In chapter 1, I talked about some home remedies and interesting games you can engage your child with in other to me familiar with mathematics.
So here are my now with some home calculations you can engage your child with after practicing all the steps in chapter 1.
So Let's get started still the continuation of Mathematics in the Home.
A-Weigh We Go!
Observing, estimating, weighing and comparing are all essential
mathematics skills.
What You Need
★ Bathroom or kitchen scales
★ Objects to weigh, such bags of sugar, flour, potatoes or onions;
boxes
of detergent and cookies;
shoes of different sizes
★ Paper and pencil
★ A small plastic zipper bag filled with sugar and much larger zipper
bag filled with cornflakes (or popped popcorn)
★ Suitcase
What to Do
★ Show your child two objects, such as a five-pound bag of sugar and a
10 pound bag of potatoes, and ask him to guess which weighs the
most.
Show him how to use a scale to weigh the objects and see if
his guess is right or wrong.
★ Next show him several objects and ask him to guess how much each
weighs.
Have him write his estimates, then weigh the objects to see
if they’re correct.
★ If you choose, have your child estimate his own weight, as well as
that of other family members, and use the bathroom scale to check
his guesses.
★ Extend the activity or make it more challenging by doing the
following:
- Show your child the small plastic bag filled with sugar and the
larger bag filled with cornflakes or popped popcorn.
Ask your
child which will weigh more, the smaller or the larger bag? Have
him weigh the bags to check whether his guess is correct.
Afterwards, point out that bigger does not always mean heavier.
—Ask your child how he can weigh a suitcase that is too large to fit
on the bathroom scale.
Listen carefully to his answers—try some
of his suggestions, if possible—and praise him for learning to think
through problems.
If he doesn’t come up with a solution, show
him that one way to find the weight of the suitcase is for him to
stand on the scales while holding it and noting the total weight.
Then put the suitcase aside and weigh himself again and note his
weight. If he subtracts his weight from the totalweight, the
answer is the weight of the suitcase.
Penny, Nickel, Dime
Activities that involve money are a good way to develop mathematical
reasoning and to reinforce what children are learning in school about
numbers and arithmetic operations, such as addition and subtraction.
What You Need
★ Dice
★ Pennies, nickels, dimes
What to Do
This is a good game to play with the family.
★ Have each player roll the dice and say the number. Then give the player
that number of pennies. Explain that each penny is worth one cent.
★ When a player gets five pennies, replace the pennies with a nickel.
Explain that five pennies have the same value as one nickel—that is,
five cents.
When she gets five more pennies, replace the pennies and
the nickel with a dime.
Help her to see that the value of five pennies
plus the value of a nickel (five cents) equals 10 cents, which is the
value of a dime.
★ The first player to reach a set amount 25 or 50 cents, for example—wins.
Treasure Hunt
Math-related activities at home can help to
reinforce what they are learning about numbers and arithmetic operations
such as addition and subtraction, as well as reinforce classification skills and mathematical reasoning.
What You Need
★ Large container
★ Buttons, bottle caps, old keys or any other small items that you can count
What to Do
★ As a rainy day activity, place the items in the container and give it to your
child.
Have him sort and classify items into piles: keys, buttons and so
forth.
Then have him explain how the items in each pile are alike and
how they are different.
For example, some buttons may be big and some
small; some keys may be silver colored and some gold-colored.
★ Have your child choose one of the piles and organize the items in it by
one characteristic, such as length.
Have him lay the items end to end
then compare and contrast what he sees.
For example, how many
short keys?
long keys?
★ Next, ask your child to use the items in another pile of items to solve
simple math problems.
Try problems such as the following:
—If you have 10 bottle caps and give me two, how many bottle caps
do you have left?
—If you have three big buttons and three small ones, how many
buttons do you have altogether?
★ Create activities that challenge your child to use mathematical
reasoning. Ask him, for example, to
look closely at items and answer
questions such as the following:
—Is a gold-colored key always
heavier than a silver-colored one?
—Do the big buttons always have
more holes than the smaller ones?
In the News(paper)
Newspapers are good resources for building number sense and arithmetic
skills and using mathematical reasoning.
What You Need
★ Newspaper
★ Safety scissors
★ Pencil or crayon
★ Glue
★ Paper
★ Hole puncher
★ Yarn
What to Do
★ Give your child a newspaper and a set of numbers to look for—for
example, from 1 to 25 (or 1 to 100 if she is familiar with the higher
numbers).
Have her cut out the numbers and glue them in
numerical order onto a large piece of paper. Call her attention to any
ways in which the numbers differ—for example, some will be in a
bigger size of type than others, some will be in bold or italic type.
Have her read the numbers to you, then put the paper aside. Have
her practice counting up to that number then counting down from
it.
Also try having her count to the number by 2s or 5s.
★ Next, have your child make a counting book by using pictures she’s
cut from the newspaper. Have her write the page numbers at the
bottom of each blank page and paste one item on page 1, two on
page 2 and so forth.
Explain that all of the things she puts on a page
must be alike in some way—all animals, all basketball players, all
cars and so on.
Help her to write the name of the item on the
appropriate page.
★ Have your child read the book to you. Afterwards, ask her questions
such as the following:
—How many pictures did you cut out altogether (1+2+. . .+10)?
—How many total pictures are on pages 1-3? on pages 1-6?
—We know that 6 = 2 x 3. Are there twice as many pictures on page 6 as on page 3?
—Are there twice as many pictures from page 1 to 6 as from pages 1 to 3?
—Which are there more of: pictures on pages 2, 3, and 4, or pictures
on pages 5 and 6?
I believe this article is helpful and in the next chapter I will be talking about some easy but trickish home calculations you can engage your child in other to be very familiar with mathematics.