Summertime Math Activities

It's summertime, and the last thing my little boy wants to do is practice math. Know how I feel? It is always a struggle to get kids to practice the skills they learn during the school when their main thoughts are of baseball and ice cream. You can "sneak" those math skills and activities into the daily activities of your children in many ways. In this article, we look at some simple yet useful math activities you can do with your children. Enjoy!

Stuck Inside - When the weather doesn't allow you to play outside, try the following activities with your children. Most involve household chores or objects.

Washing Machine Math - Have your children help sort laundry, working math skills into each load. Ask him or her to count the socks as they go into the washer. When folding clothes after they are dry, have your child figure out how many pairs of socks he or she has. How many towels were folded? Who knows? You may find that sock you thought the washer ate three months ago!

Guess the Weight - Teach your child estimating skills. Ask your child to guess the weight of household objects - a magazine, a bowl, a tennis shoe. Show you child how to use a scale to find the approximate weight of the same objects. How close did your child come?

Using Food - Food is a fabulous way to get your child interested in practicing his math skills. I know the best way to help my three year old practice counting is to hand him a bag of Doritos and make him count each one as it goes into his bowl. He loves it, and I get the satisfaction of helping him practice his math.

Some other Activities:

For Small Children

The Fruit Graph

First, go to the grocery store and purchase fruit: apples, grapes, bananas, oranges. Then, when you get home, have your child empty the bag onto the kitchen counter. Working with your child, have him/her count the number of each fruit (6 oranges, 2 apples, 40 grapes, etc). Then, give your child some paper and crayons, and have him/her draw different types of graphs (bar, line) to show how many of each fruit there is. This activity helps your child learn to represent objects in a graphic form.

For Middle Schoolers

Going Grocery Shopping

From your weekly paper, give your child the grocery store ads. With the ads, help your child to make a grocery list that will feed your family for a week. Then, have your child list the prices of the items he/she will purchase (don't forget to include when you buy more than one). Limit your child to a budget, and have him/her figure up the total cost of the week's groceries. If the child is within the budget, have him/her think about things that may not have been in the ad, but are necessary. If the child went over budget, talk about how he/she can save some money on groceries and what is really necessary and what isn't. Then, take your child to the grocery store and let him/her pick out the groceries, using his/her list as a guide.

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