Right off the bat, the article I found said "Making kids love math
is a challenge."
Isn't that motivating?
NOT.
Math is a difficult
subject, one that can cause a lot of stress and frustration to both the child
attempting to learn it and to you, the teacher, tutor or parent of this child,
who is attempting to make this learning process easier. This article states
that, "Math is a skill that takes a lot of brain power to master, and this
can be experienced by kids as hard work. A University of Chicago and
Western University 2012 study even shows that for some people, doing math is
similar to experiencing physical pain. Also, parents tend to tell their
kids that “math is hard”, as they relive their own experience as kids
struggling with formulas, exponents and equations. Consequently, kids
pick up this attitude and live their lives believing that math is a horrible
monster that they have to face in their academic lives."
Isn't that reassuring!
Again, NOT.
In order to help these
kids understand math you must first begin with your own attitude. It is necessary
for you to have a positive attitude when helping kids with math. Every child
may be different, but more times than not, children will become discouraged and
try to give up when "the going gets too tough."Teaching kids that it is
acceptable to give up on math is a huge problem. In today's world it is necessary
to have a good understanding of math. For example, "we use math to figure
out personal finances, construction projects, as well as doing everyday chores
such as cooking and shopping. Engineering, high technology, finance and
other in-demand careers require above average math skills. Even non-math
careers require that employees have sharp analytic and reasoning skills –
skills that are acquired when brains are trained in math."
"Since kids are more
receptive to learning when it is associated more with play than with work, it
is a good idea for parents to expose kids to math in fun ways." This
presents a challenge to educators: How do you make math fun? In this
article there were some tips presented to help kids "grow to associate
math with fun, pleasure and parental love and attention...The secret to
successful math education is to make it so much fun that children don't even
realize they are learning something that will help them later in life."
Some of these tips include:
·
Make the children consider math not as work but as a game that can be
played like computer games, sports or fun board games. Use digital games,
apps and numerous websites as resources for making math a game. There are
numerous activity books that make math fun, as well as websites where you can
download fun, early learning printables.
·
Find out what games or activities your students enjoy, and integrate
math into it. For example, if they love
to bake or cook you can have them measure ingredients in wholes or in parts, or
count and estimate objects such as number of chocolate chips. One way to integrate
subtraction problem, for example, is to ask them, “We need to put five eggs, we
already placed two eggs, how many more eggs do we need?”
·
Point out to your students that we are surrounded by real math
problems in the form of money, measurement, time and others. This
includes checking and comparing prices at the grocery store, driving down the
street counting mailboxes, reading recipes, calculating coupons, or even
measuring food or drink at the dinner table.
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