In the UK, maths is a compulsory school subject until a child reaches the end of their GCSEs. With this in mind, it’s important for parents to look for ways to help their children perform well in maths. After all, numeracy is an essential life skill, allowing children to make sense of numbers, patterns and shapes. So, if you’re wondering how you can support your child’s arithmetic progress at home, read on for some advice from an independent college in London.
Nursery Rhymes
For younger children, nursery rhymes are a great way to familiarise them with numbers and counting. Some examples of nursery rhymes you could sing together that will help with their numeracy skills are “10 Green Bottles” or “1,2,3,4,5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive”, but you should have a look on YouTube for some more if you’re struggling.
Baking
Baking and/or cooking involves tasks like weighing, pouring, and calculating oven times. With that said, it’s a great opportunity for your child to become more familiar with various units of measurements and practise their maths skills.
Money Management
Money management involves numeracy skills, so it would be a good idea to ask your child to help you calculate how much your bill will come to next time you’re out for a meal or on your food shop. If you don’t think they’re ready to work with real money, you could practise at home by playing shops so that your child can become more familiar with adding and subtracting.
Board Games
Lots of board games require basic maths skills so they are great way to encourage your child to practise without them even realising that they’re learning. One great example is Monopoly.
The trick is to try and incorporate maths into your everyday lives so that your child has opportunities to learn with virtually everything they do. Try and ensure you maintain a positive attitude towards maths, and your child’s education in general, because if you say things like “I wasn’t very good at maths when I was your age”, they are more likely to adopt the same negative attitude.
