What was your child’s reaction to their first math problem?
I could spend hours reading your answers because I know they will contain a lot of useful information. While some children will seem happy about learning math, the fact is many children see math as a challenging subject that they would rather avoid. I can totally relate to this experience because I had the same experience too, but with time I eventually got to love math, and your children can have a similar experience. It all has a lot to do with the approach.
While math seems to take a lot of time (I can hear those sighs from parents or teachers) which can make children nervous, but children can be introduced to math in a less intimidating fashion. Of course, I always advise that your children should start learning math very early. There is no better way to achieve this than adding fun math activities to your family time. A spoonful of sugar, well you know the rest.
A family who seem to be having fun together with math activities will encourage your child to become more receptive to associating problem solving and analytical challenges with fun. So, in the following part of this article, I will be discussing three fun ways to add math to your family time.
Storytelling
Children love stories, and I found out that you can hold the attention of your children when they are given active roles in the storytelling such as providing answers to simple addition or subtraction math questions. Stories could include depictions such as a “man had four fish, he gave two fish to his brother, and how many does he have left?” Your children answer- two. You should be more demonstrative to make the experience engaging. You could also include number stories using the numbers with some addition and subtraction questions. You could even read fun story books which have educative math pictures and illustrations.
Singing songs and Rhymes
I remember learning multiplication through songs. Songs are repetitive, and they can help your children remember necessary information about math. There are many math songs and rhymes your children will find interesting. Learn them and teach everyone while you all are together.
Math Puzzles and games
These puzzles and games might be frustrating at first, but you have to make it an exciting experience. Everyone should be involved. And when your children see you solve the puzzles, they get the idea that they can do it too. Puzzles and games help your children to develop logical reasoning and strategy development. Encourage them to find a way to solve the puzzles. The best part of this fun activity is that your children are independently learning how to formulate strategies to solve math. And when they get it right, ask them to explain how they arrived at the answer, you will definitely be impressed with their answers.
While we all have our strengths and weaknesses, not everyone can be a math genius. But you know your children need the basic math knowledge in their lives. So, keep encouraging them to develop better strategies when solving math.
