Connecting math to daily activities in the real world is an important way to help children develop higher engagement in math. If you’ve ever heard kids say, but math is soooo boring—fear not! Here are a few ways you can make math fun in your own home:
- After a day of apple picking at a farm, count out the apples in different ways! For example, a parent picked 5, and sibling picked 2. Who picked more? Less? How many more? How many in all? Encourage children to draw out their answers!
- When getting home, estimate (and then test it out!) the number of steps to the front door.
- Play card games! “Match to Make 11” is played with three rows of three cards face-up. Check to see if there are two cards that add up to 11. If so, remove those cards and replace them with new ones. If not, add another row!
- Play dice games! “Dice Wars” is played with two dice and several objects to use as counters. Roll the dice, add them up, and then ‘steal’ the sum from the ‘treasure’ of objects!
- The board game Trouble is great for decomposing numbers!
- Go on a scavenger hunt and find three things in a certain shape.
- Skip count (count by multiples) pairs of shoes in your house by twos, or count how many fingers in your family by skip-counting by fives.
