Does math drag down your homeschool day and drive you to despair?
Fear not, here are 3 tips to make math fun for kids and moms alike!
Math is Fun
Take your math drill outside.
Don't use worksheets and flashcards to drill your children in math. Instead head outside to the yard.
- Drill math while dribbling a ball and shooting baskets. You and your daughter can chant fact families as you dribble and recite multiplication facts as you shoot.
- Pass the soccer ball while you pass math questions. Yell, "What's 8 X 7?" as you kick the soccer ball to your son. He responds, "56... what's 8X8?" as he passes the ball back to you.
- Play hopscotch. On each space write a math fact and as you hop on the square, shout the answer. Fresh air, movement, and recitation all help to make math easy and fun to learn.
Study math in the kitchen
Cooking is a great way to study fractions.
- What's the difference between a half cup and a full cup?
- How do we double the recipe?
- We're taking cookies to the co-op; If there are 60 kids and the recipe makes 24, do we double, triple, or quadruple the recipe?
Play dough pizza gives an awesome visualization for fractions.
- Kids can see the difference between 5/6 of a pizza
- What dividing 1 1/2 pizzas between 5 kids actually means
- Have the kids roll out the pizzas and divide them up.
- Play around with different ways to cut the pizzas and divide them up.
- Use the cookies you baked together to have a tea party in the kitchen with stuffed animals, toys, and cars. Add, subtract, multiply, and divide the cookies as you add and subtract guests.
Play math games
Don't forget to use games to drill math facts!
- Uno is a classic game and wonderful to play with preschoolers who are just learning their numbers. Why use endless worksheets when you can curl up with a bowl of popcorn and play Uno with your daughter?
- Monopoly and Monopoly Junior are other classic games that do a wonderful job forcing kids to use math while having fun. They need to add, subtract, and make change. Play Monopoly and let your kids take turns being the banker.
- FREE Printable Math Games for Preschool – 5th grade (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division)
The key to making elementary math fun is to think outside the box. Sing, play, cook, and jump while drilling math. You don't need worksheets and flashcards to teach kids math.
Sara Dennis is a homeschooling mother of 6 children ages 4 through 18. After much research into homeschooling in 2000, she and her husband fell in love with classical education and used it as the foundation for their homeschool. Sara blogs at Classically Homeschooling, and you can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+. 
