FIVE WAYS TO INSPIRE A LOVE OF MATH TO YOUR CHILDREN

Conveying the importance of math to your children can be quite a struggle. For kids, math seems to be the biggest obstacle and they dread each time they have to face the subject. You may ask, “How do I get my kids to like math?” This is one question I get asked about most of the time. To encourage your kids to be interested in math, you need to help them understand the importance of math in our daily lives. I have listed concrete examples below:

• Show Your Kids How You Use Math.
  If you are very vocal that you hate math, don’t expect your kids to love it. Of course, they will follow your suit and hate math too. Make them realize that you use math skills every single day. When you are budgeting for the groceries, when you go shopping, when you are cooking, you need math to perfect these activities. There are other countless ways in using math throughout your life.
• See Math in the Real World.
  Allow your kids to see the fun side of math. Explain to him that math is everywhere. He will able to see it in all of God’s creations. Some animals have 4 legs while some only have 2. If we go into specific details, invertebrate animals, like spiders and scorpions, have eight legs. Crustaceans, like crabs and lobsters, have 5 or more pairs of legs. Math is a real concept and your kids can observe these things if you help them to explore their surroundings.
• Tell Them About the Cool Jobs that Uses Math.
  Explain to them the different jobs that need a strong foundation in math. Kids, nowadays, love to play games, but if your child wants to be a game designer, he needs to learn how to code. To create a good game, applied mathematics concepts, like game theory, are needed.
  A fighter pilot needs Trigonometry to effectively fly planes. A sports announcer needs to know Statistics to know the probability of each game. A computer animator uses Algebra to show how different objects are rotated and resized to various shapes. These career opportunities are just the tip of the iceberg! There are still hundreds of jobs that require math so it is important to instill in them the importance of math at an early age.
• Show Them that Math Ain’t Boring.
  There are computer games that require math skills to solve puzzles. Interactive games like the Nancy Drew franchise is a great example. These video games center upon the popular fictional character, Nancy Drew. Each game is unique and requires a particular skill set and there are puzzles like tangram, sudoku, origami.
• Know Their Interests.
  The good news is: math can be integrated to any activity. Your kids will appreciate it more if you tailor it to their current hobbies. For example, if your child loves to bake cookies, use that as an a chance to explain that math is needed to measure the right amount of ingredients. The measurements have to be precise in order to create the most delectable cookies. After baking, you also need to plan on how to design the cookies. When deciding what patterns to apply, Geometry comes in handy during this step.

At JAMS, we will help your child overcome the fear of numbers. Your child will become more confident and most importantly, he will gain an important lifelong skill. For more information, just visit JamsPortland.com to learn more about the teaching pillars of the abacus.