Math at home

How to incorporate math at home......

Math in the Kitchen-From measuring and sequencing to estimation and ​multiplication, the kitchen is a real-life school for kids of all ages.

Math on the Road- A game called license plate math requires participants to pretend to be spies breaking codes to turn letters into numbers. That’s only one of many ways to drive home math while you’re driving away from home. There’s also budgeting meal money, calculating the cost of gas and figuring out distances on maps.

Math at the Grocery Store- The store provides wonderful opportunities to, among other things, practice estimating cost, creating and sticking to a budget and using the scale to weigh produce.

Math using Time- practice calculating elapsed time (What time do we have to leave to get to soccer practice by 6?) Use time vocabulary (ex. half past 6, quarter to 7)

More ideas......

• While waiting in line count by 2s, 4s, 5s, 10s.

• Use tally marks to count items and then make a graph of the results.

• At snack time, estimate the amount of cheerios or pretzels.

• Choose a number and talk about what is one more, one less, ten more, ten less, is it greater than 10, 50 or 100?  

• Give your child coins and ask them to identify them, is there an even or odd amount?  What is the total amount?

• When your child is playing with a toy, have them identify what geometric shape they see-cube, cylinder, cone, etc.

• Give your child two numbers and ask which number(s) comes in between?

Multiplication and Division: Encourage practice of fact fluency (quick recall of multiplication facts for 0-12) Notice patterns in all these numbers as well. 

• Practice skip counting specific numbers

• Divide whatever you can (If we have this many cookies, how many do each of us get?  We have 35 blocks and 3 siblings playing, how many does each sibling get? Is there a remainder?)

• Seeing numbers everywhere- when you're driving in the car and the speed limit is 35- what is 3 x 5? 3 + 5? 35 divided by 5?

• Using the length, width, and depth of a garden plot to determine how many bags of soil to buy.

• When shopping at the grocery store have your child hunt for the lowest unit prices for a product you're purchasing.

Place Value Practice- Practice naming large numbers and recognizing the number of tens, hundreds and thousands.  Have competitions and compare large numbers.  While you're at the dollar store, pick up some stackable paper cups and number them 1 to 9 along the edge, and then use them to talk about place value as you change the order you stack them in to create different numbers.