Playing Around with Math

“Mathematics” by OpenClipart-Vectors is licensed under CC by 2.0

These days I’m trying to teach my daughter to ‘play with numbers’. Right from using building blocks to count from 1 to 10, playing board games like snakes and ladders in which one has to count ahead spaces at every step and add numbers together to mastering the fundamentals of the basic number line through a simple game of hopscotch, we’re doing it all. And it’s a whole lot of fun.

We also have an abacus at home now. Earlier I was of the view that it could only be used to do simple addition and subtraction; but then on reading more about this fun calculating tool, we’ve started doing more complex operations like multiplication and division too, albeit of small numbers.

We try and include math in our everyday activities – in the kitchen learning about volumes, playing online math games on the computer and the like. Kids (at least mine) tend to develop a natural aversion to the subject if they are made to sit down with a list of problems on a worksheet and asked to solve them. The key to making the subject fun is to involve imaginative play in math, something that is a part of their everyday routine and yet is enjoyable.

3 Fun Ways to Prevent the Math Summer Slide

According to a research carried out by Oxford Learning, an online program which caters to the learning needs of students of different age groups, math skills equivalent to approximately 2.6 months of learning are lost by kids over the summer vacation. What’s more, if kids and parents manage to put in just 2-3 hours per week towards the subject, this learning loss can be prevented to a considerable extent. Also, Duke University researchers claim that math skills decline more over the summer than academic skills in any other subject.

“Mathematics” by ArtsyBee is licensed under CC by 2.0

Here are a couple of fun math activities that can be used to brush up the kids’ math skills over the summer so that they are able to retain a good part of whatever was taught to them over the past academic year.

Math in the Kitchen

Ask your kid to count how many cookies are there on the cookie tray once it comes freshly baked out of the oven. A good way would be to count the number of rows and columns to calculate the number of cookies, hence helping the kids recall and practice their multiplication tables. Allow your kids to measure out the volume of water that goes into the spaghetti recipe you’re cooking. Younger kids can be made to set the table for dinner and count out the number of forks and knives required for the people at the dining table. The number of pints in a gallon, the number of ounces in a cup, kids can get to know these basics of math measurements like the back of their hand if they help out in the kitchen on an everyday basis.

Math with Games

You can pick from an endless variety of exciting math games to play with your kids and as a family. One of the relatively recent additions to the market is what is known as printable math games – what you need to do is simply download certain e-books from the internet to your computer, print them out and voila! You have a great math game on your hands which you’ve never played before. Alternatively, you could introduce your child to online math games which come in all shapes and sizes and for all ages. Playing card games or board games like the tried-and-tested monopoly are other equally good options which allow you to spend quality time together as a family as well as teach kids the fundamentals of counting, money and otherwise.

Math with Videos

Ever heard of something known as a multiplication rap? Well, it’s an easy and entertaining way to help your kids sing along and learn their multiplication tables in style. Also, doodles are not always just absent-minded scribbles and squiggles drawn on paper. Doodling in math by connecting dots, making binary trees and practicing the Fibonacci series are fun ways kids can practice certain mathematical concepts, be means of watching certain educational videos on sites like YouTube.

Because the only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics, as a parent you just need to make sure some form of math is incorporated into your child’s play – one of the most effective ways to do away with the otherwise inevitable summer slide.

Finger Counting - Good or Bad

To begin with, I unashamedly admit the fact that I use my fingers to count even today. Count as in, not counting on my fingers one by one, but yes, I do take a quick look at my fingers whenever a single digit calculation has to be done, just by way of habit.

And the debate goes on – shouldn’t you wean your child off from counting on her fingers as soon as possible? Naysayers who do not support finger counting put forward the following claims:

• Finger counting is an introductory skill and children should generally move ‘from the less-efficient strategies of using their fingers, to the more efficient strategies without finger use’, according to a certain mathematical development research.
• The whole calculation process slows down as a result of counting on your fingers, and hence the child is put at a disadvantage in class.
• Finger counting closes the kids’ minds to the essential skill of memorizing certain math facts.

That said and done, a recent study conducted by a team at Stanford concluded that:

• Far from being ‘babyish’, the technique is essential for mathematical achievement.
• Stopping students from using their fingers while counting could be akin to halting their mathematical development.
• Visual math is a powerful tool for all learners, especially young kids. When we work on math, our brain activity is distributed among many different networks, which include areas within the ventral and dorsal pathways, both of which are visual. Hence, our mathematical thinking is grounded in visual processing.

Now the next time your child starts to do a basic mathematical calculation on his fingers, don’t discourage her; instead do it along with her. It’s for her good only in the long run.

Live Everyday like it’s Leap Day!

‘Leap year, Leap year, When will you be?

Every FOUR years, THEN you’ll see!

You want more? We do too!

How many more can you leap to?’

This leap year rhyme has been doing the rounds lately – and why not, considering the fact that the present year 2016 is a leap year and it has come after a gap of four whole years! The other day my young son looked at me with a quizzical expression and inquired about the extra day in the month of February this year and how all the kids were talking about it. Here’s how I decided to make the explanation simple for him; perhaps it could help you too in order to explain the same to your kids.

• A leap year is different from other years as in it has 366 days instead of the usual 365 days.
• February is the month with the extra day, with 29 instead of 28 days.
• A leap year occurs every 4 years (here’s a good opportunity to test their multiplication table of 4 and ask them about the next leap year).
• February 29 is called a leap day.
• It takes the earth 365 days to orbit around the sun once - hence an earth year has 365 days in it.

While younger kids would probably be satisfied with digesting this much of information, here’s a wonderful video I discovered about leap years which would be fascinating for older kids:

·        

The Mathematics of Christmas

I recently came across this fascinating video called ‘The Mathematics of Christmas’ which talked about number and figures related to Christmas in the US. Here you go:

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/mathematics-christmas-12398826

• 20% of the Americans generally don’t finish their shopping until Christmas Eve.
• 38,000 miles of ribbon are used to wrap up all those Christmas presents – which is enough to tie five giant bows around the moon.
• There are 1 million square acres of Christmas trees growing in America’s forests – more acres than the entire state of Rhode Island.
• Anthem (Arizona) is home to the nation’s largest Christmas tree, standing at a 110 feet – this is equal to 18 Santas tall and is decorated with more than 50,000 lights.
• In each year, about 11,000 letters addressed to the Big Man in Red arrive at the post office in the town of Santa Claus, Indiana.
• In order to visit all those good little boys and girls on Christmas Eve, Santa and his eight reindeer need to travel at a speed of 650 miles per second.

Math-Anxiety & Parents

I have a confession to make. As a kid, I detested math, in all kinds, shapes and forms. And, though I hate to admit this (and have never admitted it in the presence of my kids), I used to run away from math every opportunity I got; which made me a big nuisance for my parents and teachers alike. Could never even imagine that one fine day I would be chiding my kids for the same!

But then, would I qualify to be a ‘math anxious’ parent? A study carried out by the University of Chicago recently came up with the conclusion that ‘children of math-anxious parents learned less math over the school year and were more likely to be math-anxious themselves’ (which my kids definitely are).

Susan Levine, who headed the study, had this to say: “Math-anxious parents may be less effective in explaining math concepts to children, and may not respond well when children make a mistake or solve a problem in a novel way.”

Now that I come to think of it, I do tend to consider math-time at home as a chore and as a result am always waiting for it to get over so that I can move on to the so-called ‘bigger’ and ‘better’ subjects which I love teaching my kids; science or language, for instance. Maybe I should just try and get rid of whatever (subconscious) anxiety I have towards math and turn over a new leaf in a way. Who knows, maybe my kids will start loving math too? High hopes, but definitely worth a try.

3 Fun Math Apps – For Tiny Tots to Tweens

“The only way to learn mathematics is to do mathematics.”

Coming from Paul Richard Halmos, the renowned mathematician who is credited with significant advances in several fields of mathematics such as probability theory, statistics and mathematical logic, these words hold so much power. But then when it comes to kids, especially the kindergarten and the just-passed kindergarten ones, getting them to sit down and do mathematics is next to impossible. Hence, parents find themselves turning to other ‘more interesting’ means like online math games, story-telling (for instance, four frogs jumped into a pond, then one more, how many are there in all?), math story books (a popular one is Each Orange Had 8 Slices: A Counting Book by Paul Giganti, Jr. and Donald Crews), to name a few.

Along the same lines, here are three fun math apps for different age groups – from toddlers to middle schoolers – which are an exciting way to help your kids get rid of their math woes.

TallyTots (For 2-4 year olds)
The first thing that strikes you about the interface of this app is that it is extremely colorful – and hence, toddlers as well as preschoolers are going to love it. It is a complete package with twenty different mini-games within it, which begins as twenty cards with numbers spread across a cheerful blue sky background. Among the games is a mathematical puzzle which needs to be solved, a garden with flowers which need to be watered, and even chipmunks that need to be fed with a specific number of acorns. To top it all, the one reason which made me love this app most of all has to be the melodious and very simple to learn sing-along counting song, which kids will pick up in no time whatsoever.

The Counting Kingdom (For 6-10 year olds)
This one is all about magic, monsters and (of course!) math. You have a kingdom of your own and monsters are invading it. Even though the monsters are quite cute, you need to banish them from your kingdom, otherwise there will be huge destruction. But how? Through magic spells of course! As the said monsters gradually start appearing in the form of a grid in front of your fortress, the onus is on you to add their numbers together in such a way so as to whip up three different spells (read: sums) to scare the attackers away. Remember the Plants versus Zombies game, in which one had to attack and destroy zombies with dangerous looking plants? The only difference in The Counting Kingdom is that you need to use math equations in place of plants to attack the approaching monsters. This tower defense strategy game will go a long way in brushing up your little one’s addition skills, as he goes past addition problems with increasing complexity at each of the 30 levels presented in the game.

Math Snacks (For 10-12 year olds)
This app is meant especially for those tweens who don’t particularly adore math. It is something akin to a one-stop shop for parents and teachers of the said age group, replete with teacher and student learning material, games and interactive videos. Very unlike the traditional math that is taught in classrooms, Math Snacks caters primarily to the mathematical learning needs of students of grades 6-8 and presents the subject through a variety of different animations and short games. The fact that this app was created by the New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab is reason enough to introduce your kids to it; a very well-designed interactive math app.

With fascinating apps like these on the rise, who knows, there might soon be a day when we won’t know what ‘math phobia’ actually means!