A local education expert shares advice for helping your child feel confident and successful in math.

Some kids are seemingly born with a natural knack for math. They understand addition and subtraction concepts at a very young age and love the thrill of solving complex word problems. Other students, however, feel they are simply not good at math and perhaps never will be. Yet whether the teaching approach at your child’s school is traditional or progressive, math is here to stay, and students will need to solve increasingly complex math problems as they move through school. Use the tips below to help your child feel confident and successful in math.

Master the Basics

Without mastering basic math fundamentals, students will inevitably struggle as the material becomes more complex. To prevent these future challenges, allocate time at home to helping your child build key math foundations. For preschool-aged children, practice number ‎recognition, counting, patterns, sequencing, and shape recognition, as an “intro” to math. Try cutting out individual numbers and having your child put them back in order to work on sequencing, or play a matching game with shapes, where players must flip over and match two cards containing the same shape.  When your child is older, practice skip counting (counting by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, etc.) using objects at home, such as marbles, toy cars, or Lego pieces. You can also use flash cards to reinforce addition doubles, then addition doubles plus or minus one (i.e., if I know 2+2 equals 4, then 2+5 must equal 5). Reinforce numbers that make 10–an important element of Common Core math–such as 8 plus how many more makes 10. Building

Complete Homework

Homework is typically designed to reinforce concepts that are taught in class. It is important that your child completes his math homework regularly, since practice ensures that he understands a given concept before a new one is introduced. If your child struggles with a particular homework assignment, encourage him to seek clarification from his teacher, or you can help explain it to him–just use a method that is consistent with the way he learned it in school. By completing homework regularly and addressing any challenging concepts, you can prevent future challenges your child may have down the road.

Use the Computer and iPad as Resources

Most kids jump at any opportunity to use a tech device. While their preference may be playing a game of Candy Crush or Cookie Jam, there are some great math-specific iPad apps and websites that can help your child understand and practice math concepts. Yummy Math teaches students how math applies to the real world, multiplication.com offers facts practice, and PBS LearningMedia provides videos to clarify certain math concepts‎. As for apps, Counting Caterpillar gives pre-K kids practice counting and sequencing, Math Master reinforces patterns, shapes, time, and fractions, among other key skills, and TouchMath Adventures provides a multi-sensory approach to building math skills.  ‎

Integrate Manipulatives

By integrating hands-on manipulatives, you can help your child understand key concepts, rather than simply knowing how to calculate solutions. When teaching counting, use toothpicks, paper clips, buttons, or the like. Practice fractions using a real pizza–remove two out of the six slices and ‎ask your child what fraction of the pizza was removed and what fraction is left. Use play (or real) coins and bills when teaching money, tiles when teaching shapes and geometry, and spinners for learning probability.

Connect Math to Real Life

For many students, math seems abstract and completely disconnected to real life. Who is really going to multiply 264 by 36 in the real world anyways? Help your child see how math can apply to day-to-day activities to help peak her interest. For example, when shopping at the supermarket, ask your child how many apples you are buying if you put 3 green ones and 4 red ones in your cart, or how much the box of Cheerios will come to if it is 10 percent off. When playing with Legos, ask your child how many total studs there are if she has one piece with four studs, one with two, and another with six. Rememeber to keep it real, and keep it fun!

Math can pose a significant challenge to many students. They may feel utterly confused and frustrated at times. Yet with these tips, your child will feel more confident, successful, and excited about math.

The post 5 Tips for Math Success appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Math is a skill that is integrated into almost all aspects of our lives. While children receive formal math instruction starting in Kindergarten, even at a very young age, they can begin to learn fundamental math concepts through play and engaging activities. Try some of the ideas below to build your preschooler’s pre-math skills.

Counting and Sorting
Turn an outing at the park into a math-oriented learning experience. Have your child collect a bucket full of various types of pebbles and then lay them out on a flat surface. Ask him to sort the pebbles based on various attributes – color, shape, size, etc. Then have him count the number of pebbles in each group. For a higher level math experience, create a graph on a white board or sheet of construction paper, and write a tally mark for each pebble in the group. Then discuss which group had the most and least number of pebbles and compare the numbers. You can do this same activity with shells at a beach, buttons, or various types of toys.

Have Fun with Shapes
Learning to recognize and identify shapes is an important early math skill. To develop this skill, cut out various shapes using construction paper and discuss their attributes with your child. Ask her to tell you how many sides she sees on a square, triangle, rectangle, and so on. You can even cut out larger colored shapes and play a “jumping” game, where you tell her to jump on the red triangle, for instance, then the purple circle, orange square, etc. When you are driving or walking outside, point out various shapes that you encounter in the “real” world – a triangle shaped road sign, a circular wheel, or a rectangle shaped price tag at the supermarket.

Play with Patterns
Help your child understand patterns using every day household items. Take out dry pieces of pasta, cereal, beads, gummy bears, and the like. Have him first create patterns that you dictate – pasta, gummy bear, pasta, gummy bear, for instance, then perhaps cereal, pasta, gummy bear, cereal, pasta, gummy bear, and so on. Then he can create his own patterns while you supervise, starting with basic patterns and eventually encouraging him to try more complex ones. You can also ask your child to look around for patterns on common items, such as clothing, tablecloths, toys, pillows, and curtains, and even play “I Spy” with various pattern-containing items. When you cook dinner, try presenting the food in a pattern, such as pea, corn, pea, corn, etc., and see if your child notices. Remind him that patterns are everywhere!

Learn Through Blocks
Most kids love playing with blocks. You can integrate pre-math skills by asking your child to build two different towers using blocks, then compare them. As her which tower is taller, which is shorter, and how many blocks were used to create each tower. You can play a matching game with colored blocks by having her match two of the exact same blocks and then having her tell you the shape and color of each block. For an additional sonsory experience, encourage her to experiment with different types of blocks: wood blocks, foam blocks, mirror blocks, magnetic blocks, prism blocks, and so one. These various types of blocks will add to the fun of early learning.

Understand Time
Help your child understand time at a young age. Try using a timer to time short activities – those that take 1-3 minutes or so. For instance, time him brushing his teeth, getting dressed, or building a tower. ‎Discuss which tasks took longer, how much longer one task took than the other, and so on. Also talk to him about what time he does certain activities. For instance, he might wake up at 7:30am, go to school at 8:30am, and eat dinner at 5:00pm. Practicing these time-oriented skills will help your child with time management skills down the road.

Young children love to play. Engage your child in these play-oriented activities and help him develop strong pre-math skills. He will ultimately develop a joy for learning along with the foundations for math success.

The post How Can You Help Your Preschooler Build Their Math Skills? appeared first on EBL Coaching.