Maths at home
There are many ways that you can help reinforce mathematical concepts at home.
Here are some ideas:
Cooking ~ buying ingredients, measuring, timing how long things take to cook, oven temperature, will there be enough for everyone?, setting the table, dividing into portions (fractions), size of the tin, estimating.
Celebrations ~ cost of presents, how much wrapping paper is needed, patterns on wrapping paper, make your own wrapping paper, comparing weights of parcels, cutting the cake (fractions), decorating the cake.
Time ~ telling the time, what’s on TV at 7pm?, its 5 minutes till bedtime/pack up time, setting the alarm, what time will you get up?, how long it takes to get to school, how long it takes to clean your room, how long you are allowed on the computer, mark birthdays and other events on the calendar, how many sleeps till a special event, use an egg timer to time showers/teeth brushing etc, read the bus/train timetable and plan a trip.
Shopping ~ preparing shopping lists, estimating costs, counting change, counting money, giving money and calculating correct change, comparing costs of different brands, planning a party – how much will things cost?, how long will it take to get to the shop/do the shopping, order of shops visited (1st, 2nd, 3rd ), how heavy is the fruit/veg/deli products?
Money ~ earning pocket money, saving up for something special, banking, paying for things at the shop, planning show bag purchases, working out lunch orders, counting money.
Patterns ~ look for patterns in the home eg wallpaper, tiles, clothes, in the garden, house numbers, number plates, setting the table.
Games ~ rolling a dice – identifying numbers, rolling 2 dice and adding to work out how many paces to move, Uno, Rummikub, go fish, Sudoku, Yahtzee, computer games etc.
Holidays~ count down, costing trip, how many kilometers to…, planning route, using road maps, tallies of cars/trucks/bikes on the way, Spotto, make a graph of car colours etc, litres of fuel needed, town populations, estimate your arrival time at next town, speed of car, number plates – odd/even numbers, add the numbers up etc.
Weather ~ watch TV for the forecast, choosing appropriate clothes, reading a weather map, reading temperatures on a thermometer, compare the temperatures over a week/month, compare and graph the changes, compare capital city temperatures, know the Australian capital cities, differences between day and night temperatures, reading a rain gauge and recording this information.
Gardening ~ develop a garden plot, plant a garden, plan a garden, follow directions for planting, chart growth, compare size, shape, colour, find patterns on leaves, watering plants – how much water, measure height.
The beach ~ collect shells and sort by colour, size, shape, weight, etc.; count shells by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s; estimate how many shells in a bucket; make a pattern with shells; build a sandcastle – how much sand, how far around for moat, decorate it, how long does it take to build?; buy an ice block – how much is it for 1, 2 etc., how much change?; capacity of water in bucket.
With thanks to the JP maths project team SA
