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Writer's pictureClara Goh

How To Incorporate Mathematics Into Your Child's Daily Life


For most children, learning mathematics is something they don't quite understand the importance of. But as parents and adults, we know all too well that math is everywhere and how much it encompasses our daily lives. As such, making math relevant in children’s lives as early as possible and familiarising them with overcoming its many challenges is important.


The key here is to constantly be on the lookout for math opportunities to creatively integrate math into your child's daily activities and instil the love of math in your child while also forming a positive connection that helps to boost their confidence in math.


Below are some effective ways to practise early math skills with your child.


Kitchen Math (Ages 8-15+)


Fractions when baking and cooking are one of the simplest ways to use math daily. Have your child find their favourite recipe or a new one they want to try and gather all the ingredients to make their desired dish.


Before getting started, have them bring out a pen and paper and a calculator for checking their work and instruct them to double, triple, and 'half' the recipe ingredients. You can ask supporting questions like which of these recipes will have enough of a serving size to feed their friends if they invite them over for dinner. Once they get all the correct answers, you can then proceed to make the recipe and enjoy your creation!


Clock Math (Ages 8-13+)


Using a clock face can help with simplifying and creating fractions. Furthermore, it helps kids get better at telling the time via a traditional clock, which is another learning opportunity.


Get a ruler, paper plate, string, and markers and have your child make a clock face. Using the yarn connected to the middle, discuss the lines of symmetry, and after going through these basics, it is time to make fractions based on minutes.


For instance, since there are 60 minutes in an hour, 5 minutes of it creates 5/60 or 1/12 as the simplified version. You can then move up to 10 minutes, which is 10/60, and simplify it in the same manner, but also introduce equivalent fractions like 5/30 and 2/12 (which are not simplified) and explain why they are the same.


Ask your child to come up with as many equivalent fractions for each minute value and have them identify the most simplified fraction. You can take this exercise a step further to refresh and further develop their skill in basic addition and subtraction of fractions.


Unit rate (Ages 10-18+)


This math lesson is incredibly useful for real-life situations, especially when working with a budget. To teach your child how to better manage their money, ask them to research a certain product available in different sizes.


For this example, let us use soda beverages packaged in various serving sizes. If a 500ml bottle costs $1.60, have your child determine the unit rate by dividing the item's price by its units (ounces in this case), resulting in $1.60 ÷ 500 = $0.32 cents per ml.


Conclusion


With a bit of creativity, incorporating math into your child's everyday routines is relatively simple. It generates great returns as they overcome their fear of math and even grow to love it. As such, try to integrate these fun yet relevant activities to help them develop a more positive attitude towards mathematics.


Apart from these activities, consider enrolling your child in primary math tuition in Singapore at Colourtrain Academy today! We provide affordable yet highly tailored math tuition in Bukit Batok that caters to each student's needs and goals so they can get on the fast track to academic success in mathematics. Contact us today to learn more.

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