Math Strategies That Will Help Students Learn Math at Home
.
Give your child plenty of opportunities to
count
·
Play number games
during everyday activities, such as counting the number of steps, the number of
trucks you see while driving, or counting the number of items going in the
laundry.
·
Read the calendar, and
determine the number of days until an upcoming event.
·
Young children can
count the number of items that you bought at the store. If you buy multiples of
1 item (such as 10 cans of cat food), practice counting by 2’s, 5’s, or 10’s
·
Watch your child play
to understand her mathematical knowledge. When your child counts, does she
touch each object once?
·
Have your child
distribute cookies or toys to family members, with each person getting an equal
number
Help your child recognize shapes and size
relationships
·
At the grocery store,
ask your child to find items that are triangles, circles, rectangles, and other
shapes.
·
Ask your child to
recognize or stack the groceries you bought by container shape or organize by
size.
·
Organize a scavenger
hunt where your child has to find objects of different shapes
Find ways to collect and organize information
·
Have your child help
sort the laundry by various categories — by color, or by whom an item belongs
to.
·
Using paper of
different colors, make a paper chain with paper strips and tape. Encourage your
child to create patterns by repeating colors and numbers of rings in a regular
order. This can be done in connection with reading the calendar and counting
down days to a special event.
·
Collect objects in
nature— leaves, rocks, shells and the like. When you get home, sort them by
color, size, or type. How many different categories can you find? How many
objects are in more than 1 category?
Help your child develop reasoning skills
·
Help your child think
about the permanence of a set. Put 6 pennies in a row, and then change the
arrangement. Ask “did the quantity change?”
·
Kindergartners love
repetition and patterning, which fosters mathematical thinking. Clapping
patterns help your child discover sequences and predict what comes next.
Some family games that use kindergarten math
skills:
·
Many card games
require counting and score keeping.
·
Dice games and dominos
help kids learn to quickly recognize groups of dots from 2 to 12.
·
Play board games that
involve counting squares, such as Chutes and Ladders.
·
Tic Tac Toe and
Connect Four build recognition of rows of 3 and 4 counters.
