When your child is home for summer vacation, being home schooled or simply just needs practice in math, you can find ways to teach her math via activities and exercises that hone and sharpen her skills. Whether it's while standing at your side in the kitchen or playing a card game, everyday opportunities present themselves for your child to improve math skills, and as a parent, you can foster those opportunities for better learning and development.
Kitchen Math
As you measure, bake and pour, you create ideal ways to engage your child in math exercises, notes Scholastic website. Ask your child to double a recipe for you, and hand him a sheet of paper. Ask him how much of each ingredient you'll need when they are all doubled. It will give him a chance to work on adding fractions and whole numbers. Having him measure out the ingredients himself allows him to learn more about fractions in a visual way.
Paint by Number
Create a mathematical paint-by-number picture for your child to color as a math exercise. Print a coloring page from the Internet or cut one out of a coloring book. Create equations and use them as the color legend. For instance, write that Blue = 7 x 7 and then label all of the parts of the picture that need to be colored blue as 49. Your child will need to solve the equation to know which parts will be which color.
Dice Game
A simple set of dice gives you the chance to create a math exercise for your child. Take two dice, and then make four flash cards, each with a mathematical symbol on it, including the addition sign, subtraction sign, multiplication sign and division sign. Have your child roll the dice, and then choose a flash card. She then must solve the equation by setting a die on either side of the flash card. Give points for answers right, or offer a small treat when she's correct.
"31"
Playing a game of "31" can help your child learn to add numbers. "31" is played when each person in the game is dealt three cards. The goal of the game is to get three cards in the same suit that add up to "31," by choosing from the deck and discarding one card per turn. Face cards are worth 10 points, while an ace is worth 11, notes Pagat.com. If a player thinks he's close, he can knock the table and give all the other players one last chance at drawing a high-number card. The cards are then displayed, and the cards are added up. The person closest to 31 wins the game.
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