Math Cards

I've been wanting to make these, and the alphabet version, for a while now. Grimm's sells lovely sets of both, and I've gone back and forth about ordering them. The prices are reasonable, but we're on a tight budget right now, and I literally had everything I needed to make these. I haven't worked much with watercolors, so I wasn't sure how the letters and numbers would turn out, but I decided it would be silly not to at least try.

Fortunately, I'm mostly pleased with the results. I made three sets of numbers, plus the basic math symbols.

I took sheets of our 8x11" watercolor paper (already painted) and used my rotary cutter to cut each one into 12 3x4 inch rectangles.

I found that it was best to use cards without too many different colors (don't worry, I am saving the rest of these lovelies for another project!) and to use a darker color in a similar shade for the number.

They were actually very easy to make. If pressed, I might even admit it that it was kind of fun. Ariana stayed up late and helped me with them. Actually, she made one number, a slightly wonky "6".

And just when I started feeling superior in my watercolor number painting skills, she showed me these:

And these:

And then I totally felt like an artist, because some of the backgrounds she used were mine! But seriously, aren't they great? I can't wait to frame them. They're tiny, so I'm not quite sure how yet, but I'll post pictures once they are done.

I also have these, that we'll be using with the math cards. Here's where I deviate a bit from traditional Waldorf:

These are Montessori inspired bead materials that I have been making for what seems like years now. I changed the colors from the traditional Montessori colors, so they match the colors of our Cuisenaire rods, which we'll use later on.

We have "gems" to use too, of course, but after a certain point, I find that children (and by "children," I mean my one other child, who I homeschooled years ago) still like to use the beads, but are beyond needing to count out every number for every math problem, which can get a little tedious after a while. This is a nice in-between for them.