Education: 8 Ways to Keep Math Skills Up in the Summer

by Cambria VandeMerwe on June 21st, 2019 | No Comments »

Education—Summer is the break kids look forward so they can shut off their minds. But summer is also three months out of the year when your kid’s developing brains should be practicing and staying in shape. As summer activities begin, keep your children’s minds open and ready for growth by keeping their math skills up.

8 Activities to Keep Math Skills Up in the Summer

1. Count! If you’re working on simple counting, there are ample opportunities everywhere. Just count everything you see; the trees, the cracks in the sidewalks, the petals on a flower... Throughout the summer, try to count higher and higher, don’t just stop at “10”.

2. Put a twist on classic games. Mother May I is a fun game to play in a large grassy area. Make the number of steps a math problem with the level of difficulty specific to your children. Instead of saying you may take “5” steps, Say “1 + 4” or “50/10”.

3. Any math that you do, let them do it too! How much will this item be if you use a 20% off coupon? If you’re planning a barbeque for 10 people and you are expecting half of them to eat 2 hamburgers and the rest to eat 1, how many hamburgers do you need to make?

4. When the heat gets too hard to bear, do a puzzle! They are great for sharpening the problem solving part of the brain.

5. Let young children keep the score in sports. It will anchor their memory as well as work on their addition skills.

6. Add cumulative efforts in activities. See who can hula hoop or jump rope the longest and have the kids add all of the times together to see how much they can do as a group. This is also a great team building and teaching opportunity. Sometimes some members of a group will pull more weight than the others but they still couldn’t do as much without each individual.

7. Sidewalk chalk—Create a life size game board with math problems in each square. Roll a die or randomly choose what spaces you will begin on. Whatever the answer is to the problem in the square, is the amount of spaces you get to move. If they get it wrong the first time, they must wait for their next turn to move. Have the board lead to another activity or a swimming pool!

8. Swimming time! Throw some coins into the water for your kids to dive for. Have them count up the amount and if they get it right they get to keep the money!