Numbers and counting, it is the beginning of math. We want to instill a love of math at an early age so children will learn to excel in math. Let's teach our young children to love and have fun with numbers, which can turn into a love of math. Math is the language of counting and quantifying things, count with your children to show them different ways. Math is a language with symbols, sets of numbers, and rules. So many studies prove that languages are easiest acquired at a young age. So let's get started teaching them to love math.
Always try to make it fun with young children. Make everyday actions a fun word problem. While cooking breakfast ask your child, "we had 6 eggs, I cooked 2, how many do we have left for breakfast tomorrow?" Count, count, count everything! Introduce them to an abacus, play with marbles, and pennies. Ask questions like how many windows do we have in our house, how many stairs? Then go and count the windows and stairs together. Share your findings with the family at dinner. Count everything, the steps you take to get to the kitchen, to their bedroom, and to the car. Count the members of the child's family, then ask all together in our family how many legs, how many arms, ears, etc. Make it fun, draw pictures and count the people, legs, and arms again together.
Identify a "number for the day," and look for that number throughout the day. Look for the daily number on clocks, household items, food containers, and in books. Also, have a "shape of the day" and identify objects that fit that shape. Keep a running tally of how many circles or triangles you find each day. Count how many octagons or stop signs you see on the way to the supermarket.
While shopping let them help weigh the fruits and vegetables. Show them the price per pound or the unit price for different items. Then ask them to help you figure out the best buy for your money, which is cheaper, or more expensive. With older children let them help select coupons, and tell you how much you will save if you use that particular coupon and the item costs $2.00.
Have your child pick something they want to buy, for example a new toy. Give them chores and an allowance to work towards that toy. As they complete their chores and receive their allowance, have them document how much money they have and how much more they need to reach their goal.
While doing everyday chores, offer to time them. Each day encourage them to strive to beat their previous time. With older children introduce percentage change, increase or decrease.
Have a coin jar and allow the child to group all of the pennies, dimes, nickels, and quarters. Go over the value of each coin and then create pattern games. For example, with pennies and dimes on a table: penny, penny, dime, penny, penny, dime, penny, penny, and ask the child what comes next. With all of the pennies introduce addition and subtraction. Take two pennies and start with 1 + 1 =2. Give additional problems and let them use the pennies as a visual aid.
Teach them to tell time on a standard clock. Start with counting by fives, then together make a homemade clock with a movable long hand and short hand. Have them color and decorate their clock and then show them 1:00, 1:05, etc.
Bake with your children, let them help you measure the flour, sugar or water. Introduce degrees when you
set the oven, and go over time again when you set the timer. Order a pizza and introduce fractions. Show them that 4/8 is the same as ½ after dad has eaten half of the pizza.
If possible, learn to play a musical instrument. Research has shown that when children are trained in music at a young age, they tend to do well in math. It's amazing how when children start to do well or excel in a certain subject they start to love it!
Lastly introduce and memorize the old fashioned times tables. Put away the calculators and just learn the basics, go over them daily. Make the times tables into a song, children love to memorize song lyrics, so make it fun!
Let them see you making numbers and math problems fun. Encourage them to make up their own word problems, then get excited about their numerical creativity. We want children to constantly think of ways to show us that math and numbers are everywhere. We want to teach our children to love math and realize that math is awesome!
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