Educating your children at home during the pandemic? Or, maybe you have been homeschooling for a while. Either way, it’s no secret that kids get bored, especially when it comes to learning and understanding math concepts. At the same time, many children experience math anxiety. Feeling incapable of doing or understanding math can undermine confidence, which can lead to the assumption that failure is inevitable, so why try?
Yet, a solid mathematics foundation is essential, for we use math every day: from managing money to preparing meals, from playing sports to playing music, and so on. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, “Math is part of children’s everyday lives. Taking advantage of each of these math moments develops math learning. When parents and teachers get excited about math, then children get excited about math.”
Here are some creative ways to keeping math fresh and fun!
- Take learning outside: have your children draw number problems in the dirt or sand instead of on paper.
- Create indoor or outdoor scavenger hunts to encourage children to follow a sequential process.
- Roll dice. Ask questions, such as: What number combinations can you make? What happens when you add more dice?
- Play card games, such as, War, Solitaire and Go Fish!
- Play Bingo.
- Pretend to shop: pull items from your cupboard, “price them” and set up a little store. Let your young shopper choose what they want, and then, have them add up the amount they will need to pay.
- Use the internet to explore fun ways to learn addition and subtraction facts and/or multiplication facts.
- Celebrate World Maths Day on October 15th.
Use your public library:
- Try out the Little Red Reading Bag A: “Numbers and Sizes” which has books and toys to help teach math to 3-5 year olds.
- Check out the book “How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin” by Margaret McNamara. Go to Pumpkin Math Investigations and follow the online directions for this seasonal math activity.
- Take home a Launchpad tablet, such as, “Ship Shape,” which helps children learn to recognize numbers and “C is for Counting,” both perfect for 3-5 yr olds. The 5-7 year old set will enjoy “Make it Count.”
- Utilize TumbleMath picture books with their “supplementary materials such as lesson plans and quizzes.”
- Check out math-themed DVDs, such as “Sesame Street: Learning About Numbers,” “Leap Frog: Math Adventure to the Moon,” “Math Challenge: Fractions,” “Team Umizoomi,” and even Disney’s “Donald in Mathmagic Land.”
- Explore our recently added resource, Brainfuse, which offers live tutoring.
Overall, enjoy this time together!
