by Rebecca Cissel

Created on: March 07, 2010   Last Updated: March 08, 2010

One word… EXPERIENCES.  Give your child frequent real life experiences with math.  This is the greatest thing you can do to help your child with math.  If you are walking into the grocery store to buy two things and you have a coupon for one, have your child figure out how much it will cost at the register.  You have just practiced adding and subtracting multi-digit numbers, adding and subtracting decimals, problem solving and mental math.  You just gave your child practice in four different math lessons.  Those same math lessons taught by the teacher would have happened over a month's time or more.  Think about the power if you did this with your child every week.  This experience will be much more exciting and engaging for your child than simply practicing flash cards or doing worksheets.

I will give you another example of experiential math.  You have a doctor's appointment at 10:30 a.m.  It usually takes you 25 minutes to get to the office and the doctor has told you to get there 10 minutes early.  You get off the phone with the doctors office and think about what time you need to leave the house to get to the doctor on time.  Let your child do the thinking for you.  Now your child is getting practice in elapsed time, telling time, adding multi-digit numbers and working a multiple step word problem.  If you want to give him even more practice you will have him write to explain how he got his answer.

My absolute favorite example of experimental math is cooking.  When you cook with your child you give your child practice in adding and subtracting fractions, units of measurement, equivalent fractions, dividing and multiplying fractions in addition to many other learning skills such as reading informational text (a much neglected bet necessary genre), science (solid, liquid, gas, and simple chemistry) and social studies (southern cornbread, Italian Wedding soup, German potato salad).  Cook with your child every night.  Think about the possibilities.  They get to eat their homework instead of the dog.

Keep an eye on the homework your child comes home with.  Do they need to solve word problems?  If it is possible let your child experience the word problems.  Notice the types of things that the “characters” in the word problems do.  Do they share pizza?  Try ordering pizza for tonight.  Have your child decide how much pizza

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