Teaching our Kids the importance of Math
I hate math. There, I said it. But that’s not entirely true. The fact is, that I’m quite good at math (at least in school I was) and use it daily. Don’t we all?
But if there was a subject that caused me the most grief in school, it was math. My mind has to work harder when dealing with numbers, it definitely doesn’t come easily for me.
Meanwhile, as fellow parents will understand, we are now helping to teach our children math as they learn it in school. And the process of learning math has changed. It’s no longer about memorizing the basics, it’s about applying processes and theories. There is no greater frustration in our house than math homework, at least for our eldest so far. 80% of our arguments could be cut out if math wasn’t involved. I don’t know if that stat is really accurate but let’s use it.
Math homework comes home and we assist as best we can when needed. I don’t want to let on to my children that solving math equations is not fun at all for me and while I understand their frustrations, I can’t let on that I hate it. I sympathize and try to help work through the problem.
However, I’m realizing more and more that we should be teaching our kids the value of math because it is used so often. Here are some practical examples of how I used math recently that shows our kids the importance of learning it:
Example 1:
Baking a recipe. I need to double the size. Math helps me quickly know the measurements!
Example 2:
Out with friends. We all split on dinner. Math helps easily divide the bill up!
Example 3:
There are 15 people coming for a birthday party and I need to order cupcakes. Math helps me decide how many dozen cupcakes to order! (and specifically, how many left overs there will be once everyone has one because I need leftovers).
Example 4:
The bag of chips offers nutritional information for every 50 grams. Now, being honest, we know that I am going to eat the entire 150 gram bag. Math helps me figure out the nutritional information. Or at least it would if I really wanted to know. And typically I don’t.
SEE
Math helps with important situations. Wait. A lot of my math situations seem to involve food.
No matter, the moral of the story is that YAY! MATH!
Even if math homework is driving us all crazy. Just pull out the bag of chips and show the practical nature of math.
3 Comments
Susan Maccarelli
I will need to use these with my kids, because I too hate math and will need to hide it!
Tom Sightings
Fun post! If you are involved in any investments, or are saving for college or retirement, — or just want to balance your bank account — it doesn’t hurt to know a little math either. However, as I tell everyone, it really only requires a 9th grade level of math to solve most of life’s problems — including anything you’d need in the workshop, or the kitchen!
Sonia
This post rings *SO* true for me! Like you, I was always pretty good at math – but had to work so much harder at it compared to other subjects. Definitely *not* my fave! Do you find it challenging to help your kids at times – since the teaching methods have changed so much? My husband and I were recently commenting that our Grade 4 student is not learning the timestables by memorizing – and I’m not sure that I agree with that. It’s great to understand concepts, but some things just need to be committed to memory.