How Can I Help My Children Develop Their Multiple Intelligences?
Activities – LogicalMathematical Intelligence
Today’s post covers logical-mathematical intelligence and offers various activities designed
to develop children’s multiple intelligences.
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence – Defined
Logical-mathematical intelligence is the biological computational capacity that relates
to reasoning, logic and abstract thinking. Children who favor a logical-mathematical
intelligence will tend to be quite skilled with numbers and numerical concepts, drawn to
problems of logical complexity and scientific reasoning.
To be clear, the fact that a child may exhibit a tendency towards one particular intelligence is
not to say that they don’t exercise other intelligences. Nor does this mean that only those
kinds of individuals that are “mathematical” have logical-mathematical intelligence.
Rather, we all have the ability to engage our various intelligences in different ways and
under varying circumstances. What matters is that we expose ourselves to opportunities
that will allow us to develop our different intelligences and that we are mindful of the way in
which we (and our children) process the diverse information which we encounter throughout
our day.
With that in mind, the following list offers various tasks and activities designed to help
children develop their logical-mathematical intelligence.
Activities
The activities are presented in levels of increasing complexity. These levels are in no way
related to a child’s age or grade level. Rather, in light of the fact that each child has a unique
intelligence profile, these activities allow children to start at whatever level they prefer and to
continue feeling engaged and motivated in this learning experience as they advance to the
more challenging levels. Also, in addition to logical-mathematical intelligence, many of these
activities also help develop other intelligences. In those instances, I have identified the
relevant intelligences using the MI code outlined here.
Please note that this list is neither absolutely comprehensive nor is it intended to be used as a
checklist of performance. These are simply suggestions to help stimulate the development of
your child’s intelligence. With that in mind, I welcome feedback and additional suggestions.
LEVEL 1
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Record stories told to you by someone else and use your notes as a basis for a story.
Identify the key elements and create an outline of the story. [L.I.]
Collect a variety of leaves and classify them in five different ways. [N.I.]
Practice adding, subtracting and dividing using raisins, buttons or other objects.
LEVEL 2
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Make a puzzle. [S.I.]
Create a maze or crossword puzzle for a friend. [S.I.]
Listen to patterns in music. [M.I.]
Gather random assortments of items from your house and arrange them in a pattern.
Then sort or categorize them in different ways. Chart the results and explain them
with a friend. [S.I.][Ie.I.]
Measure different things with your various body parts. Compare the lengths of
different items in your house. [BK.I.]
Predict the ending of a book you are reading. [L.I.]
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Map out the main ideas and sub-points of each idea from a book you are reading.
Think of a new story and map out the main ideas and sub-points of each main idea for
your new story. [L.I.]
Create new riddles and share them with your friends. [L.I.]
Write directions for completing a task and then give them to someone else. Discuss
how effective the directions were in helping the other person complete the tasks.
[L.I.][Ie.I.]
Think of a problem you are currently facing and illustrate a machine that you would
create to help you solve the problem. [S.I.]
Create patterned number sequences and have someone else identify the pattern. Try
creating patterns with shapes or words as well. [L.I.][S.I.]
LEVEL 3
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Create a secret code and write it down in a code key format. Write letters using your
code key. Share your code key with someone else and see if they can decipher your
message. [L.I.][S.I.][Ie.I.]
Choose one of your favorite books and write the next episode or continuation of the
story. [L.I.]
Pick a topic to discuss and find arguments to support both sides. Have a debate with
someone else. Give each other feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of the
arguments. [L.I.][Ie.I.]
Find examples of history “repeating itself” or think of a time when the same mistake
has been made multiple times. Reflect upon why this is and how those mistakes could
have been avoided. [Ia.I.]
Follow a recipe to make a cake from scratch. Illustrate the recipe. [L.I.][S.I.][BK.I.]
Create a dance using ten different dance steps. Teach the dance to a friend.
[BK.I.][Ie.I.]
Create a “paint by numbers” picture for someone else to color. [S.I.]
Make a calendar and keep track of important events. [L.I.][S.I.]
Take a walk and notice patterns in nature. [N.I.]
Developing Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
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Activities – Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
The Animal Game and other ways of stimulating intelligence
Multiple Intelligence Games
Yesterday I started a discussion multiple intelligences. My objective is to spent some
time covering different techniques that we can employ as parents to help stimulate our
children’s different intelligences. This brought to mind one of the first posts I wrote
so I am bringing it back today as I think it is very relevant to this topic. The post is
about certain games we play with our kids. What I like about these games is that not
only do they provide countless hours of entertainment for relatively long periods of
time but they also help develop children’s intelligence in different ways.
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The first and family favorite is the Animal Game (which has any number of
variations, as you’ll see below). The Animal Game is quite simple, it consists of
thinking of an animal and then giving the other people clues to describe it. The person
that guesses it right gets to go next. Our daughter’s favorite: “I am pink, I live in a
farm and I go ‘oink oink.’” This isn’t rocket science but you’d be surprised how long
the kids wi’ll play this game. The Animal Game can really be anything (including, the
Anything Game). Some popular variations: the Food Game (a personal favorite
delivered courtesy of the six-year old: “I am yellow, shaped like a square, and I live in
a sandwich”), the Princess Game, the Dinosaur Game, the Holiday Game, the Objects
that Fly Game… you get the idea. This is a great exercise to help children develop
their linguistic, visual, logical-mathematical and naturalist intelligences.
Guess Who is a game that involves guessing the person you are speaking about based
on their relationship to other individuals. For instance: “Who is my father’s sister’s
mother’s granddaughter’s granddaughter?” This can be as complicated or as simple as
you need it to be (our three-year old loves this game). It is a great game to help
develop linguistic, musical, and logical-mathematical intelligences.
We are also fond of playing Math Games with our kids. They generally involve
raisins or mini chocolate chips, Legos, etc. The purpose of these games is really to
offer visuals to help explain mathematical concepts such as division, multiplication,
addition, subtraction. We’ll have the kids count out a certain amount of raisins and
then divide them into various piles, add or take away from the piles, etc. So, for
example, with the three-year old I might have her count out ten raisins and divide
them into 5 piles. When she thinks she’s finished, we’ll talk about whether the piles
all look as if they have the same number of raisins, then we’ll count them to confirm.
To the extent they are not the same, we’ll talk about what needs to happen for them to
be even. Eventually she’ll get there and then we can talk about what division means.
Or, we might just do addition: 1 raisin + 1 raisin = 2, 2+1, etc…. or subtraction, you
have a pile of 5 raisins and you eat 1, how many are left? Then we verbalize 5-1 = 4.
With the six-year old we do a bit more advanced work, for example, we use each
raisin as a base 10 or do more complicated division/multiplication problems. This is a
great game to help children develop their linguistic, logical-mathematical and
visual intelligences.
Finally, we often play 20 Questions with the kids. We come up with the end scenario,
give them all the facts and have them ask us questions until they figure it out. This
was one of my favorites: “the two opposing sides faced each other and the king
gathered his knights for battle when suddenly a great big hand came down from above
and picked up one of the knights, what happened?” (answer – this is a game of chess).
“Another one: the little girl stepped out into her yard and found a carrot, some sticks
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and some raisins laying on the wet grass, what happened?” (answer – spring has
arrived and melted the snowman that had been in her yard). It is especially fun for
them to come up with the end scenario and have us ask them questions. You’d be
surprised the funny things they come up with. I think this is a great way of developing
children’s linguistic, visual, musical, and logical-mathematical intelligences.
I would love to hear from you with any favorite family games. Also, feel free to
chime in with comments, feedback, questions, or suggestions in connection with our
multiple intelligence discussion.
Time and Multiple Intelligences (Part 2)
[scroll below to see what math looks like]
Last week I started a discussion on the value of using multiple intelligences to help children
learn. The challenge arose with some math problems the Negotiator was working through,
specifically related to time. He’s actually quite good at math but was struggling with two
particular concepts, “quarter to” and “quarter past.” The previous post compared a linguistic
intelligence and a mathematical intelligence approach to learning the concept of quarters.
Today’s post will integrate visual intelligence as a way of conveying the concept of
passing time and using that to reinforce the mathematical construct of hours.
Understanding time as a linear concept
The way time is traditionally taught is with the image of the clock and the two hands spinning
around in circles. There are 12 numbers that are used to convey the passing of 24 hours in up
to 60 minute increments. What this means is that the same 12 numbers represent batches of
single hours as well as batches of 5 minutes (1 represents 1:00 as well as 5 minutes, 2 is 2:00
and 10 minutes, etc) and once the hands make it around the clock, the process simply repeats
– twice and you have a day.
This linear notion results from teaching the concept of time from a linguistic standpoint:
“when the little hand is on 1 it means 1:00, when the big hand is on 1, it means 10 minutes.”
Children are asked to memorize what each number means based on whether it is a big hand
or little hand number. Taught in this way, time would seem to be a one-dimensional concept
entailing counting off arbitrarily named “minutes” sixty times and doing that 12 times before
the whole process starts up again. At that point, the minutes that have lapsed are wiped clean
and our life is reset at 12. Without understanding the larger concept of incremental time,
however, this exercise is hardly meaningful. Moreover, from an academic standpoint, a
child who has not memorized what the numbers and big/little hand positions mean, they will
struggle to get the answers “right.”
The problem is that time is not a linear concept, it is an incremental one. Therefore, in order
for children to fully grasp this notion, we need to reinforce the linguistic component by
drawing on mathematical and visual intelligences.
Understanding time as an incremental concept
Time is incremental insofar as each minute is compounded onto the preceding one. When 1
hour has lapsed, it is actually the sum of 60 minutes which is in turn the sum of 60 seconds
60 times, etc. Thus, when 12 hours have lapsed, we are not back at square one; rather, we
have already accumulated 12 hours worth of minutes and seconds and are essentially 12
hours away from where we started.
Visually, this looks more like a tower or a spiral than a flat round surface. Every minute that
lapses is a block in that tower and the tower is on an ever-increasing rise. That means that no
matter what we do, we will never get back to the base (i.e. there is no resetting of time). With
this image in mind, we pulled out our beloved box of Legos.
Using visual intelligence to teach time
Since the Negotiator was working on the concept of quarters, we split up our hour into four
blocks. Each hour represented 15 minutes and he had to build an hour by accumulating four
blocks. Once he had all four blocks, he had an hour and he could begin building his next hour
in 15 minute increments. It looks something like this:
Blocks of Time
We started off with the empty surface being noon and built the first hour (1:00). This is
important to visualize because what we are actually doing when we start an hour is building
the subsequent one. In other words, when we start of at 12:00, we are building the hour of
1:00. So, 12:15 actually means we have a completed hour 12 plus 15 extra minutes. Those 15
extra minutes are the beginning of hour 1:00 but we will not have 1:00 until we’ve gathered
all 60 minutes.
It looks like this (12 being the table and 15 minutes the first violet block):
15 minutes = 12:15
30 minutes = 12:30
45 minutes = 12:45
1 hour = 1:00
1 hour means that we have added 60 minutes to the prior hour (in this case 12:00) and this
bumps us up another level (to 1:00). We still have hour 12 and hour 1 (i.e. we don’t go back
to the beginning); rather, we add to the existing layers. Once we built our first hour and the
Negotiator understood the idea of constructing time, we moved on to discuss quarters.
“Quarter past” means that a quarter has passed after the previous hour. In other words, we
built a full hour and now have an additional quarter:
Quarter past the hour = 1:15
What makes this exercise useful is that the previous hour doesn’t go away when you start
building your new hour so when you talk about quarter past, there is an actual object there
that the “past” qualifies (as opposed to seemingly starting from the beginning again).
Then we talk about “quarter to.” What this means is that you have a quarter to go before you
complete your next hour. In the example below, you can still see a bit of the first hour (the
violet layer) which means you haven’t yet completed your second hour (the orange layer) and
it is therefore still the hour of 1:00. What is left, is a quarter. In other words, you have a
quarter to go before you finish building your hour 2.
Quarter to the hour = 1:45
This gives kids a visual of what “quarter to” actually looks like. The challenge for the
Negotiator had been that when we talked about “quarter to 2:00″ we were actually talking
about the prior hour (1:00) and how much was left before we finished building 2:00. This was
confusing until he could see the prior hour still peaking out as he completed his second hour.
Two completed hours = 2:00
A few more examples:
30 minutes past the second hour = 2:30
Quarter past the third hour = 3:15
Quarter to the four hour = 3:45
Four completed hours = 4:00
Presenting time in this way was a very useful tool for the Negotiator. It not only conveyed a
more accurate depiction of time but it allowed him to understand the mathematical concept of
“quarter to” and “quarter past” in a meaningful way (and not one that required
memorization).
Now, I turn to you: I’d love to hear from you about ways in which you have engaged multiple
intelligences to teach tricky concepts.
How to Teach Money with Pet Cents
money money money
I am helping the Diva learn about money. Money is a tricky concept to teach because it deals
in abstract notions of value. Drawing on multiple intelligence theory, I decided to employ
different intelligences to try to convey this concept.
Using multiple intelligences to teach monetary value
First, from a linguistic intelligence standpoint: 1 penny is the same as 1 cent; 1 nickel is the
same as 5 cents; 1 dime is the same as 10 cents… and so on.
As with the discussion about time, what I find problematic about this is that it doesn’t quite
get to the concept of compounded value (e.g. 1 nickel actually represents the compounded
value of 5 cents) but rather presents money in purely semantic and linear terms (1 = 5).
Teaching money this way can get confusing because it requires that children memorize which
coins equate to which numbers. For children who do not favor linguistic intelligence or are
not good at memorizing data, this can hinder their ability to learn these concepts. Moreover, it
overlooks the whole lesson about compounded value (which is, after all, what money is
about) and turns this simply into a problem of semantics.
With that in mind, I decided to introduce the Diva to “pet cents.”
Think about pet cents as pets that live on coins. The shape, size, and color of the coin will
tell you how many pets live on it. For instance, 1 pet cent lives on the penny, 5 pet cents live
on the nickel and 10 live on the dime. To help her visualize this, I drew little pets on a penny,
nickel and dime.
1 penny = 1 pet
1 nickel = 5 pets
1 dime = 10 pets (crowded house!)
This approach helped the Diva engage her visual intelligence to understand the notion that
the multiple units (cents) represent. The difference was that she could now see 1, 5, 10…
units compounded onto 1 coin. It isn’t a number 5 that equals a specific coin but a group of 5
things that is represented by that specific coin.
Moving on…
We then drew on her mathematical intelligence to add different coins together to identify
their total, combined value. We did this with a pet party.
We started with our nickel and its 5 pet cents. Each pet had to show its ticket so it was
assigned one number and there was only one number for each pet: pet 1, pet 2, pet 3… We
then invited two pets to the party. Since 1 pet lives on each penny, that meant we needed to
bring in 2 pennies.
Initially, when we tried adding 5+2 with her fingers, the Diva would get confused with the 2
we were adding and want to start counting those at 1 again (e.g. 5 fingers on one hand are 15, 2 fingers on the next hand are 1-2). Assigning a specific number to each pet helped her
realize that she needed to continue moving up the sequence of numbers since the earlier
numbers were already taken. Pet 1 was already at the party, as were pets 2, 3, 4 and 5 so the
next pet had to be pet 6.
5 pets + 1 pet = 6 pets
Then we added the next penny, pet 7.
5 pets + 1 pet +1 pet = 7 pets
Sure enough, when I asked her how many pet cents we had at the party, she knew there were
7 even though we only had 3 coins. To me this is a great example of the power of multiple
intelligences in learning, particularly when it comes to learning abstract concepts.
I’d love your thoughts on this!
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Teaching Time (part 1 and 2)
Teaching Money
Subtraction made easy
Using butterflies to teach music
Multiple intelligences in babies