3 Ways You Can Help Your Child with Math That Don't Require Knowledge of Specific Math Skills
Helping our kids with math often requires understanding the specific math skill they’re working on, but there are also simple things we can do to support their overall math problem-solving skills.
Here are 3 ways you can support your child’s math problem-solving skills that don’t require knowledge of a specific math concept.
Talk with your child about things you notice and wonder as you go about your day.
For example, “I notice that the sun always shines on our front door in the morning. I wonder why it’s never on our back door in the morning. Do you have any ideas?”
Making observations and asking questions are key parts of problem-solving. As we engage in these conversations with out children, we’re helping them strengthen their ability to make observations and ask questions. They then carry these skills into the math problem-solving they do as well.
Embrace mistakes as an essential part of the learning process.
Creativity and problem-solving go hand in hand. As our children learn to solve math problems, they’re going to try out ideas that inevitably don’t always work. We can encourage their problem-solving by helping them learn from the mistakes they make and emphasizing the new knowledge they gained through the process.
For example, when they get frustrated because a block tower they’re building keeps falling over, we can say, “Hmm, I wonder why it’s falling over. Let’s think of something different we can try.”
Use positive language about math.
The way we talk about math influences how our children feel about it. Instead of saying things like, “I’m not a math person,” or “I was never good at math,” try saying, “Math is tricky sometimes, but it’s like a puzzle and it’s fun to figure it out,” or “Doing math challenges me and keeps my brain strong.”