When having mathematical conversations at home with your child, the goal should be to remain authentic, personalized to your child's experiences and FUN! The ideas below offer examples of "math at home" conversations!

Number Concepts

• Counting coins, such as pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.
• Roll dice or use playing cards to make two or three digit numbers with a partner. See who can make the largest number/ smallest number.
• Add all of the digits of your house number together. Add the digits of your phone number together.
• Think of a three digit number. Describe all the ways to make that number using ones, tens and hundreds. For example: 346 could be made with 34 tens and 6 ones, or 3 hundreds, 4 tens and 6 ones, or 346 ones.

Number Operations

• Discuss relationships between facts. For example, if 6+6=12, then 6+7 would equal one more than 12.
• Roll two dice to make a two digit number. Subtract it from 99 or 100.
• Add the price of two items at the grocery store. Compare the price of items at the grocery store and find the difference.
• Comparing Numbers: Divide a deck of cards evenly between players. Each player flips over a card, the player with the highest card wins the cards. Continue until one player has all cards in the deck. (Can be played with regular playing cards, or Savvy Subitizing Cards).
• Roll 4 dice and find the sum. Say what is 10 more or 10 less, 100 more or 100 less than that number.
• 20 Questions Number Game: One person picks a "mystery number" 0-120 (or any range of numbers within 1,000), player 2 tries to guess the number. (Example: Does your number have 3 digits? Is your number greater than 56?)
• Play board games that involve counting or numbers. View "Fluency" for more game suggestions.
• Look for items in your world that are arranged in an array: cookies on a sheet, eggs, crackers in a package, cans in a box.
• Draw the arrays you see in your world. Label them with the amounts shown in rows and columns.

Money

• Encourage your child to pay cash for items they are buying and participate in the change making process.
• Have your child determine if there is enough cash to buy an item. How much more do you need? How much change will you receive?
• Give your child various amounts of money to count, using dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.

Measurement and Data

• Estimate the lengths of objects in your home. Next, measure the object's length using a ruler. Discuss the units used to measure (inches, feet, centimeters and/or meters)
• Discuss all of the features of objects that could be measured using inches, feet, centimeters and meters. Discuss the various units one might use to measure other attributes of shapes such as weight.
• Survey various family members about their favorite sport, color, ice cream flavor, or pizza topping. Create a bar graph to show the data.

Geometry

• Look for 2-D and 3-D shapes around your house and community. Identify the shape and the attributes.
• Find 3-D shapes in your world. Identify the shape and the attributes. (Example, How many sides?)
• Talk about the shapes of containers in grocery stores or in your kitchen. For example, cans are cylinders and boxes are rectangular prisms or cubes.