Math Aunty

Hey family,

In talking to several math educators and having my own classroom experiences, I know that students need more practice understanding fractions, division, operations with negative numbers, graphing, and variables.

For fractions, organize a homemade pizza night and ask your scholar how many pieces you need to cut the pizza into to feed your family. Then ask them how much of the whole pizza is each person getting. For added challenge, make two pizzas and cut them into different numbers of slices.

For division, organize a giving campaign and ask your scholar how to divide things into bags so that everyone gets an even number. Try to make sure to include quantities that don’t evenly divide like 7 pair of socks into three bags.

For negative numbers, put a number line on the ground with sidewalk chalk. Give your scholar a starting point and tell them addition and subtraction sentences. Have them keep a journal of where they end up. Ex: 4-7 start on 4, walk backwards 7, they write in their journal 4-7=-3. Make a funny, loud noise whenever they cross 0 and have them count their steps out loud.

For graphing, print out a map of your neighborhood or town and overlay it with a coordinate grid with your house as the origin. Talk about how to get from your house to their school or the grocery store. Washington DC is a beautiful map to use if your map is kind of weird, as their streets are in numerical and alphabetical order.

For variables, ask them to answer questions for you like “I have snacks for 3 days. How many more snacks do we need to buy for the rest of the week?” Or “I want to walk 6 miles. The trail we usually walk is 2 miles. How many times do I need to walk the trail to get 6 miles?”

As always, ask your scholar what they’re doing in their math classes. Think of ways to link it to things that happen in the home. Let them teach you what they know. Make it fun and exploratory for the both of you. And keep on shining, parents, y’all got this!