Some parents think that maths is boring and too difficult. This often means that their kids also have problems grasping the various concepts related to the subject. However, there are several fun activities that parents and children can do together at home to help the kids to learn maths and enjoy themselves at the same time. Doing these activities together as a family is one option, or alternatively, guide them through the tasks and let them do them on their own.
Here are some of the top fun Maths activities to try at home:
Colouring and painting
Most younger kids like colouring and painting at home, as well as other art activities. While few people might think that there could be some point of convergence between maths and arts, the reality is that the two can fit well together. As a parent or guardian, you can utilise painting and colouring sessions to introduce some cool maths concepts to your kid in exciting ways. You can, for instance, colour pictures and at the same time learn geometric patterns by colouring various shapes.
Also, you can teach the kids about shapes and symmetry by painting. For example, your kid can paint a butterfly, and start by doing only one wing on half of the paper, and then folds the sheet in half to transfer the painting to the other half of the paper. Still, kids can learn about measurements as they draw, because it involves using scales, perspective and measurements. A good example is when copying an image using a scale to draw the picture to a size that fits the paper. Fortunately, you can get fun maths activities to try at home from Cazoom Maths. They have excellent maths learning resources for different levels.
Using sweets and snacks to learn fractions
If you’re looking for an effective yet exciting way to learn fractions, then don’t look any further because you can use sweets and other candies to help your kid learn the topic at home. You can start by having various types of sweets—toffees, Skittles, Smarties and other coloured sweets work well. Put them on a plate or place them on a table or even the floor. To get the kid motivated, you can ‘taste-test’ some of the treats before commencing the fun learning activity.
After setting up your sweets, you can ask the children some fractions-related questions which will involve them moving sweets to answer. This will enable them to visualise proportions in real life. Some possible questions to ask include:
- Can you share the sweets equally among three people and What fraction will each person get?
- If you give away four sweets, what fraction of the candies are left?
- What fraction do the red sweets represent?
Towards the end of the session, ask the child to share the remaining sweets equally among all the family members. And don’t forget the critical and most exciting part is eating the candies!
Using sticks and other things to tally marks
When teaching kids about tallying marks at home, you can consider using sticks. The children can collect long sticks, which is fun in itself, and then break them into small pieces. After that, they create tally piles as you guide them. You could also use match sticks for the tallying exercise.
Creating a real number-line
You can make a number line by drawing a line with chalk on the floor and labelling various numbers on it. The kid can jump from one step to another on the number line, and stand at various positions as they add or subtract numbers using the number line. This is a fun yet effective way to learn maths at home.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are so many exciting activities you can use to teach your kids maths at home. These activities will help them grasp the concepts because they are using them in a practical way. All you need is some resources and a bit of creativity.
