Informing parents about how to help their children practice math at home is a key factor to their child’s success within the classroom. There are many ways to encourage teaching math at home. Here are some ways you can encourage families to be involved in their child’s learning. Family involvement in learning is crucial to retention of information all year, but especially at the end of the school year.
Practicing math concepts at home doesn’t have to be difficult, time-consuming, or involve pencil and paper. By sharing some of these ideas with families, you show them how simple it can be to incorporate math into daily activities and routines.
Board Games: Children love board games. Not only do they promote screen-free time and family bonding, but they are often educational! Some of my favorites for teaching math are Hi, Ho Cherry-O, Yahtzee, and Trouble.
Playing with Tactile Objects: Encourage parents to use whatever they have at home to continue to build on their child’s number sense skills. Math manipulatives such as those we have in our classrooms may not be accessible to them. However, things such as coins, a bag of dry beans, stickers, or shape cut-outs would work just as well for hands-on learning.
Apps and Web-Based Games: Apps and online games are engaging and stimulating when used in moderation.
Online Printables: Parents should utilize the multitude of printable math worksheets that can be found and downloaded (often for free) online. In addition, it should be noted that most children also need hands-on instruction to go along with them. Inform parents of the importance of having small objects nearby that students can use while completing their math practice.
Daily Math Practice Sheets: A great option for home practice are math Mats – simple and easy to print out, and they are conducive to a daily practice routine. Each mat provides necessary spiral math review to keep math concepts fresh.
Discussions: Natural opportunities for parents to bring up math topics with their kids occur frequently throughout the day. During normal, everyday play is the best chance to slip in some math vocabulary. For example, point out to parents how they can talk about geometry, symmetry, measurement, problem-solving, and counting while they build with LEGOs or while drawing with sidewalk chalk.
Figuring it Out: Mental math is the perfect skill practice on the go. Remind parents that even on short car rides, math can be practiced by posing questions to children on any topic that requires them to think about the answer in their head. The problem can be as simple as: “It is 10 miles from our house to the mall. We’ve already driven four miles. How much farther do we have left to drive?”
Daily Vocabulary: Give families a list of terms and concepts in math that you are teaching in class and that can be brought up in everyday life with their children. Challenge them to bring up one concept per day through natural conversation. In doing so, they will help to cement the concepts into a child’s memory. One simple way to do this is to search for shapes in the neighborhood while walking around the block.
During Play: Parents can bring up math concepts throughout the day during play. Things like blocks, crayons, toy cars, puzzles, and crafts can be used to teach skills such as counting, recognizing patterns, comparing, and ordering. Telling time can be practiced by setting out a clock for children to watch. Say things like “At 4:00 we’ll clean up and have a snack. You tell me when it’s time.”
Around the Home: Math is easily integrated into daily tasks in the kitchen such as measuring ingredients, doubling and halving recipe ingredients, counting, and dividing meals into equal servings. In this way, cooking and baking provide natural learning opportunities. Yard work and home repair is another example of this. Measurement and planning, ordering and recognizing patterns can be discussed while gardening and working around the house.
The Use of Money: If children earn an allowance, they naturally learn about the value of money and how to count it. Suggest implementing a summer savings plan or giving children a penny for progress made towards a goal. Children will learn through the process how to count money, how to exchange smaller coins for larger value coins (such as 10 pennies make a dime). Having children help at the grocery store is also a way to boost learning about money.
Best Books: Give parents this list of books to check out at their local library. Perhaps use it as a summer reading list, or add some of these books to your recommendations. By reading one of these books a day, it will keep math skills in a children’s minds all summer long.
