Fun, family, festivity and math? Believe it or not, the winter holiday period is the perfect time to give your child a math boost. Take a look at these 8 practical ideas to keep your child’s skills fresh and give them math help this holiday season:
1. Pre and Post Holiday Shopping
Let your child help you with last-minute gift buying. Give them a budget and let them research online for good value suitable gifts. After the holidays, put your child in charge of their gift cards and holiday cash and let them produce a bargain hunting plan of action to make the most of the post-holiday sales.
2. Holiday Cooking and Baking
Whether it’s the Thanksgiving Turkey or the Christmas cookies, let your child help you plan the all-important festive meal. There’s plenty of kitchen preparation math in everything – from calculating the cooking time for the turkey to estimating the number of vegetables for the side dishes, to working out cooking times for various dishes so that they’re ready to be served on time. Share with your child the math strategies you use to create that perfect meal!
3. Give a Math Gift
Only the keenest young mathematicians would be pleased with a brand new calculator or math T-Shirt as a gift. However, gifts such as a math storybook, a fun facts and figures book, such as the Guinness World Records, will intrigue children of all ages. A new analog watch for an elementary child who is learning to tell the time or a robotics kit for a teenager are also great math gifts.
4. Plan a Trip
Google maps is a great tool for investigating travel times and journey distances. See if your child can use Google Maps, along with their math and logic skills to get your family to your holiday destination on time.
5. Visit a Museum
If you live near New York City you’ve got no excuse to not visit the recently opened . The rest of us can research math related exhibits and workshops at our local science centers, or just wander the science and art museums and highlight the different ways math can be seen in both science and art.
