a Tiger Dad like myself to slip math into their brains. I’ve been trolling Amazon for discounts and cheap prices on all of the following:

  • No Stress Chess
    This isn’t strictly a math game, but I had to include this timeless classic. This version comes with cards and players draw a card to tell them which piece they can move. My 5 year old is getting pretty good and see a move ahead now. My 4 year old beat me a couple weeks ago with a series of great cards. Once everyone is comfortable with how all the pieces move, we can graduate to the real game.
  • Sum Swamp
    This seems like the gold standard in math learning games. I bought it a couple of weeks ago with the idea of it being a school graduation gift. I have to talk with my wife about that, because we are trying to pare down the excessive number of toys that have invaded our home. It seems just about the right age (5-6) to teach just the right skills (adding and subtracting).
  • Math Dice Jr.
    Portable, easy to learn, award-winning, and priced under $7. It might be a stretch for our 4-year old, but I think he can grow into it. This toy is in our waiting room downstairs as the current sale price made me jump on it.
  • I Sea 10!
    Go fishing for combinations of numbers adding to 10. It’s another 6+ game, but I think we can work it in this summer. Since I already have Sum Swamp and Dice Jr. waiting, I’ll see how those go first.
  • Clumsy Thief
    “The Crazy, Fast-Paced, Money Game”?!?! Now we are talking. However, with an 8+ rating, we’ll probably wait on this until next year, maybe even next Christmas when our 4 year old is closer to 6.
  • Fraction Tower
    This looks like a fun physical way to learn fractions, decimals, and percentages. It’s not really a game, but I’m sure I could make it into one somehow. I like the idea that kids can physically see and feel that 1/2, 50%, and 0.5 is the same thing. I’ve been waiting for the price of this to get back towards its historical $12 level, but it seems to be pinned in the $15-range.
  • Pop For Addition & Subtraction
    This seems a little like I Sea 10, but without trying to make the combinations of 10. I could see setting up a reward system for correct answers. It looks like it would travel well to use while waiting for the food at restaurants and things like that. I haven’t seen the price budget from $9.99 in awhile.
  • Wrap-ups Multiplication Keys
    I really don’t understand how this works at all, but a ton of reviews says they are great and there aren’t a lot of multiplication tools out there. I like the tactile aspect to this and it certainly seems like something that could work on a road trip. I suspect that kids will get bored of this quickly though. I’m watching this for a good price and we can probably wait a year or more. There are Addition keys as well, which would be more appropriate.
  • Lake Shore Multiplication Machine
    I don’t know if most kids would find this very fun, but I think my kids would for at least a little while. It’s better for older kids (again multiplication), but I think my oldest could probably start it.

Learning Math Through Television

I covered videos above, but there are a lot of television shows that cover math concepts. My kids are already watching a lot of them. I have personally watched many episodes and highly recommend:

  • Peg + Cat
  • CyberChase
  • Monster Math Squad (used to be on Netflix, but no longer, so I bought it)
  • Team Umizoomi

I’d like to call out CyberChase, it’s very much “under the radar” because it is an older show (though they still make several new episodes each year). I think it’s on PBS once a week. I ended up signing up for PBS Kids on Amazon for access to that and a bunch of other shows. I hope PBS gets the vast bulk of that money, because supporting PBS is something I believe in.

Learning Math Through Apps/Websites

I haven’t scratched the surface on using apps to learn math yet. I certainly should. I’d love to hear your suggestions.

We have a subscription to ABC Mouse and it works well with our new Amazon Fire HD 10.

If I find I need more, this list from Common Sense Media. They have another great list of apps and websites here

Final Thoughts and Your Turn

As you can tell there are nearly infinite resources out there in just about every fun way you could imagine. I wrote the bare minimum about a few of them and I still feel like this is the longest article ever. After all this typing, it feels like we’ll be spending 90% of our time on math, but that’s not the case.

Now it’s your turn to give your thoughts. Feel free to rave about a mathy resource, rant about the lack of personal finance focus in this post, or anything in between.

Makeshift Homeschooling on the Cheap

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I apologize for the tumbleweeds on this website this week. I was hit with a perfect storm of pre-school ending for the 4 year old, my wife traveling, and the legal stuff that resulted from the time my wife and I walked into our Home Depot.

I’m not sure why our school seemed to end two weeks earlier than everyone else’s, but it left all the parents in the school scrambling for childcare. Camp doesn’t start up for another two weeks when the rest of the kids get out of school.

I decided to put together a “home school.” I put that in quotes, because it’s an embarrassment to those who really home school their children. I spent about 2 minutes on scratching out ideas on my Boogie Board. I didn’t have time to research a curriculum. I started with some things that I already around the house and went from there. Here’s what I came up with:

Note: While I was making this list, I was surprised at all the stuff we have here. While most of it was cheap stuff, I was surprised that we had all this to cobble together a curriculum. In fairness, many of the items were gifts.

  • Reading

    • For reading I turned to Biscuit Phonics Fun (My First I Can Read). The 5-star Amazon reviews should speak for themselves. My son was able to sound out many of the small words. This is definitely the one to buy. I also bought the Batman one because my kids like Batman. Unfortunately, it’s much to difficult for them right now. I end up doing most of the reading myself, which they enjoy, but it’s not a “I Can Read” situation.

    I also picked up a book at a Dollar Tree that’s designed for 1st and 2nd graders. It’s far ahead of what my 4 year old can do, but if I read the passage he can answer some of the questions at the end. He loves solving the puzzles.

  • Writing

    • There was another book at the Dollar Tree that focused on writing. We got through capital A, lowercase a, and capital B, before he decided that he was not good at it and gave up. I don’t know how to push it without discouraging him from learning, so we moved on.

  • Math

    • We did a little Monkey Math, which is a fun game. I can thank a grandmother for that wonderful Christmas present.

  • Music

    • I tried to get my son interested in playing real music on our Melissa and Doug Piano, but that went about as well as the writing did.

  • Geography

    • We broke out this Map of the US Puzzle. My son loves puzzles, so why not learn the United States at the same time?

  • Physical Education

    • We broke out my son’s bike and went on a couple of trips around the cul-de-sac (with training wheels). My son also had a gymnastics class. We took in a local baseball game one night where we watched possibly zero baseball. His friends happened to be there so he got to play with them.

  • Nature

    • I don’t know if this counts as “nature”, but a kid can’t be inside all day playing with toys. Unfortunately much of the week was rainy. When the weather got a little better we took our dog to the dog park and practiced throwing with our Chuck-Its. We had just got these. Our dog doesn’t fetch, but since we do a lot of dog sitting, they are a necessary business expense. This was a win-win as my dog needed the exercise and interaction outside of the house too.

  • Computer Science

    • I was only positive about getting one toy this past Christmas. It was the Code-a-Pillar. This is sneaky computer science for a 4 year old. My 3 year old loves it too.

With the exception of the bike, I think all this stuff comes in at less than $150 total. The piano and Code-a-Pillar are around $85, but the rest is $10-$15 here or there. The goal wasn’t to buy the cheapest stuff to do the job, but I think in many cases we accomplished just that.

My son does enjoy watching television quite a bit. I mixed some television in between some of these activities. We avoided SpongeBob Squarepants which is like the soda of food – empty learning. Instead we watched Blaze (STEM), Team Umizoomi (Math), Super Why (Reading), and Salsa (Spanish).

Overall, we made the best of a less-than-ideal situation and had a lot of fun. The downside was that I didn’t get to write much about personal finance this week. I was pretty happy to recycle some items around the house into a curriculum… and at least one article about personal finance.

The Best Educational Streaming Shows for Preschoolers

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When my first son was born more than 3 years ago, I made it a point to not make this a parenting blog. While children change everything when it comes to money (and I’m happy to write about that), I simply didn’t want to give parenting tips. That’s not my strong suit anyway.

Over time, I’ve found myself, looking for more educational television for my 2 and 3 year old. I know some parents don’t believe in television for children, but I’m equal-opportunity when it comes to all learning formats. There’s a time and a place for books, television, tablets, and good old crayons and paper to teach letters, numbers, shapes… even foreign languages.

There was a time when parents had to accept whatever was on PBS at the time or buy VHS or DVDs of what they like. Fortunately, today we have on-demand, streaming media. Our Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions provide a ton of options at a great value.

I tried to find lists of the best educational shows online and couldn’t find any that I’d consider complete. Almost all of them get the obvious Daniel Tiger, but there are so many hidden gems. This list is going to focus on Netflix, because that’s where the majority of the best shows are. However, I’m going to slip in a couple of Amazon series that I think are top-notch as well.

I’d also like to add that Common Sense Media is excellent and often my first stop to read about a show. There’s almost too much information on the website that it is hard to best stuff. Admittedly, this is (obviously) one man’s opinion and shouldn’t be a substitute for the great work Common Sense Media does.

  • Animal Mechanicals – The focus is on 5 mythical animals living in a fantastic mechanical world. They solve very basic physic problems by working together and using their unique abilities (strength, stretching, flying, gizmos, and speed). Each of the characters have their own distinct personalities. My sons and I ended up loving this so much that we bought the DVD because it had episodes that weren’t on Netflix.
  • Super Why! – This is one of the only shows I’ve found to focus on reading. You can find shows on letters, but this really brings the whole words and reading to life. This isn’t exactly a hidden gem as it is still being regularly run on PBS.
  • Monster Math Squad – I found this simply by searching Netflix for “Math.” What a hidden gem! The monsters appear to be knock-offs of Pixar’s Monsters Inc., but I don’t care. These monsters teach math concepts! And when I was looking around to write up this article, I found there’s even an extensive teacher’s resource guideline online.
  • Special Agent Oso – The episodes are cleverly titled after Bond movies (but kid themed). The special agent bear teaches basic tasks in “3 simple steps.” I’m not sure my 3-year old is ready to mail a letter yet, but it was helpful for learning to brush teeth. Sadly, there’s Spanish as the Oso name may indicate.
  • LeapFrog (with LionsGate) – LeapFrog is known for its education material. The DVDs it produced a few years back are no exception. They are focused on letters, numbers, shapes, but extend to some math like simple adding and subtracting. I’m a big believer in STEM, so the math is a welcome addition.
  • Curious George – The majority of what you’ll find are the television shows. They are great, but it’s hard to pin down what they are really aiming to teach from a skill point-of-view. I’d say they teach life… if you happen to be a monkey where everything always comes up roses at the end. There’s a lot of problem solving and discovery which is priceless.

    The real gem is the original movie with Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore with music by Jack Johnson. For a kids movie, there’s a lot of entertainment for adults. They let Ferrell improv, his strength, and drew the movie to match it. It isn’t just his voice. Drew Barrymore is a voice of reason with the appropriate amount of Jessica Rabbit mixed in. (Was that too much information?) When I’m pulling apart pyramid schemes, I’m singing Upside Down and Talk of the Town. This is a top recommendation even if it doesn’t entirely focus on learning.

Amazon Prime Shows

Amazon Prime has some great shows as well. Many people have a Prime subscription for free shipping, so these come at no additional cost. As a extra bonus you can download them to Amazon Fire tablets and take them with you. (… Or so I am told. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m going to look into it today.)

  • Go, Diego, Go! – I went looking for this because I wanted to introduce the kids to Spanish. They are much more interested in rescuing animals, but we’ve learned a little Spanish while watching it. Besides counting to ten, they can speak about 5-10 other words. If nothing else, Rescue Pack is 100x better than Dora’s lame Backpack.
  • Tumble Leaf – This Amazon exclusive is almost entertaining enough for parents to watch. The animation is incredible. The main character Fig the Fox, finds a new item each episode and figures out how to use it. The item could be a mirror for reflecting light, a flashlight for creating shadows, or a sponge for soaking up water. There’s a reason why it has won 5 daytime Emmys.
  • Peg + Cat – Another math show… but unfortunately I like this more than my kids. Maybe they aren’t old enough for the math concepts. At least once a week, I break an imaginary ukulele and sing this:

  • Fat Albert – I hesitated 5 times to include this for the obvious “Bill Cosby” reasons. It isn’t the best fit for my age 2 and 3 year olds, but I’m including it anyway. Learning/Morals + anti-consumerism + racial diversity = win. It’s hard to find this kind show elsewhere.

How do you feel about educational television? What are some of the favorite shows you and your toddlers have enjoyed? Let me know in the comments.

Lazy Man’s “Guide” to Black Friday

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It seems like there’s an important holiday coming up this week. If you watched any television you can’t miss the commercials for Black Friday. Car dealerships around me are having Black Friday sales for 10 days. That doesn’t even make sense.

I’ve noticed that many of the retailers are starting their Black Friday deals the Thursday before. And why not? It’s not like we have anything better to do that day. And we all know that if you want to participate in the deals you have to be present when the deals start.

So my “guide” to Black Friday is simple this… skip it. Is it really worth camping out for hours in the cold for a chance at saving $50 or $100? For me it isn’t. Is it worth getting trampled in the mad rush to grab a deal? Again no. Last year a family near me got in a car accident and two people died. The sleep-deprived driver fell asleep on the way home from Black Friday.

We are losing Thanksgiving. We may have already lost it.

It’s not just Black Friday killing Thanksgiving. As I write this, two days before Thanksgiving, I’m watching Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Why, my 1 year old seems to enjoy it? Days ago, some of the local radio stations changed their format to 24-7 Christmas music. My neighbor was putting up his Christmas decorations this afternoon.

Why on Earth would we do anything trivialize one of the best holidays of the year? Are we in that much of a rush for the holiday season that we need to skip over parades with amazing floats, turkey, stuffing, gravy, and copious amounts of football? I don’t know about you, but I want to spend that time with family. I want to take some time and actually give thanks for all the wonderful things I have. I don’t want to spend that time thinking about how I have to get in line to get the latest tablet.

If you’ve read all this and are still going to participate in Black Friday, I can’t stop you. So I might as well you give you the one deal that I would take advantage of if I was going to participate. Wal-Mart has a one-hour in-stock guarantee on 20 items. The best bargain I can see is the 60″ Vizio LED Smart HDTV that has very good reviews at Amazon. At $688, it’s a much better deal than the nearly $1000 that Amazon is charging today. Most importantly, you are guaranteed to get it. Some might be enticed by the iPad Mini with the $100 Wal-Mart gift card for $299, but I’m not. It looks like last year’s model, and the gift card brings it in the price range of this year’s Nexus 7, which is faster with much better screen resolution. (I probably should have said that, because I’d like to spend my Friday looking into how to sell shares of Apple I bought awhile back for big gains.) The 32″ television for $98 looks like a steal for a bedroom or dormroom, even though it is 720P. At that price, I’m okay with the television thinking it’s 2006.

You might find better deals elsewhere, but I prefer not to gamble when Wal-Mart is giving me a guarantee. I want to vote with my wallet to support this type of promotion, even if the retailer itself is one that is infringing on Thanksgiving.

It’s (Going to Be) Another Boy!

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It wasn’t long ago that I became a dad (father just seems to formal). It’s happening all over again. It’s not exactly the standard definition of Irish twins, but they are close enough… and happen to have enough Irish in them from both my wife and I.

Let’s get to the money though shall we? This isn’t Lazy Man and Parenting. The USDA has a good Cost of raising a Child Calculator and the cost of raising Little Man was going to be about $29,250 per year. According to the calculator, having two kids is going to push it to $46,800 per year. While the calculator

The big components of that is child care and housing. Let me cover each and compare our situation with the averages:

Housing (Calculator estimate of $17,200)

We don’t intend to buy a bigger house. As they are both boys, they can share a room for a while. In fact, I think my brother and I shared a room until he went to college. At some point, we’ll sacrifice the guest room.

That’s not to say that we won’t buy a bigger house at some point. We all know plans change and 1800 square feet might be a little small for two big boys when we can afford a bigger place. However, if we did buy a bigger house, that isn’t exactly money down the drain. There’s value in the equity of the house. It might even lead to making us money if we downsize later on in life.

What I’m intentionally leaving out here is the wear and tear on a home with two boys.

Child Care and Education (Calculator estimate of $12,560)

The calculator’s child care costs are almost exactly what we’d pay in the first year. This is surprising because in comparing it with friends using our military status is a huge savings. When I looked into it in Silicon Valley, which didn’t have the military savings, it was closer to $22,000 per year per child. Maybe the USDA calculator assumes an early high cost with it decreasing when they get to school age. If that’s the case, it makes sense as we’ll be see those same reduced costs bringing our annual average cost down.

Transportation (Calculator estimate of $5,120)

This is going to be an interesting one for us. We’ll need to get a bigger car bring the kids around. We bought a Subaru Forrester when the first kid arrived. We have a small SUV with 125,000 miles on it. We were getting ready to move on from it anyway, so it could almost be looked at as a marginal increased cost… just buying a different type of car. Of course that bigger car will cost us more money in gas, which fits under the transportation umbrella.

Now what that car might be is a whole different article.

Food (Calculator estimate of $4,040)

Not much to say about the cost of food. We can save a little money on formula buying through the military commissary, Wal-Mart, or stacking CVS coupons (a game my wife likes to play). We’ll also breast-feed, but that transfers the food costs to what my wife eats (darn law of law of conservation of energy).

The Savings is in Sharing

Having another boy, especially one so close in age, seems like it is going to save us some money. The first thought is that we’ll be able to recycle all the clothes from Little Man. That’s an immediate savings. The cloth diapers that we invested in with Little Man really start to pay off on the second baby, so that’s a bonus.

For some time, we’ll be able to reuse the same toys. Even better, we’ll avoid buying all that American Girl Crap. I’m sure at some point, they’ll develop their own tastes. Until then, it’s going to be a savings to have them share the same Thomas the Tank Engine toys.

Just like when Little Man arrived, there’s going to be a lot of changes. I’d be lying if I said that I know how it’s all going to play out. Like most things, you anticipate the best you can and then make the appropriate adjustments as new information comes in.

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