Math Support

How is taking a walk, related to math… well, I want you to observe – what types of shapes and lines do you see?  How many circle, triangles, patterns, parallel lines, perpendicular lines, acute angles, obtuse angles, right angles, squares, rectangles, octagons, hexagons… how many geometric terms can you find?  Make it a game, each person has to name a different geometric shape or related math  vocabulary (I see the sum of 7 and 2).  You could take it a step further and make a graph or table of your findings for each day and  you could compare your findings.

The grocery store may not be an ideal place for kids right now, but we can certainly plan a menu and create a shopping list.  What will your dinner meal cost?  Shaws and Hannaford often send out flyers – check out the prices to determine the cost.

For easy early statistics instruction, look no further than the weather app on your phone or your local news station. Talk about predictions based on data and how meteorologists forecast the weather. Extend the learning by having kids create their own weather journal.  Don’t be afraid of the rain… put on boots, grab a raincoat… jump in a few puddles and watch the size of the rings or measure the length of the puddles you can jump over.

From: We Are Teachers

Take a poll (survey) and ask “How many people have you helped this week?”  How would you organize this data?  How would you measure this?  How could you display your results?  

Make some price tags and mark things around the house.  For parents, it might be interesting for your student to make the price tags and see if they have a sense of what things cost. Let’s build some financial sense…. decide on a budget amount, have students prepare a shopping list, go shopping, calculate the total cost, and make the change.  Did everyone stay within their budget?  Note: there are no credit cards allowed in this activity.  🙂

Feels like spring is in the air, how about getting outside?  You could set up an obstacle course or fitness track with different stations (jumping jacks, sit ups, squats, planks, …) At each station, set up goals (time for 1 minute, count out 10 -25 sets).  How many total minutes did you spend exercising? Graph your progress. 

Using old magazines or newspapers, make a collage of the math items you find.

• Bar Graph
• Line Graph
• Polygons (name them)
• A number written out in word form
• Clock
• Date
• Fraction
• A price that include dollars and cents.
• Decimal
• Parallel lines
• Perpendicular lines
• Intersecting lines
• Numbers (put in order from least to greatest)