Maths is an important part of your child’s education and an essential life skill. Mathematics helps children to make sense of numbers, patterns and shapes and it also introduces kids to new concepts and ideas.
Parents can help to enhance their child’s maths skills by practicing at home. Many parents lack confidence in their own math skills, or worry that their teaching methods will be different to current school techniques; however what many parents don’t realise is that they can simply apply maths to many everyday activities.
Read on for some great tips on how parents can teach their kids maths in fun and practical ways…
Everyday learning
An important part of helping your child to learn maths involves teaching them how they can apply numbers to everyday situations. This could include using money, playing games or working out measurements. Encouraging your child to practise maths in everyday life will greatly enhance their numeracy skills and help to make learning fun.
Online learning
There are many educational books that provide maths exercises for your child to practice. However, this can feel very similar to learning at school. Instead they may find online resources more engaging and fun to do at home. Have a look for children’s math apps you can download onto a family tablet and see who can get the best score!
Memory
If your child is learning their time tables it can be helpful to buy an educational poster to display at home. Find a large poster that clearly displays the times tables from 1 to 12 and pop it up somewhere they will see it every day. Regular revision from this poster will aid their memorisation and their understanding of multiplication.
Cooking
Cooking is another fun and engaging way for your child to develop their maths skills. They can practise weighing and measuring in grams and kilograms as well as learn how to read the scales and measure in litres and centilitres.
Playing
Board games are another great learning method for maths. Board games will often get kids doing maths without even realising it. For example, Snakes and Ladders and Monopoly are both great board games, which will help your child to practice various maths skills.
Positive attitude
Finally, it is important for parents to demonstrate a positive attitude towards maths at all times. Many parents tell their children that they were ‘bad at maths’ at school or that it was their ‘least favourite subject’. However these comments can pass on a negative attitude towards maths and affect your child’s efforts.
