Five tips to help your child make real-world math connections and develop a passion for problem solving! 

Getting young students passionate about math can sometimes be a difficult task. Math is certainly a challenging school subject for a solid portion of children because it requires a lot of time and effort to grasp. However, math can also be an extremely fun and exciting hobby for students once they begin to understand the material! One way to foster a child’s math interest is to have them connect mathematics to the real world. They may not know it yet, but math is all around us and we use it in our everyday life. By using this approach, it will allow your child to discover a concrete purpose behind solving problems and working with numbers. In this article, we will provide you with five ideas to help you make real-world math connections with your child!

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Take Your Child Grocery Shopping

The grocery store is the perfect place to introduce your child to real-world math connections! One fun activity that you can try is to show them the maximum amount of money that you aim to spend while grocery shopping. As you fill up your cart, have them keep track of how much each item costs. This engaging exercise is not only great for practicing basic arithmetic skills. It will also teach your child how to budget and the importance of math in this real-life scenario. 

Another everyday math related task that you can teach your little one at the grocery store is how to weigh fruits and vegetables. You can have them put the food on the scale and jot down how much each item weighs in ounces or pounds. If you want to take it a step further, have them calculate how much each piece of fruit or vegetable costs given the price per pound! 

Allow Your Child to Practice Math at Restaurants

Another great location to help your child make real-world math connections is at a restaurant. Similar to the grocery store activity, you can give them an arbitrary amount that you wish to spend on a meal. Then, have them pick food options from the menu that add up to that number. 

Restaurants are also the perfect place for your child to practice calculating percentages! After the server gives you the bill, allow them to try and calculate how much money is needed for a 20 percent tip based on the total amount that was spent. These types of activities help young students understand the tremendous amount of real-life value that math holds! 

Let Your Child Help You With Cooking 

Cooking exercises and activities are an effective way to introduce your child to everyday math measurements. During the preparation stage, have them measure how much of each ingredient is necessary for the dish you are trying to make. For example, allowing them to pour water into a measuring cup until it reaches eight ounces or scoop two tablespoons of flour into a mixing bowl. This idea is especially fun because your child will be utilizing their math skills to create a tasty dish! 

Cooking activities also present the perfect opportunity for your child to test their time telling abilities. As with any dish, there is a certain amount of time that it takes for it to bake, fry, grill, and so forth. In this case, have them calculate what time it will be when the food is done cooking. For instance, if it is currently 6:05pm and it takes approximately 45 minutes for the dish to bake. What time will it be when the food is ready to eat? 

Utilize the Beauty of Nature!

Math is all around us and that includes nature as well. Taking your child for nature walks and hikes opens up the door for so many math learning opportunities. Not only can they explore and identify patterns on tree trunks, leafs, rocks, and so on. They also can keep track of how many steps they have walked using a pedometer. 

In addition, if you have a fitness watch or fitness app on your smartphone. Your child can also track how many calories have been burned while hiking. Overall, this activity is an awesome way to both practice math and promote a healthy lifestyle!

Play Math Themed Games With Your Child 

There are so many games out there that can help children make real-world math connections. Board games like Monopoly are great for showing them how fun it is to count money and use it effectively to make purchases. Another obvious math game that comes to mind is Yahtzee. 

In addition, games such as chess, checkers, and dominos require mathematical skills as well! Having your child count how many spaces are needed to make a move is a good way to get their math brains working. After they develop a liking for these math themed games. Introducing them to basic Sudoku puzzles is an excellent next step. 

Overall, any of these options and many others are very effective ways to get children to think of math as a tool to solve real-life problems. Once this happens, children will begin to practice math on their own as part of their free time. 

About Think Academy

Think Academy provides online teaching services and classes for math students across grades K-Middle School. We also provide tons of free academic resources such as worksheets, webinars, and more! For those who are interested, you can join our WhatsApp group to receive free weekly math resources! 

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Think Academy’s Classes 

We offer numerous different math courses for children in grades K-8. We have short-term basic math classes that can help improve your child’s fundamental math skills. These courses last only about four weeks.

In addition, we also have K-8 long-term classes to ensure that students master the math material in their respective grades. These semester-long courses are available in three different levels (Advancement, Mastery, ACE) to account for all learning speeds!

As for students who want to take their math skills to the next level. Think Academy provides math competition prep classes for events such as the AMC 8 and Math Kangaroo!

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Lastly, before you register for our long-term courses. Make sure to schedule a free 1-on-1 evaluation if you have not already! Think Academy’s 1-on-1 evaluation contains an overview of our mission and academic structure, a 15-question evaluation exam, a one hour in-depth analysis, and a 15-minute teacher-to-parent discussion. After the evaluation, a customized study plan will be provided so that all of your child’s learning needs are met!