Summer Time: To School or Not to School?
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Read MoreFun Summer Math Activities to Do With Your Kids
Summer is a great time to incorporate math into your daily routine in a casual setting, without the stress of grades or homework.
This is a great time to show the fun and excitement of math. If you find a math-related activity you yourself enjoy, your children will soon join in. Below are some of our suggestions for car-related activities, adding a bit of educational spice to those summer road trips.
1. Who can more accurately predict the exact time of arrival? Set aside your GPS and watch how competitive this game becomes. When did we start the trip? What’s the total distance, and how long have we been on the road? What part of the total distance is already covered? These are all questions your children will learn to ask themselves. Soon after you begin, everyone will predict a time, and the most accurate prediction wins! You can also modify the game and allow those who want to, to change their predictions halfway.
2. Preparing for an outing? Ask for help deciding how much food and drink you should take with you. Lead your children to ask the right questions. "If everyone drinks around 5 cups of water, and there are 10 of us, and I want to have a gallon extra, how many gallon containers of water should we take with us?”
3. Practice multiplication! Create a routine: for the first two minutes (and no more!) of every trip you take, have your child review their multiplication table. Make sure to start with small numbers. In two minutes, you can ask 15 questions! If all answers are delivered within 5 seconds, your child wins! Shake things up and ask your child to quiz you! You can keep them on their toes by asking them to check your answers.
4. Observe the cars on the road. Tell your children, for example, that you think there are twice as many small cars on the road as large ones. Challenge them to check if you are right. How can they do it? For 1 minute, count the cars you pass, and see what the ratio is. You spotted 27 small cars and 10 large cars? This means that there probably are 3 times as many small cars as large ones.
Incorporating math into your routine doesn't have to be a momentous effort. The key is to add it into regular life and to keep it fun.
Have a great summer!
