Posted by In the Covid-19 situation, your child is forced to stay home the whole day.
You may be worried about your child’s learning because virtual lessons are not the same as normal lessons where your child studies at school.
Especially for small children, it is hard to learn from virtual classes.
Maybe You are teaching alphabets, simple math such as counting numbers, addition, and subtraction to your child in your own way.
But, have you ever thought about your way of teaching
may stunt your child’s improvement?
Are you doing the correct ways to teach math to your child?
Do you want to improve your child’s math?
Maybe you are teaching your child in your own way.
But if your way of teaching is not helping his/her development. How do you feel?
Are you doing any of these?
You can check if you do some of the following ways, If yes, these are quite dangerous.
1. I am proud my child can count 1-100!
Your child perfectly counts from 1-100 even when he is 4 years old.
You may be proud because your child can count higher numbers than others who are the same age.
But counting from one to a big number is not so important because when children reach a certain age, they will know how to count from 1 to 100 or even bigger numbers.
While your child is small, it is important that he/she will understand the relationship of number words to the quantity of objects.
Even if a child can recite 1-100 in the correct way, it does not mean that child understands numbers fully. This is only simple memorization. Your child can learn this eventually as he/she grows.
You may want to improve your child’s math skills, so you try to teach at home.
But the problem is if the way to teach is not correct, it may be causing harm to your child’s learning.
Before you teach math to your small child, please be careful and check your plan to see if it is really good for your child.
Because some ways to teach have an effect that will slow down your child’s development.
So you have to avoid these ways.
Now, we can see and know if your ways are harming your child’s learning or not.
2. When my child counts objects, he begins from 1
When your child plays with blocks, you can ask him/her to pass 5.
If your child picks blocks one by one, counts, then passes to you, it means your child may not understand the relation of number words to number quantity well.
He/she can not imagine a group of 5 immediately.
If your child always counts from one, it is hard for the child to imagine the group of numbers immediately.
Please see the worksheet below.
The worksheet asks the child to choose 7
The worksheet used a real object which is better for your child to feel the quantity of numbers.
Your child can imagine the number and see it as objects rather than numbers only.
*Concept of number
Worksheet A
If the worksheet above is too difficult for your child, please begin with a similar one below.
Worksheet B
3. My 3 years old child likes to do a math worksheet
It is good that your child likes to answer math worksheets even if you do not ask him /her to do.
But, Please check what kind of WS are you going to give him/her?
Do you give like the one below?
Worksheet C
If your child is doing WS like the one above, it may not be so good for the child’s math development.
This kind of Ws is good for memorize no /wordings but not develop math thinking.
Can you compare the one below?
Instruction: Please choose the different one
You may feel happy and proud if you can see your child answer math worksheets.
But please be careful. If your child is really young, it is better to begin learning math by understanding the relation of numbers to quantity.
Fun and Easy Home Math Activities
You may now confuse how you can teach math to your child.
But please do not worry. You can find a lot of ways to teach.
Every day in your child’s life is a good opportunity to learn.
You do not need to ask your child to do worksheets nor let him/her do simple memorization.
Now I’m going to introduce 5 interesting ways to encourage your child to progress in maths and all activities you can do at your home.
1. Ask your child’s help in setting the table during lunch or dinner
At dinner time, please ask your child to help with setting the table.
If you are 5 in the family, ask him/her to put the cups, spoon, and fork accordingly.
After the job is done, you can check with your child if he/she put all the items accordingly.
This is good because your child will learn to count and telling numbers by real objects.
Once a child understands the quantity of no with real objects, it is easy to imagine the quantity of numbers in any situation such as a Math test.
2. Let your child compare which is more or less
When you have objects such as small fruits, buttons, or pebbles at home, you can try to group them.
For example, you can make groups of 5 objects and 3 objects then ask your child, which is more? And which is less?
In this activity, you are guiding the child to understand the quantity of numbers when we compare objects.
So your child’s math ability is going to boost.
3. Let’s transform home items into fun math material
Look around your home and try to use everyday objects such as buttons, cups of bottled water, and paper.
If you use real objects when you teach math to your child. Your child can understand better and remember well.
You can find items at home easily, you do not need to buy special material for math.
Mathematics is an important part of our lives. Every day we encounter math through the things we use. Using home items, children can learn the concept of math with joy.
4. Let’s Use Maths in your everyday life
It’s important to encourage your child to do math every day, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.
All of the situations that happen in our daily life, can be changed to a question that relates to Math.
From Today, you can ask math questions to your child every time!
Here are some questions which you can use with your child
When you are In the garden, you can ask your kids:
How many kinds of flowers are there?
When you have dinner with your family; you can ask
How many people are sitting at the table?
How many cups do we need?
Time is 9:30 Now.
When you are planning to go out with your child at 10:00,
Ask your child, how many minutes do we have.
You can convert almost every occasion to Maths questions.
Maths is the universal language that is applied in almost every aspect of life.
From today, when you ask your child, think first, if you can make Maths questions.
5. Change the cooking time to a math lesson!
Cooking time is a great opportunity to teach Maths to your child.
Cooking requires counting, measurements, estimation, and more. All of them are good for your child’s basic math knowledge.
Let your child be involved in weighing and measuring ingredients. This will enable your child to become familiar with quantities, fractions, temperatures, and units.
Making Salad
Here is the way to make a fruit salad with your child
1. Ask your child what kind of ingredient we need to use
2. After decide ingredients ask about the quantity of each
Ex: 2 oranges
2 apples (cut into 8 each)
Half watermelon
One honeydew
3 tablespoon of salad cream
Half cup of Yogurt
Cooking is a great opportunity for your child to learn math concepts such as measurement, estimation, and counting. Even more, such as fractions.
Many mathematics experts say that cooking is a good way to learn math concepts.
Building a strong foundation and understanding of numbers is a very important first step for deeper mathematical understanding.
These 5 ways maths activity for children develop their number sense and let children practice using mathematical terms.
So please try to follow and think of more ways that you and your child can enjoy.