Math at Home
How quickly can you calculate simple mathematic problems? Can you do mental arithmetic easily, for example, could you calculate the interest you pay on your home in your head? Do you love mathematics? If you feel positive about Math does this help your child at home? Children can learn to love mathematics.
Math learning is great fun at home. You don’t need specialized resources. Everything you need is in your home at this moment. You need enthusiasm and a creative mind to find math opportunities.
Math doesn’t just happen at school; in fact math is every where. Math is part of our world. Quick reasoning, problem solving skills and accuracy and speed in computation are vital skills in our technologically oriented world.
Every day we are calculating. Just think about it. From the moment your alarm goes you are estimating the time required to complete breakfast and get to work. You check the thermometer to see how cold or hot it is. When you run your microwave you decide how many seconds and minutes you should use. You check your wallet or purse to see how much money you have for the day.
Certainly we have calculators and computers to do a lot of the complex calculations but our children still need to know how to reason, calculate, and solve mathematical problems. They need to be able to estimate a reasonable answer. This helps them to decide whether a calculation is correct.
It doesn’t matter how many calculators or computers you have, a child has to be able to think mathematically. They need to have a clear idea of the operation to be used to solve the problem. They need to be able to roughly calculate a reasonable answer. They need to be in control of the mathematical operation not the calculator.
You can have a wonderful time with your children if you think creatively about using math at home. There are dozens of possibilities for you to play number games with your child. You have to have the willingness, enthusiasm and creativity to use everyday mathematics in the home to fashion challenging and exciting number games.
It’s not hard to come up with fun ideas for numbers at home. Depending on the age of the child, there are many opportunities. For example, you might like to do paper cut-out graphs of everyone in the family. Get some big paper and have everyone lie down on a piece of paper. Trace around each person. Then cut out the figure and paste it in the family room on the wall. Check every month to see how much people have grown (or shrunk!).
Interesting math travel activities keep the kids occupied when traveling long distances. Try adding the numbers in 10 car and truck license plates and compare which is greater/smaller. Tally the number of red cars that pass your car, continue to subtract distance traveled from total length of journey, and record the cost of gas and food and total at end of trip, estimate the time it will take to complete a trip, even record temperatures every 20 miles. Real life activities such as these help kids to see how math skills are used constantly and this helps them understand the reasons for learning math.
If you really want your child to learn math at home and get better grades at school, start having fun with math at home. Have the family work together to create interesting math problems. Solve them together as a group. Give encouragement when children construct elaborate math problems. Praise them when they offer good solutions. You’ll be amazed at how much your children will grow to love math if you make numbers and arithmetic exciting at home.
