#AD – This is a collaborative post
Maths is a crucial part of every child’s academic journey and a highly important life skill. It introduces children to new theories and abilities and allows them to comprehend numbers, patterns, and shapes. Parents can help improve their child’s numeracy skills by encouraging them to practice at home. Unfortunately, lots of parents lack confidence in their own maths skills or fear that their teaching techniques won’t match those of the school. If this sounds familiar, you’ll be pleased to know that there are ways to apply maths to many, if not most, of the everyday activities that occur around the home. Below are some fantastic tips from a nursery in Lincolnshire, on how parents can support their child’s learning in fun and practical ways, no matter what their age…
Firstly, when it comes to your child’s learning, it is vital that parents express a positive attitude at all times. You may be guilty of telling your child that you were ‘bad at maths’ as a child or that it was your ‘least favourite subject’ when they were at school. You may feel that this helps your child feel more comfortable with their own struggles, but these remarks can convey a negative mindset towards maths and affect your child’s effort.
As previously mentioned, an important way to help your child to learn and practise maths includes the ability to apply these skills to common, everyday situations. For instance, if you go shopping together, you could ask your child to calculate how much you need to pay in total and how much change you should receive if you pay with a particular note. You could play board games such as Snakes and Ladders or Monopoly, which will help your child with adding, subtracting and multiplication without them even realising that they are learning. When cooking, you could ask your child to help you measure out the ingredients. Essentially, the trick is to encourage your child to practise their numeracy skills in lots of different situations so that they come to realise that learning can be fun.
There are lots of educational books on the market that offer maths exercises for your child to complete in their spare time. However, this might feel quite boring for them, and similar to learning in a classroom setting. Instead, they may find online resources more engaging and fun to do at home, such as games that they can download onto their digital devices. If your child is learning their timetables it might be beneficial to buy an educational poster to display at home. Pin it up somewhere where your child will see it on a regular basis, like on the kitchen fridge, as frequent revision from this poster will help them remember and understand multiplication.