And keep me in the loop, too, please.

We're having our weird math year, but if it doesn't go well, we'll have to try something else. Singapore Math was not cutting it for him--I think I was taking it too slowly for DS7--so we would probably have to move faster plus do more game-type stuff to keep him interested in the practice that he would need to do so he didn't start hating math again.

Sound familiar?

I found that DS6 gets excited about math when he spends time with a mentor who is passionate about math (i.e., not me). For example, my mathy dad got DS excited about learning binary by teaching him about the Nim game. DS wanted to learn the "secret": http://www.csm.astate.edu/Nim.html.
My math/physics brother played the dot/box game (the one where you draw lines between adjacent dots in an array and try to complete more boxes than your opponent) and got DS interested in coming up with a formula for figuring out how many possible boxes you could make with an XxY array of dots (or something like that - I wasn't excited enough to pay too much attention .

I think there's a real art to teaching math to mathies -- the key is to get them excited enough in a problem so that they *want* to do the grunt work to solve it. I'm sure DS would not be interested in learning binary had it not been for the context of the game. I think the competitive aspect helped too.

I SO agree, Jool! Excitement and love of math really are key, I think.

As far as math facts go, "Multiplication Rock" was a fun way for DS to learn his times tables without trying. The catchy songs really make those facts stick!

Thnaks, Jool. All good suggestions, and he used to listen to multiplication rock. We'll try again. Just seems to me that when the basic math facts are in easy grasp, all the rest of it gets easier. That Nim game was fascinating. Unfortunately, I don't have a math/physics brother, DH or self, so I rely on all of you, LOL!

I know we've "talked" about this before but math club/math competitions. There are some for younger kids (continental math, math olympiad, math kangaroo). If they work with a small group of capable math kids, it's worked better for my kids.

Cym,

Thanks. That's my goal - to get him to the point where he can sustain his effort over a long enough period of time to solve math, science or other problems. And hopefully, enjoy doing it. He's a kid who craves information and analyzes it, but who does not have a lot of patience for things that come to him more slowly. I think he gets that from DH. I once got DS one of those small dino dig toys - you know, the ones where you have to scrape away patiently and carefully like a real paleontologist until you find the embedded fossil? Well, I thought that would be a good father/son activity last year. Within 5 minutes, I hear DH say "this is ridiculous," and the next thing I know DH is using the Dremel (power tool) and the fossil was revealed in less than a minute! That's what I'm up against, LOL!

Oh MY questions - that is toooo funny!!!!

ROFL! That is so funny. Half the battle is knowing what you're up against, right?

Dremel tools rock! That is really funny - I have never been one for the slow but steady route either!

To add to Texassummer's great list:

http://www.quia.com/shared/search

My ds8 has enjoyed various versions of math battleship. This site seems to have everything from games on IR verbs in french to quizzes on fundamentals of electricity. I have not checked this out too much so far, but playing the listed games is free without signing up (at least those we have tried).