Here are a dozen tips for summer math learning. Adapt them to your family’s needs.
1. Grocery store math. Counting, estimating, and making change are good math exercises. What can we get for $10.00? Will you count the change for me, please? Let me know when we’ve reached fifteen items in the cart, please.
2. Menu math. What’s the most expensive meal on the menu? What’s the least expensive? We have $20.00 to spend – what can we get? What’s the proper tip?
3. Kitchen math. Practice fractions by using recipes or reading cookbooks. Practice numbers by counting the cutlery we’ll need for dinner. Measuring ingredients is a perfect math lesson. Don’t tell them, though.
4. Map math. What’s the distance from home to our destination? How long will it take us if we travel the speed limit? What’s the most direct route? What do you think is the most scenic route? Why?
5. On-the-Road math. Numbers are all around roads if you look for them. Add or subtract license plate numbers, speed limits, or route numbers. Keep track of time traveled or how long you’ve been reading aloud to encourage learning how to tell time.
6. Money math. Teach about making change. Count change in a piggy bank. How many ways can I make 45 cents? Open a savings account and watch the amount rise with deposits and interest. Talk about the advantages of saving for a big purchase or for a rainy day.
7. Reading and writing math. Read books about math and mathematicians. (A good website is www.mathmamawrites.blogspot.com. The June 26, 2009, blog, “Dozen Delectable Math Books” gives recommendations for ages 2-adult.)
8. Calendar math. Count down the days to special events like the first day of school, birthdays, holidays, vacations, assignments, and appointments.
9. Game math. Use cards, dominoes or dice (“math cubes”) to reinforce counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division skills. Play Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, and other games that encourage counting. Together, do the sudoku puzzles in the daily paper.
10. Computer math. There’s no shortage of cool game and instructional websites. Try the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ website, www.nctm.org. Click on “Summer Games for Children.”)
11. Beach math. Count starfish and seashells. Umbrellas and pizza joints. Flip flops and beach balls. Dig holes, then encourage kids to fill one-quarter, one-half, three-quarters with water or seashells. Draw geometric shapes in the sand – circles, squares, rectangles, triangles – and identify them.
12. Mail math. Keep junk mail to make out “pretend” orders of clothes, books, groceries, etc. Add up the orders. Compare and contrast prices.
13. Growth math. (Okay, so it’s a “baker’s dozen” tips.) Measure everyone in the family. Compare heights. Measure growth over time.
14. Play hopscotch. Or jump rope. Or do jumping jacks. Kids love to count. What games encourage counting for little ones learning to count more than these? Besides, there’s plenty of exercise, keeping kids outside in the fresh air and away from an electronic screen.
15. Time things with a stopwatch. Get an inexpensive stopwatch and show your youngster how to use it. Give her some suggestions of things to time – how long to walk around the block, to drive to the grocery store, to swim a lap, to make a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, to take a shower. Then get out of the way. She’ll find all kinds of things to time.
16. Compare and contrast. After she’s been timing things with her stopwatch, show her how to compare and contrast the information she’s discovered. Make simple charts and graphs. Color code them. Talk about them.
17. Count stuff. I mentioned this in last week’s blog, but there’s no shortage of things to count. Come up with interesting and funny things – purple flip-flops at the mall, butterflies in the garden, yellow VW bugs (the old ones, naturally), crying babies at the grocery store, smokers throwing their butts out the car window (yuck!), the number of screams while riding the roller coaster. Decide at breakfast in the morning what you’re going to count today. Talk about it at bedtime.
18. Make and stick to a budget. Have your kid allocate his allowance into categories the two of you agree to. Entertainment, the collection at church, saving for a special toy, vacation spending, ice cream treats. This not only teaches budgeting, it enforces math facts like division. Show how you do the same thing with your household budget .
19. Get a math role model. Point out people in your family and community who would make good math role models for your child. The veterinarian, your pediatrician, a favorite teacher, an older student who’s a math whiz, those silly characters on Big Bang Theory.
20. Roll that spare change. Everyone has spare change around the house. Gather up all those pennies, nickels, and dimes. Count them. Then roll them and take them to the bank. (It’s more educational than using those loud machines in the mall.) Give your child a percentage. Have him figure out what that percentage is.
21. Treat girls and boys equally. Enough girls already have math phobia. Show that you expect excellent math skills from your daughters as from your sons.
22. Find a helpful website. There are plenty of websites that have really clever math games and exercises for kids. It’s hard to choose just one, but here’s one I like: www.xtramath.org
23. Make flash cards. With your child, make a bunch of flash cards that let him practice his math facts. Quiz him with that stopwatch from tip #2 above. Let him quiz you or other members of the family. When kids know their math facts cold, they’re ready for higher level math.
24. Get help if you need it. Everyone needs a little help from time to time. The company I work for, Sylvan Learning has thirty years’ experience of helping kids with math. Summer’s the perfect time to invest in some skill sharpening before school starts again. If you suspect that he needs a leg up, do it now before the problem becomes too much for him to handle.
25. Don’t allow math trash talk. If you had a hard time with math when you were a kid, don’t make a big deal of it. Don’t let your child infer that it’s okay to hate math or to avoid it. It’s a different world. She’s going to need her math skills.
You get the picture. We’re surrounded by words and numbers every day. Be on the lookout for opportunities to talk about math. Draw your children’s attention to them without making a big-deal lesson out of them. You’ll be surprised at how quickly math phobia disappears and math confidence takes its place.
Let them see you reading, doing math, and writing, as part of your daily life. By including them, you’re encouraging them to join you in your grown-up world, something kids can’t resist (for a time, anyway).
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