Tips on Making Math Fun
To most parents, making children love mathematics is quite challenging. It takes a lot of brain power to master math as a skill and kids experience that as hard work. Even for some adults doing math feels like experiencing physical pain. The most common mistake parents make is telling their kids that math is hard to learn, because children pick up that attitude and live their lives in constant fear of facing that terrible monster in school. However, since math is necessary to survive in modern life, plus training it can be quite advantageous, it’s important to make it fun and easy for your kids. Here are some tips on succeeding in that mission!
Make mathematics a game! Make your kids consider math not as a hard work, but as a game that can be played same as sports, fun board or computer games. Nowadays, you can download free math worksheets, apps, digital games and there are many websites as learning resources. You can also play non-digital games that involve calculations, such as Ladders, Monopoly, Chutes etc. In fact, playing board and card games with math tasks improves math skills significantly.
Integrate mathematics into fun activities your kids enjoy! If your child likes baking or cooking with you, for instance, give him/her a task to measure ingredients in parts or in wholes or to estimate and count objects such as a number of cookies. For example, you can ask this kind of question: “If we need to put 6 eggs in this mixture, and we have already placed 4 eggs, how many more eggs do we need?” On the other hand, if your kids are into sports, teach them about the numbers used in certain sport, such as scores, percentage of wins, batting averages etc.
If you make math enjoyable, you will help your kids grow to associate math with parental attention and love, pleasure and fun. Instead of being afraid of this subject, your kids will be excited about it throughout their academic lives. Keep in mind that children (and even grownups) are more receptive to learning when it’s associated to play than work.
