by E.M.Robinson

Created on: February 14, 2008

You can help your child with math..Math Facts and basic concepts can be a stumbling block for children. With the accountability standards in today's classrooms, even kindergarten and primary school teachers will just move on, even if certain children haven't mastered math facts or concepts. You can be the one to make a difference in how well your child acquires and retains math skills by making connections to real life experiences at home, on trips, in stores, and practically everywhere you go together.

Children make huge progress when they see and understand the real life application of math skills. After some practice in the grocery store of seeing how we use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to not only complete our shopping transactions, but to also save money, children can make their own observations and show you their understanding of these concepts. Actually, it is a wonderful way to spend time with your child through math play.

1) Experience and use math in daily life. It is so important to see the use of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in the store, at the gas pump, in the kitchen,in the workshop, etc. Having this frame of reference is critical. After all, away from the elementary school classroom, people don't go around doing calculations in isolation.They use them to solve real math applications.Even young children can use a fun, made-for-kids calculator. Yes, your child will, depending on his or her age, need to learn "math facts" but if they don't understand when these skills are used, then it is just plain crazy.

2) Multiplication is repeated addition. 5+5+5+5= 5X4 = 20. This concept can be introduced in real situations when your child seems interested.

3) Show and experience fact families when your child is ready.
8x7=56
7x8=56
56 divided by 7 = 8
56 divided by 8 = 7

Write each of the factors, their product, and = signs on cards and have your child move them around to show the families

4) Use tangibles that your child can handle and move around. Candy and food items- Starbursts, M&Ms, Cheerios, Apple Jacks, Goldfish crackers,etc. can be used to demonstrate counting, addition, subtraction and later even multiplication and division as well as to illustrate basic story problems.

5) Make it multi-sensory by involving as many of your child's senses as possible. Visual learning is great, but so is auditory, and tactile learning. Create songs, put them to music and sing them together. Draw in the sand at the beach or in a

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