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Helping Your Child Learn Math

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.

Math is everywhere and yet, we may not recognize it because it doesn't look like the math we did in school. Recognizing and encouraging your child to think mathematically will help reinforce their math skills. Making math fun will develop positive attitudes about math. Each month this section of the web page will offer a different opportunity to use a game or an activity at home to explore math with your child.

Money's Worth 

  When children use coins to play games, it may help them use coins in real life situations.

                                                        
 

What you'll need:
	-Coins                                             -Coupons

What to do:

1. Coin clues. Ask your child to gather some change in his or her hand without showing what it is. Start with amounts of 25 cents or less. Ask your child to tell you how much money and how many coins there are.  Guess which coins are being held. For example, "I have 17 cents and 5 coins. What coins do I have? (3 nickels and 2 pennies.)

2. Clip and save. Cut out coupons and tell how much money is saved with coins. For example, if you save 20 cents on detergent, say 2 dimes. Ask your child what could be purchased using the savings from the coupon. A pack of gum? A pencil? How much money could be saved with 3, 4, or 5 coupons? How could that money be counted out in coins and bills? What could be purchased with that savings? A pack of school paper? A magazine? How much money could be saved with coupons for a week's worth of groceries? How would that money be counted out? What could be purchased with that savings? A book? A movie ticket?

Counting money involves thinking in patterns or groups of amounts: 1s, 5s, 10s, 25s. Start these activities by having your child first separate the coins or coupons by types: all the pennies together, all the nickels, all the dimes, all the quarters; the coupons for cereal, the coupons for cake and brownie mixes, the coupons for soap.