Math In And Around The House

Math in and around the house or in everyday life.  Just like science math is all around us… opportunities abound to enrich your child’s ability to understand relationships between numbers and mathematical patterns, all necessary for success in math. These activities will not only help in developing good math skills, they will build good self-esteem and a love of numbers. 

When getting dressed, ask your child to match the colors of his/her clothes. “Let’s wear red today. Can you find your shirt with the red truck?” With an older child, look for patterns in clothing. Patterns with alternating colors, stripes or plaids, squares or circles or  big and little. Describe the patterns, “My shirt has a pattern. It has big and little circles.”

Make a counting book.

Look for numbers 1 to 100 in the newspaper. Cut them out and glue them in numerical order onto a large piece of paper. Young children should look for 1-5 and then 1-10, growing as they are able to recognize.

Discuss the events of the day, first we eat breakfast, then you go to child care or school, then we will go to the park. The older child can say when events will happen in the morning, afternoon, evening, or night.  This will help with understanding the sequence of events.

Estimate how many spoonfuls it will take to finish the cereal. Count each spoonful. This gives practice in predicting.

Fill empty containers to provide opportunities to explore comparisons, measurement, volume, estimation, and geometry.

In the car, look for shapes of signs and objects.  Draw the shape of the street sign in the air.

Think of a number between 1 and 10. Give clues like “bigger” or “smaller” and ask to guess the number. This helps to establish a number line an how numbers relate to one another.

Make a graph out of stickers so they to record when the lights are red or green. Take a piece of paper or cardboard, draw a line down the middle to make two columns-one with a red x on the top and the other with a green x on the top.  Put a mark in the red column every time you stop at a red light and a mark in the green column when you go through a green light. Were there more red than green, fewer red than green, or the same number of each.

Look for numbers in the environment. Sing songs that rhyme, repeat, or have numbers in them. Count the telephone poles as you pass them.

Coin games will help your child to learn the value of coins, and teach counting, addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

Coupons can help teach children money management, as well as subtraction and percentages.