Way's to boost your child's maths success

Many children develop their understanding of basic addition and subtraction at home, and this can be before they start school. That is why it is beneficial for parents to provide informal activities at home, so their children will have a head start when they start learning maths in school.

However, early maths does not mean giving your children the calculator during their playtime. Instead, we can help them develop their understanding of addition and subtraction through simple interactions. For example, we can inject maths through our stories or daily routines like counting steps as they go up and down the stairs.

Other things we can help our children with will include the following:

• Understanding shape, size, and patterns
• Proficiency in counting numbers verbally
• Identifying less or more of a quantity
• Understanding and recognising numerals
• Matching sets or one-to-one correspondence

What are the key maths skills for school?
We need to understand that advanced mathematical skills are based on early maths concepts and methods. So, we need to build a strong foundation for these skills by introducing ideas that include the following:

• Number sense - this is the ability to count forward and backward and to see the relationships between numbers.
• Representation – representing mathematical ideas through words, symbols, pictures, and objects. For example, a child laid out his or her plastic picnic toys, which includes four plastic cubs and four plates which is based on the number of family members.
• Problem-solving – This is an essential skill because kids need to think through a problem and to recognise more than one path to answer. This means using logical thinking skills to find an answer.
• Measurement – technically, this is the ability to find an object's exact height, length, and weight using measuring units like pounds, inches, and feet. Measurement of time will also fall under this category.

Fun activities to develop your kids' maths skills
Here are additional activities to help your kids develop their math skills

• Let them help you with baking and cooking

A good way to develop your child's mathematics skills is to encourage them to help you when baking or cooking. Let them read the instructions on the recipe book as well as do the measuring and weighing of ingredients. This will let them become more familiar with fractions, temperatures, quantities, and cooking units. This could be a fun at home activity during the pandemic related lockdowns.

• Get them involved in budgeting and food shopping

Budgeting and food shopping are ordinary activities, but they can be fun practice for maths. So, encourage your children to compare brands and prices, budget, and find the best deals. This will help them understand numbers, prices, and how to value money.

• Encourage them to do some maths every day

Even for ten to fifteen minutes a day, you should let your children do a little bit of maths like problem-solving or doing simple arithmetic. These short but focused activities will get your child thinking and use their mathematics knowledge.