Learning Maths at Home

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Helping Your Child Learn Maths at Home

Play counting games.
Count objects when driving in the car e.g. the trees, how many blue cars, etc.
Recognise and say the numbers around us. (letterboxes, number plates). Looking for patterns in numbers. They need to know their own telephone number.
Discuss dates on the calendar. Count how many days until an event.
When shopping, ask your child how to work out the cost of a few items. Ask them how they worked their answer out and discuss the ways they could have done it.
Cooking – discuss the measurements.
Fractions – cut food into pieces (fractions). Name the fraction e.g. ¾ is 3 of the 4 pieces. ½ is one of the two pieces.
Share items amongst others. E.g. planning a party and making up a party pack. Sharing 10 lollies with 5 people etc.
Ask your child numbers that come before and after other numbers
Practise counting in 5,s e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20
Also counting in 2's and 10's.
Order numbers. Ages of people in the family or phone numbers.
Play card games and other board games.
Together add the bills for the month.
Work out the cost of an outing.
Look at the grocery bill. Work out how much was spent on vegetables, canned food, meat etc. Graph or work out the percentage.
Allow the children to earn 'pocket money'. Encourage them to keep account of their money – how much they have spent, how much they need to purchase an item, etc.
Count how many items are in grocery packets e.g biscuits, apples. How many would there be in two bags?
Encourage young children to use their fingers to solve problems. E.g. five fingers on one hand, ten altogether. How many fingers altogether do two people have?
Children from Year three up need to learn their times tables. First 2's, 5's and 10's then others.
Practise basic facts for addition and subtraction to build skill and memory recall. First within 5 e.g. 4+1, 2+3, then within 10, e.g. 3+5, 6+2.
When parking the car, discuss what the time will be when the meter expires.

Using maths for solving everyday problems gives a real purpose for practising maths.