How to Get Your Kids to Love Math

As kids get older, engagement levels for math drop. That’s why it’s essential to find ways to encourage your children to use numbers more often. 5-Minute Crafts has a few practical ways to help you boost your kids’ love for the subject.

1. Use the stairs.

Whenever you’re using stairs with your kids, count as you step on them. You’ll be teaching them simple counting without them even realizing it. You can even leap up and make them count in twos and maybe even threes.

2. Play Monopoly.

We’ve probably all noticed by now that kids don’t like to lose. Why not use this to their advantage? If they want to win at Monopoly, they need to buy houses and hotels — but first, they must count the money and use math to make transactions. This is a simple yet great way to show your kids how math can be useful.

3. Don’t show a fear of math.

Kids tend to feel these kinds of things — they can feel when you’re excited just as easily as when you’re afraid of something, which, in this case, is math. You may be transferring that anxiety onto them. So make sure you stay calm when helping with homework or studying, and avoid expressing the fact that you don’t like math.

4. Show your kid that we use math daily.

Math shouldn’t just revolve around school, and it’s not just about getting good grades. Find ways they can use it in their daily life. Here are a few examples of how you can do it:

• While at the grocery store, ask them to find out the price of 5 ice creams or maybe 2 cans of peas, etc.
• In the car, talk about speed and destination, and ask how long it will take you to reach home/store/school, etc.
• When shopping for toys, ask them to calculate the discount and how much they’ll need to save to get the toy.

5. Help them develop spatial reasoning.

Spatial reasoning is important because it’ll help your child to think better and manipulate objects 3-dimensionally. This skill is not necessary just for math, but also for physical education and art.

• Get a building kit and create something with your kid using building blocks, or play with interlocking cubes.
• Go for games that involve a lot of fitting, rotating, or moving objects.

6. Play the domino flip game together.

While it can become a friendly competitive game, it can also help your kids enjoyably develop their math skills. However, instead of playing the original game of Dominos, we recommend a switch.

• Place all the dominos on the floor, facing down.
• Each player should turn one domino face up and find the sum of all the dots on the squares.
• The player who has the higher number will collect the dominos that were turned upward.
• The game continues until all the dominos have been used.
• The winner is the player who has collected a higher number of dominos.

7. Solve math puzzles.

Math puzzles are one of the oldest and best ways to encourage your kids to play with numbers. Whether it’s logic puzzles or brainteasers, they present challenges that encourage them to do more logical thinking and solve problems faster and strategically.

What is the answer to the puzzle in this article?