Incorporating Math into the Home!
Math is not something that should be kept in the classroom or something that only a certified teacher can teach. In fact, students obtain most of their fundamental math skills long before they enter the classroom from the world and people around them. After starting school, students are proud to start to apply math concepts from school to figure out tangible math problems at home; for example, if we have eight cookies and four family members, each person will get 2 cookies. Real-world problem-solving is much more beneficial than only teaching from a textbook and worksheets. It makes math much more interesting to learn when math matters and can be directly applied to a situation. It is much more useful and intriguing for a student to be able to measure and find the area of their living rather than a fictional room on a worksheet.
Math can be daunting and overwhelming to students; that's why it is so important to be able to integrate math into everyday family living and for students to be able to have math conversations with those that know them best. I have compiled a list of ways families can incorporate math with little to no extra time added to their already busy day-to-day lives. I have organized it into three different age bands based on the division of grades at Detroit Prep, Pre-Primary (before kindergarten), Primary (K-1), and Elementary (2nd-4th). It should also be noted that, like reading, students will catch on to math at their own rate, so please navigate the list to match their current skills, not always their grade level. I have included 5 categories under each grade band to help navigate. Categories include Feeding the Family, Our House, Family on the Move, From Point A to Point B, and Family Game Night.
Feeding the Family is an easy way for your child can help with feeding the family, whether in making it or helping at the grocery store; there are many ways to allow your child to take a meaningful role in supplying nurture to the family. Food serves as a cultural glue of the family, and including your child in the process of feeding the family young will ensure they understand that importance.
Our House encourages students to know their home physically and what it takes to maintain your home. When they are young, kids should understand where and how many doors their house has, and when they get older, they should understand how much a day electricity costs the family.
Family on the Move gives ideas of tracking and talking about your family's exercise, whether you are an avid athlete or you take a short walk to the park.
Point A to B gives ideas of mental math at each level that can be done anywhere in transit to pass the time, from the car to the bus. This is my favorite because it takes no planning, and it can be adapted to multiple levels at the same time.
Family Game Night is just as it sounds–when you play games with your kids after school and on weekends, it’s easy to work math into the equation.
For each group, I’ll review a few methods for learning mathematics at home after school, on weekends, and in the summer. The point of these techniques is that you can do them at any time and don’t have to make extra time to do them. Hopefully, you can tweak them to fit your student and family needs in a way that makes them unique!
Pre-Primary
Feeding The Family
Counting food portions out loud and encouraging your child to join
Comparing the size of snacks or piles of food out loud and encourage conversations about which is larger, which is heavier, etc
Check items off the grocery lists as you walk through the aisles and count how many things are left on the list
Verbalize cook times, portions of food, and when pressing microwave and timer buttons
Have your child help measure when cooking
Our House
Have your child count how many doors there are to the outside of the house and note where they are
Have them count the windows, doorknobs, and other easy-to-count items
Count stairs as you walk up and down them with your child
Family on the Move
Count out the blocks and number of houses you pass on a walk to the park
Count how many times you can catch a ball in a row
Make a hopscotch course to five and then extend it to ten once you’ve mastered counting to five
From Point A to Point B
Look for numbers and identify them while in transit
Have your child do mental math, adding and subtracting with fives
Ask which number is bigger with numbers between 1 and 20
Let your child hear you count to 100 by ones. They will join you when they are ready!
Let your child hear you count to 100 by tens. They will join you when they are ready!
Count stop signs, red cards, trees, anything! Start mastering counting five objects, then ten, and up!
Start at a random number other than one and have your child count up from three
Talk about shapes you see, like squares, rectangles, or triangles
Talk about how shapes can be 3D, like a box, or 2D, like a sidewalk square
Use words and ask questions about positioning like above, behind, and next to.
Family Game Night
Dice games
Uno
War
Board games with spaces to move
Dominos
Candy Land
Sum Swamp
Balance Beans
Primary
Feeding The Family
Look at per-ounce prices at the store to compare how much things cost
Follow the recipe on a box of dessert
Set the table for a number of guests to count plates, forks, etc.
Our House
Have your child count the stairs up and then backward on the way back down
Have your child count how many of their feet long a rug or a hallway is
Family on the Move
Measure walking or running time from given points around the yard. Talk about changes when repeating the same activity
Make hopscotch using fives and tens
From Point A to Point B
Ask your child to do mental math problems with addition and subtraction
Ask which number is larger with figures between one and 100
Let your child hear you count by hundreds to 1000. They will join you when they are ready!
Talk about what is ten more or ten less than a number
Use words like equal, plus, minus, greater than, and less than
Read clocks out loud and encourage your child to do the same
Talk about odd and even numbers
Add and subtract within 100
Family Game Night
Checkers
Moneybags
Math Dice
eeBoo: Time Telling Game
Clumsy Thief
Mille Bornes
Sums in Space
Sequence
Check the Fridge
Yahtzee
Blockus
Quirtle
Rush Hour
Sweet Logic
Othello
Elementary
Feeding The Family
Bake cookies from a family or online recipe
Plan out how much is needed of particular things from the grocery store and look for things that are large enough to meet that need
Make a simple meal for the family, doing all their own measurements
Our House
Measure and make a floor plan of their room and suggest changes
Compare utility bills from different months of the year
Find the cost per day of different month’s utilities
Compare weekend to weekday utility costs
Family on the Move
Keep an exercise log and find averages
Keep a reading log and find averages
From Point A to Point B
Do mental math with addition and subtraction as high as the can answer
Look at different gas prices and talk about which is higher
Ask math questions adding and subtracting within 20
Family Game Night
Payday
Monopoly
Chess
Catan
Blobby’s Pizza
Five Crowns
Educational Insights Fraction Formula Game
Antiquity Quest
Racko
Q-bitz
Stratego
Dr. Eureka