Dale R. Reed writes, "The three most important math skills are: estimation, measuring and logic/problem solving. Before children can begin to really learn these, or any other "math skills" they first need a strong concrete understanding of math. By this I mean real world experience, not abstractions. Before you can estimate the distance from here to that tree you must have a confident sense of how long a foot actually is. This requires ample time to play and fiddle and figure out how things work."
Real life or hands-on math is very important to insure that children understand the abstract concepts that the problems in the math books represent. Anytime I got a puzzled look when a new concept was introduced, I would use the hands-on approach. Sometimes to help them visualize the concept, I would simply relate the concept to something the children liked. For some reason, anytime I could relate the problem to food or money, my daughter caught on in a snap. Subtraction is always more fun if you get to eat the M&M's you take away. Like I said before, if you're teaching about money, get out the real thing and let the children touch it and use it. Make a store using, play restaurant or come up with your own ideas. For teaching time, get out a real clock, or use the "Judy Clock."
You can teach place value using pinto beans and ice cream sticks. Single beans represent the one's place, gluing 10 beans on an ice cream stick (making a log) is the ten's place and making a raft of 10 "logs" is the hundred's place. It's best if the kids help with the assembly work so they can really get a feel for the number of beans on each log or raft.
I taught borrowing using the neighbors. We had a neighbor that always borrowed things from us. So when it was time to teach borrowing, I naturally made use of her. It went like this...We only have 3 hot dogs, but we need 7. So my son would go next door to borrow hot dogs from Gloria who of course could only give us the whole package of 10. So we then had 13 hot dogs and was able to cook the 7 we needed, with 6 left over. Now if we went to borrow hot dogs from Gloria and she didn't have any, she would go to the next neighbor (Debbie) to borrow some so she could lend us what we needed. But Debbie only shopped at Costco and had a case of 100 hot dogs (10 packages of 10). Gloria would then open the case and give us the package of 10 that we needed. It sounds complicated, but the kids really understood the concept of borrowing.
The possibilities are endless, use your imagination.
Related Resources:
- Helping Your Child Learn Math A variety of activities to help children learn and apply mathematical concepts such as geometry, algebra, measurement, statistics, and probability in a useful and fun way. All of the activities relate math to everyday life and complement many of the math lessons that children are learning. These fun activities use materials that are easy to find. They can be done in the home, at the grocery store, while traveling, or just for the fun of it.
- Hands-on Math for Young Children
- Hands-on Math for Grades 1-6
- Hands-on Math for Grades 6-12
- Recognizing Time: Clock and Calendar
- Customary and Metric Measurements - 1
- Customary and Metric Measurements - 2
- Customary and Metric Measurements - 3
More of this Feature:
- Introduction
- Daily Math Exercises
- Important Math Skills - Hands-on Math (you are here)
- Playing Math Games
- Spreading Math Enthusiasm
- Computer Programming (this one and following - coming soon)
- Preparing for Testing
- Mathematical Brain Teasers
- Miscellaneous Math References
