3 Fun Ways to Stop the Math Summer Slide

Summer and math are (and always have been) poles apart from each other. Summer vacations are meant for late breakfasts (aka brunches), virtual games, swimming lessons, outdoor fun and above all, zero math. Mathematics is a subject which needs constant practice; the more you slog at it, the better you get. And, of course, summers are definitely not meant to be spent slogging over math problems, are they? That’s why most kids fall prey to the deadly summer slide, more so in math as compared to other subjects.

Here are 3 fun ways to try and slow down (if not stop) this inevitable summer slide in math:

1. YouTube videos are all the rage these days. Just run a simple search like ‘fun math videos for kids’ and you’ll be greeted by loads of fun stuff, from basic kindergarten and preschool math involving colorful animals prancing around to alligators and friendly monsters imparting math education. Introduce your kids to them for a fixed time duration daily to ensure they don’t forget the basics learnt over the last school year (especially useful for younger kids).

“icon-graphics” by jean_victor_balin is licensed under CC by 2.0

2. Does your child enjoy watching and/or playing sports? Summers could be the perfect time to catch up on ongoing events in the sporting world and teach math using sports. Encourage your child to keep track of scores and in the process, grab the opportunity to introduce her to the basics of statistics. Sports events more often than not show pie charts and bar charts on television, in between matches. Improve your kids’ understanding by having a full-blown discussion regarding the same after each match and see how they grasp stuff quickly since it’s something that interests them.

3. Any summer vacation is incomplete without the ubiquitous board games or card games. At our place, Monopoly has been the all-time favorite game of several generations, played by several generations as well at the same time all together! (Needless to say that this has resulted in a large chunk of the game money to go missing followed by newly purchased Monopoly sets from time to time. I’ve lost count on how many Monopolies we’ve owned – and lost – in the last couple of decades.) Counting out money is fascinating for all kids since they aren’t used to handling money on an everyday basis. Make your kid the ‘banker’ of the game, entrusted with the responsibility of handing out the required denominations of notes to the other players. They’ll end up getting familiar with counting out the change and it’ll hold them in good stead in the years to come.

Joanna Christodoulou from the Harvard Graduate School of Education couldn’t have put it better when she said: “Reading activities are often part of the fabric of a family’s daily life. But if you try to imagine a bedtime math routine, as you might for reading, the idea of winding down by completing math equations doesn’t elicit the same interest. The issue isn’t that engaging math activities are not available outside of school, but rather that it is easy to overlook the presence of math in everyday activities, like measurement in cooking, calculation when dealing with money, or distance while driving.” (You can read the full article here.)

Do you have any other interesting ideas that can be added to this list?

Easter Math Riddles

Easter and Math do not generally go together; true that. But then, riddles can go along with pretty much any subject, Easter being no exception. Here’s how you can design simple, Easter-themed Math riddles for your kids.

“Framed Math Girl” by JayNick is licensed under CC by 2.0

Have an incomplete riddle as the question that needs to be solved in the beginning. Here are some examples:

• A rabbit with fleas is called ____. (Answer: Bugs Bunny)
• How do Easter bunnies stay healthy? (Answer: Eggsercise)
• How did the soggy Easter bunny dry himself? (Answer: Hare Dryer)

Now divide the page into two parts. The left half should contain math problems; simple addition and subtraction for younger kids, the more complicated multiplication and division for older kids. Just the signs (+, -, x, /) need to be missing, shown as an empty block. The right half will have four columns, each headed by these signs and corresponding alphabets under each. The correct sign for each equation should have the corresponding alphabet under it for each problem, so as to make up the word in a correct sequence once all the problems are solved. The children are required to figure out the correct signs in each case and circle the letter under the correct sign. Once all the problems are correctly solved, simply list out the alphabets in their correct order at the bottom of the worksheet and you have the answer to your riddle!

3 Interesting Ideas for Preschool Math

Talk preschool math and you need to think of beginning with hands-on activities. Sorting out different colored objects such as beads or macaroni or lego or soft toys could be a good way to start, followed eventually by simple preschool math worksheets. Turning any math sorting or counting activity into a story can also be immensely helpful in getting the children hooked on to your tale – one can always include spiders and monsters and kittens and puppies into small math games and have the preschoolers learn without realizing the fact that they are actually being taught numbers!

“Framed Math Girl” by JayNick is licensed under CC by 2.0

Here are three interesting ideas with respect to counting, measuring and identification of shapes which can be useful in introducing your little ones to basic math.

Counting Fun: Anything that is brightly colored and looks attractive generally catches the fancy of a preschool kid. Counting can be made a fun activity by introducing many different colored objects in it. One exciting way could lead you to the kitchen to look for some uncooked spaghetti. Get hold of some colorful plastic beads and let your little one try and identify each color before threading a bead onto the spaghetti. Set a rule beforehand, like one spaghetti stick will contain only one color and (say) 10 beads in all. Another interesting counting activity could be carried out with a pack of playing cards. Sort out all the picture cards and the aces and set them aside. You’re now left with number cards only. On a drawing board, pin up the numbers 2-10 of a single suit and ask your little one to match each number on its corresponding one on the board, that is all 5’s together (4 in all), all 6’s together and so on.

Measuring Fun: The focus here will be not on accuracy but on getting preschoolers acquainted with the art of measuring substances they encounter on a daily basis. The easiest way to do this is by allowing them to assist you while cooking. Have a notebook open with basic measurements penned down for a simple dish like a salad – 2 tomatoes, 3 onions, 4 carrots and the like. This could be followed by the more complex ‘3 spoons of sugar’ or ’100 ml of water’ in a measuring cylinder, depending on what is cooking.

Shapes Fun: Preschoolers usually begin their math learning by identifying shapes of different kinds. A good idea is to try out this simple activity which requires just a piece of chalk and an empty backyard with a floor that can be drawn on. Draw out different basic shapes – square, rectangle, circle, star – on the ground using chalk; each shape should be big enough to be able to accommodate a single standing kid. Now associate a particular action with each shape – e.g. hop on one leg in a triangle, jump thrice in a square and so on. The kids will have fun prancing around the shapes; hopping, skipping and jumping.

The key in all these activities is ‘the fun factor’. Because when it comes to math with these little kids, teaching moments need to be disguised with play (read more here). Do you have any interesting ‘fun’ ideas that can be added to this list?