Math at Home

• Provide cotton balls, beans or other small objects to use as counters for adding and subtracting.
• Beginning late fall,  give your child a small amount of change every day and have them count it.  Line the coins up by VALUE:  quarter, dime, nickel and then penny.  If they get allowance, have them count it out themselves.
• Use the clock with your child.  For example, tell them you are leaving for soccer practice in 30 minutes and let them tell you what time you are leaving.  We use a schedule at school, make one for home use.
• Play games using up-down, over-under, above-below.  Be silly at dinner and say “put the fork above the plate and the spoon to the right of the plate”.  Use different size glasses and ask, “Whose glass holds more, mine or Daddy’s?”
• Count your peas by two’s or five’s before you eat them. 
• Count by two’s, five’s and ten’s on short trips to the grocery store, school, or church.  Count forward as well as backwards. Don’t always begin on even numbers.  Count by 2’s starting at 13 or 37. 
• Play word association games such as “fire is hot, ice is _________”
• At the grocery store have your child find the roll of paper towels that comes in rolls of 4’s, 6’s, 9’s or 12’s (Same with the toilet tissue).  Have them find the 16, 24…ounce box of cereal.  Open the egg carton and have them count by 2's.  Let them help you weigh the produce.
• Find cylinders, rectangular prisms, cubes and spheres in your home, outside, at the grocery store, variety store….
  Look ahead at the shelves and find something for a price (i.e. $.89) and have them find it before you leave the aisle. 
• Make up word problems that can be solved by mental math such as, “If I see two cows, how many legs will I see?” or “If I pick 7 apples off a tree and use 5 in a pie, how many will be left?”