01.08.16Math at Home: Please Share Your Ideas to Go with These
Got a note from Tim Daly this morning. He used to help run TNTP. Now he’s at Ednavigator, a nonprofit with the mission of helping “parents and caregivers choose the best school, understand and track their children’s progress, support learning at home, and advocate for their children’s educational needs.”
He was asking me about math. I’d written a bunch of blog posts, he noted, about reading with my kids. He and his colleagues were working on tools to help parents do that better. But that had raised questions about math-at-home, which is something far fewer parents do.
“When we look at kindergarten classrooms in New Orleans, it’s stunning how many students arrive with almost no familiarity [with basic numeracy concepts] at all.” His group is working to develop and share ideas parents can use that are effective even for those with limited math proficiency or high anxiety themselves.
“Bedtime Math would be one idea,” Tim wrote. “Any other recommendations?”
It got me to thinking about how much math I do (and did) with my kids at home… in the car or at bedtime or waiting in line somewhere. I’ll share a couple of my favorite ideas. Maybe you can share yours and I can pass them along to Tim.
“Math chains” My seven year old asked for them last night when she was going to bed. We lie there after lights out and I say something like:
13
Doubled [she doesn’t answer but calculates and keeps in her head]
Minus seven
Plus 21
In half
And then she tells me the answer:
20! [fist bump, hug, cuddle etc]
She loves that.
We also do some funky skip counting stuff when we are walking somewhere, say. I’ll say: “To 50 by threes starting with 4″ or “To 100 by sevens starting with 12” or “down from 51 by fours,” and we’ll alternate. Her: “47.” Me: “43.” Her: “39.” etc….
Then there was math bingo. My wife invented it. She laminated a sheet of paper with various numbers on it laid out in bingo rows. Then she gave our littlest a bowl of “tokens” (little chocolate chips or almonds or, at our best, carrots or apples). She’d find the number that answered a math problem and put a token on it. When she got bingo she could eat the tokens.
By the way, this one requires a bit more math from the parent, but when my kids were a bit older and we were driving somewhere I would ask percentage questions like:
80 percent of 110?
Or, later, 81% of 81?
120 percent of 73?
22 percent of 140?
They loved that. Anyway, chime in with your math-at-home secrets if you’ve got em. I promise to pass them along to Tim.
Board games such as Monopoly provide numerous opportunities for math practice. Monopoly can be a bit above youngsters’ heads, but my kids still loved it in early grade school. Besides having to add up the numbers on the dice, there is counting the spaces, counting out payments to the bank, and learning the concepts of big bills and change.
Any game with die can help with math. And games are often pure fun in kids’ minds.
what a perfect, simple, eminently do-able suggestion. Thanks, Angie!
I work at a school in England and with a focus to improve children’s mental maths skills we have been encouraging children to carry out four maths activities at home a week with their parents. We have been encouraging them to do number chant games, like you have discussed, and to spot maths wherever possible at home (for example, chopping their slice of toast in the morning into different fractions, thinking of all the different combinations of coins they could use to buy something in shops). Just really simple stuff.
We are lucky enough to have an amazing school library and have also just set up a Maths Hub in the library where children can go and borrow board games, just like you would library books, to take home and play at home. Just like Angie said above, they provide an invaluable opportunity for children to practise maths, without them even realising!
I found that playing games with my daughters when they were young often naturally incorporated math (number sense, sequencing, spatial reasoning, comparing). Some of our games were bought such as Yahtzee, Mastermind, Pentago, and decks of cards, but some games are as simple as bouncing a ball or bopping a balloon in the air. Some of my favorites were just worked into the day:
Counting out Loud – We counted everything: steps going up, steps coming down, grapes in a ziplock bag, Legos in a stack, seconds waiting for thunder after the lightening.
Contest Counting – Children love the repetitive sound and motions of bouncing, dribbling, and kicking a ball. Turn it into a contest by counting the number of times they can do this in a row without making an error. If done with a partner, it builds the teamwork mindset. This simple activity also develops integrity when the child makes an error but wants to pick up counting where they left off. The rule is you have to start over at one when you make a mistake and see if you can get a higher score than last time. I also worked on goal setting by asking “How many do you think we can get this time?” or picking a goal that we had to reach before stopping to do something else. As they mastered counting to 100, I would say that we were only going to count when the ball came to one person, essentially skip counting.
Contest Measuring – Almost any object thrown, pushed, kicked or even just long jumping can be measured with a tape measure. Keep this handy with your child’s toys or on the kitchen counter and they will start measuring everything. Give them a clipboard or notebook and they will start writing down their measurements. A next step could be comparing: What is taller, the sofa or the countertop? Who jumped further, you or your sister? How much further? How many jumps would it take for us to go 100 feet?
Time out Timers – One of the best ways for children to learn about time is when they are in time out. Give them a watch or timer to hold when they are sitting on the step, or chair, or your spot of choice. Tell them how long they are sitting out. Even better, write it down on paper and let them watch the time tick away. Try not setting the alarm and let them figure out when their time is up. If you use the same paper and clipboard, you and your child can add up the number of minutes spent in time out over a day, a week, or a month and reflect.
Card games – Starting out with the basic game of War, to Crazy 8s, and later Rummy, any card game builds math skills. Playing cards with children also provides character building lessons as they practice patience, turn taking, how to win gracefully, and also how to handle losing (yes, you should let them lose).
Great suggestions, Leanne. Thanks for sharing!