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(With activities for children aged 5 through 13)
By Patsy F. Kanter
Prepared by Eric Reese
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"Why?"
This is the question we parents are always trying to answer. It's good that children ask questions: that's the best way to learn. All children have two wonderful resources for learning—imagination and curiosity. As a parent, you can awaken your children to the joy of learning by encouraging their imagination and curiosity.
Helping Your Child Learn Math is one in a series of books on different education topics intended to help you make the most of your child's natural curiosity. Teaching and learning are not mysteries that can only happen in school. They also happen when parents and children do simple things together.
For instance, you and your child can: sort socks on laundry day—sorting is a major function in math and science; cook a meal together—cooking involves not only math and science but good health as well; tell and read each other stories—storytelling is the basis for reading and writing (and a story about the past is also history); or play a game of hopscotch together—playing physical games will help your child learn to count and start on a road to lifelong fitness.
By doing things together, you will show that learning is fun and important. You will be encouraging your child to study, learn, and stay in school. All of the books in this series tie in with the National Education Goals set by the President and the Governors. The goals state that, by the year 2000: every child will start school ready to learn; at least 90 percent of all students will graduate from high school; each American student will leave the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades demonstrating competence in core subjects; U.S. students will be first in the world in math and science achievement; every American adult will be literate, will have the skills necessary to compete in a global economy, and will be able to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; and American schools will be liberated from drugs and violence so they can focus on learning.
This book is a way for you to help meet these goals. It will give you a short rundown on facts, but the biggest part of the book is made up of simple, fun activities for you and your child to do together. Your child may even beg you to do them. At the end of the book is a list of resources, so you can continue the fun.
As U.S. Education Secretary Lamar Alexander has said: The first teachers are the parents, both by example and conversation. But don't think of it as teaching. Think of it as fun.
So, let's get started. I invite you to find an activity in this book and try it.
Diane Ravitch
Assistant Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary Contents
Helping your Child Learn Math
Foreword
Appendices
Acknowledgments Introduction
How Do You Feel About Math?
You Can Do It!
Build Your Self-Confidence!
The Basics
What Does It Mean To
How Do I Use this Book?
Important Things to Know
Wrong Answers Can Help!
Problems Can Be Solved Different Ways
Doing Math in Your Head Is Important
What Jobs Require Math?
Math in the Home
Picture Puzzle
More or Less
Problem Solvers
Card Support
Fill It Up
Half Full, Half Empty
Name that Coin
Money Match
Money's Worth
In the News
Look It Up
Newspaper Search
Treasure Hunt
Family Portrait
Mathland: The Grocery Store
Get Ready
Scan It
Weighing In
Get into Shapes
Check Out
It's in the Bag
Put It Away
Math on the Go
Number Search
License Plates
Total It
How Long? How Far?
Guess If You Can
Parents and the Schools
What Should I Expect from a Math Program?
Resources
Acknowledgments
What We Can Do To Help Our Children Learn
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Parents and the Schools
What Should I Expect from a Math Program?
Resources
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Most parents will agree that it is a wonderful experience to cuddle up with their child and a good book. Few people will say that about flash cards or pages of math problems. For that reason, we have prepared this booklet to offer some math activities that are meaningful as well as fun. You might want to try doing some of them to help your child explore relationships, solve problems, and see math in a positive light. These activities use materials that are easy to find.
They have been planned so you and your child might see that math is not just work we do at school but, rather, a part of life. It is important for-home and school to join hands. By fostering a positive attitude about math at home, we can help our children learn math at school. It's Everywhere! It's Everywhere!
Math is everywhere and yet, we may not recognize it because it doesn't look like the math we did in school. Math in the world around us sometimes seems invisible. But math is present in our world all the time—in the workplace, in our homes, and in life in general.
You may be asking yourself, "How is math everywhere in my life? I'm not an engineer or an accountant or a computer expert!" Math is in your life from the time you wake until the time you go to sleep. You are using math each time you set your alarm, buy groceries, mix a baby's formula, keep score or time at an athletic event, wallpaper a room, decide what type of tennis shoe to buy, or wrap a present. Have you ever asked yourself, "Did I get the correct change?" or "Do I have enough gasoline to drive 20 miles?" or "Do I have enough juice to fill all my children's thermoses for lunch?" or "Do I have enough bread for the week?" Math is all this and much, much more.
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