[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do you practice math with your kids?
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Ask HN: How do you practice math with your kids?
They say if you want to foster reading in your household then you
should read a lot. Read fiction, non-fiction...always have a book
in your hand. Can you treat math the same way you approach
reading? Reading can be seen as a casual hobby and activity, but
math doesn't appear to have that same level of casual approach. I
have young children and would like to approach math the same way I
do reading. How do you practice math at home to foster mathematics
in children the same way you can with reading?
Author : acconrad
Score : 27 points
Date : 2022-07-31 17:40 UTC (5 hours ago)
| Shared404 wrote:
| Check out the Life of Fred series, those were helpful for me as a
| kid.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Children have much to learn about how the world works. There are
| many practical applications (ergo, relevant math problems) which
| build/strengthen basic math skills _while_ teaching what children
| need to know. (Some of the books in the lie-bury will probably
| point in the right direction.)
|
| Ideally the chosen practice will feature subjects individual
| children are enthusiastic about, and are age-appropriate.
| missizii wrote:
| We are big fans of Bedtime Math: https://bedtimemath.org/
| h2odragon wrote:
| I've built things with my child, mostly carpentry; ranging from
| doll beds to chicken pen and furniture and some other things.
| Whenever possible we draw out plans and have her calculate angles
| and distances and work up "bill of material" lists. Practical
| math. Pythagorean theorem is far easier to remember when you have
| a real use for it (how long do we cut this brace board?).
| eimrine wrote:
| You have describen practicing carpentry, not practicing math.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Math, euclidean geometry specifically, is a core part of
| carpentry.
| eimrine wrote:
| Core part of carpentry is functional hands, core part of
| math is functional brains. If doing carpentry is considered
| doing math, then playing some silly games also may be
| considered doing math. I do not recommend going that shady
| way of redefining definitions.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| By that definition a physicist is also not doing math.
| Just because it's encapsulated in something else doesn't
| make it not math.
| gus_massa wrote:
| For kids, it's easier to make activities with applied
| math. So my abstract advice is to offload some of the
| mathly part of the activity to the kid in spite it may be
| obvious for the adult. It can be applied to carpentry, or
| cooking, or whatever is your (kid) favorite activity.
| nodra wrote:
| What happens when you don't involve math in carpentry?
| MisterMower wrote:
| Yeah, and programmers don't practice logic. Got any other
| zingers for us?
| gus_massa wrote:
| How old are your kids?
|
| Try to find math problems everywhere. Let's say you are making a
| cake (a real one, nor an imaginary one) if you must put 5 eggs in
| the cake and you already put 3, how many more must you add?
|
| My old daughter used to play 6x6 sudoku. It's the closest thing
| to math in mainstream. Note that the strategies to play 6x6 are
| the same than in 9x9, but the best order to apply them is
| different. It's a nice game because you must make a lot of
| inferences and keep very clear what you really know and what you
| wish were true.
|
| There are a few books with math problems for kids, but don't know
| any translated to English. One book that has some math stories is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Counted It's doesn't
| have too many problems for the kid, but it has a few problems
| that the protagonist solves. The numbers that appear in the
| problems are extremely well selected to create coincidences that
| the protagonist must solve.
| kakariko wrote:
| Not a bad advice but I highly recommend not using eggs as an
| example since it teaches kids that eating animals or animal-
| based food is correct. Bringing a kid to this world is already
| a terrible idea for the environment, ideally they should eat
| something else (and hope they don't have kids of their own!).
| MisterMower wrote:
| I bet you're fun at parties.
| Cypher wrote:
| What if I like eating animals, is it cool to let them do the
| same?
| bitlax wrote:
| What's sadder: this troll post or your excitement at creating
| an account just to do it?
| hellojesus wrote:
| Not killing yourself is also terrible for the environment.
| I'll cut out my eggs, so long as you make the first move.
| tasuki wrote:
| You're kind of right of course.
|
| But, I have to wonder, do you plan to post this under any
| comment that mentions anything non-vegan? That would seem
| rather tiring? Why not start with the steaks, why pick on a
| person mentioning eggs as an example? Their comment was not
| even _about_ eggs, eggs were just mentioned once...
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| The valuable part is abstract math, thinking in symbols, not
| counting 2+3. A good old way to teach is to invoke a surprise, as
| it grabs attention, and then explain. So you'll need easy
| problems, but with surprising solutions. One that comes to my
| mind is the old story where a simple man asked a king a simple
| favor: put one grain on the first square of a chessboard, put
| twice that much on the next square, twice more on the next square
| and so on until the board is filled. A categorically different
| understanding of math happens when you learn what a proof is, but
| I'm not sure how to make this problem interesting.
| dimitar wrote:
| Recreational mathematics - games, puzzles and toys are what you
| are looking for.
| gamerDude wrote:
| I would encourage you to see math as larger than computation. But
| rather math as a way to model the world with numbers. That way
| math is everywhere and has a more casual approach.
|
| Everything that has a rate is mathematical. Water flow, mph, # of
| chocolate chips per cookie, etc.
|
| Then statistics and estimation is everywhere too. About how many?
| What do you estimate ____ is? Is there a way we could get more
| accurate with the guess?
|
| Cooking, Buildings, Traveling, eating, nature, social media has
| math everywhere.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I suggest an abacus. It's a fun way to concretize mathematic
| operations. You can learn to represent up to ten digit numbers on
| the abacus, then do addition, then multiplication and division.
| Once you're multiplying numbers you can start to learn shortcuts
| to make using the abacus faster.
|
| I think the abacus is a fun addition. We keep one on the counter
| where we eat breakfast. It's fun to just pick two three digit
| numbers and multiply them out.
| aoki wrote:
| Beast Academy. The books, not just the practice website. Most
| kids love stories and characters and corny jokes and detailed
| Waldo-esque cartoons and cultural references. For some, that
| makes the "productive struggle" of learning problem solving more
| palatable. My elementary school kid thinks a lot about whether he
| wants to be like Grogg, Winnie, Alex, or Lizzie in the future.
|
| The 1st and 2nd grade books may be too hard for many kids to read
| on their own (math has big words and long sentences - even
| curricular materials like EurekaMath seem to be written above
| grade level for K-2) so it becomes family reading time as well.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Strategy/tactical board games have a lot of math, which is the
| main reason I can't play them with my 3 years old
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