Play and learn: How to teach mathematics

Play and learn: How to teach mathematics

Children and mathematics: true stories of how I introduced my child to mathematics. An proven educational method: getting and playing. Math can be fun too!

Your child goes to school and your problem starts? Your child hates math? Then let me share my experience of how I overcome this parenting challenge.

Teach young children math through play

I want to share my experience with other mothers. My 8 year old child has never liked mathematics even after I tried very hard over the past 6 years to develop a love for the right knowledge in him. Obviously, you might call it a big statement, especially considering Andre’s young age. However, I am sure, that the earlier you will start, the better your child will understand the subject. Starting at a very young age 2, I began to teach my son to count. To count us, I use useful materials such as apples, pencils, toys and even cups, when we are at home. And, when walking outside, we count birds, trees and cars. I admit that my son loves to count what is called a real object, something he can see or touch. Indeed, he enjoyed this kind of creative game. But when I will open a book or try to explain to him the easiest rules for adding or subtracting, the struggle will begin. He will whine, make excuses not to sit with me, say he is bored, or that he cannot understand, etc. etc.

I was trying my best, putting all my efforts into introducing him to mathematics, but sad to say, it looked rather like a waste of time and real failure. All my hard work brought no results at all.

Then, the time has come for him to go to school. But there is even the most difficult mathematics and the most unpopular school subjects for him. And at home we play teachers and students to do their homework. I was the teacher and my child and one of the toys, which he liked the most, was my student. Andre was very interested in playing this game and in a short time, almost effortlessly, was used to complete all his homework. All but one math!

Learning Math Through Play

Obviously, my main concern is mathematics — how will my child overcome the dislike of this school subject? One month passed. According to his school program, he will soon be exposed to the first mathematical rules. But Andre doesn’t want to hear the word which is very mathematical! Just leave any rules! No matter what I tried – Andre remained indifferent to mathematics and was very stubborn in his reluctance to cooperate not only with me, but with the teacher as well. He just didn’t want to accept mathematics in his life.

There must be some solution, I thought. I am sure that there are many parents who will go through the same struggle. Let me do some research. Surely I will find something useful that other people use for their children’s education, I encourage myself.

Needless to say, the easiest and fastest research that can be done in today’s time is on the internet. Many sites are read, many stories and even books are downloaded. But with which one to start? How do you choose one of the many?

The answer comes naturally: All children love images. Indeed, books with colorful pictures will attract every child, therefore, the interesting cover of the book stands a greater opportunity. Something bright and funny, and relevant to the subject of mathematics – this is what I’m looking for. Placing myself in my son’s shoes, I began to see pictures. Most of the stories are only in plain text. That immediately reduced the amount of literature from what I had to choose from. Then, looking at the illustrations, I decided to stop at a story from a math type book. Pictures are about digits, and in the form of funny digits. Last but not least, I was very impressed with the title of the book: the type of mathematics. Good, goodness-this is what we all need!

I printed the first 3 stories that I successfully (and free!) Downloaded from the website. Then the same day, when the time came to play our home school, I showed the page to Andre. I also print images separately-especially to busy him when I’m reading.

And … It worked. Amazing illustrations immediately caught his attention, and that gave me the opportunity to read the first story. Then, the second story-about adding numbers. I carefully selected this story that explained some simple rules of mathematics to see if this methodology would work for Andre. He sedang listen and see the picture. He showered me with questions while I was reading the story to him.

I was surprised he did not ask me to stop. Instead, he even took several previously-read pages with images, trying to find out ‘who is who’ in the picture.