Math Activities for Kids
Help Your Child Learn Basic Math with Simple Educational Games
Oct 27, 2007
Math is something that people use almost constantly in their day to day lives. This makes learning basic math skills a very important part of a child's education. However, practice drills at school may not always be enough to help your child learn how to apply math to real life situations. Try working a few simple math games into your daily routines to help reinforce math skills.
Checkbook Math
Checkbook Math is a great way to teach a child to manage an allowance and learn practical budgeting skills. Create a checkbook ledger and checks for an imaginary bank account and explain how checkbooks work. Then, give the child a beginning balance in the ledger. Explain that every time the child makes a purchase, he or she will need to write a check for it and the purchase amount must be deducted from the ledger balance. The child will give a parent the check and the parent will pay for the item the child is purchasing.
Grocery Math
There are many opportunities to use math in the grocery store. After all, groceries are all about prices and weights. Here are a few things you can try.
- Give the child a set amount of money and instruct him or her to buy snacks for a week.
- Ask the child to find the best deal per pound by comparing several brands of the same product.
- Show the child how small savings can add up by asking him or her to match coupons to purchases. Use the savings amount to buy a special treat.
How Long, How Wide, How Tall? Measurement Math
For this game, gather a ruler, a measuring tape and a selection of different sized objects. Children will need to measure the objects and record the measurements. Then, they will need to arrange the objects from tallest to shortest or thinnest to widest. Although this game doesn't sound terribly exciting to most grownups, younger children really enjoy being able to measure, especially if a family member frequently uses measuring tapes or rulers around the house.
How Many? Counting Game
Counting games can be made very simple or quite challenging. For young children, try setting out a line of cereal pieces, blocks, toy cars, or doll shoes. (If you have math manipulatives, you can use them instead, but every day items are more interesting for children to count.) As children become adept at counting the items, introduce basic addition and subtraction concepts by adding or removing pieces. For older children, estimating games using a jar full of small objects are also fun.
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