Count on it! Find fun math help online
Take the fear out of math homework with helpful web sites
By Johanna Martin
If you’ve ever kept your kids quiet while grocery shopping by having them add up the price of everything in your cart, you’ve been doing more than avoiding a constant cry for candy.
Making math part of everyday family life is one of the best ways to help your children learn and discover how much fun math can be. That might include measuring ingredients for a favourite recipe, calculating how much paint to buy for the walls, playing board games or puzzles, identifying geometry shapes in the real world or talking about how Mom uses math at her job.
Whether your children need a little extra help or are already budding Isaac Newtons, there are lots of ways you can help your kids enjoy math.
Help give your kids a positive math attitude
Brian Tash, a specialist in teaching elementary mathematics with the San Diego Unified School District in California, says it’s important parents skip the stories about how they hated math when they were in school.
“In Canada and the U.S., we almost wear a badge of distinction on our lapels when we say we’re bad at math. The first thing parents can do is show a positive attitude towards math,” he says.
Besides being math-friendly role models, parents should follow what their kids are studying and let them know they have high expectations. The right focus in studying math should be learning how to think and reason, says Tash, not just memorizing answers.
To check if your children really understand a concept, ask them to explain it. “Let the child be the teacher and show Mom and Dad what they did today,” he says. “It’ll help the child’s self-image and parents can get an idea of what the kids are learning.”
Amy McCleverty, a mom in Aurora, Ont., supports her son, Quinn, when he does math homework. “He has regular quizzes at school, so I try to encourage him as much as possible and give him positive feedback around quiz time,” she says.
As Quinn’s lessons get more advanced, the McClevertys may want to turn to some of the other enriching math resources available.
Show your kids some useful tools
If you have Office installed on your PC, you can download and print graph paper and multiplication tables from the Stationery section of the Office Design Gallery web site.
To print multiplication tables, go to More categories > Math and science tables. For graph paper, go to Stationery > Specialty paper.
Of course, another way to produce a multiplication table is to help your children create their own in Excel — they’re more likely to remember it if they make it themselves. Excel spreadsheets are also useful to add up how many miles/kilometres the family spends biking each weekend, or to figure out how much of the birthday party budget should be spent on pizza and how much on loot bags.
Microsoft Math comes equipped with an easy-to-use graphing calculator. The comprehensive program for middle to high school students is an all-in-one math homework helper.
Be a homework checker
Internet Explorer can guide you to online resources to help correct your kids’ homework, but you might want to keep them a secret. For example, you can enter a math equation into Bing to generate a correct answer. It’s perfect for checking that last answer to the assignment when it’s already midnight.
Use teacher-recommended sites
Parents can assess whether a math resource, such as a web site, is worth its decimal point by figuring out what it teaches and whether that fits into what your kids should be learning, says Tash. “As you choose materials or a web site, think about the purpose. What is it you want your child to learn?” Tash also recommends checking if the publisher of your child’s math textbook has supplementary materials on its web site.
Ask Dr. Math is a web site housed at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pa., and another of Tash’s recommendations. Search the archive of questions (K to “college and beyond”) to get the explanations (and answers) to frequently asked questions such as, How do I add or subtract fractions?
Other helpful resources for kids
The Canadian Mathematical Society has put together a web site full of fun and interesting links for kids, including math puzzles and games, online tutors and the history of mathematics. There are even suggestions for science fair projects based on math.
Statistics Canada has resources for young scholars trying to finish school projects. A great way to show the usefulness of math is to integrate it into assignments for other classes. Click English, select Learning Resources from the menu on the left and then Students.
Kids love cash, so if yours have a “yen” to find out how much their Canadian dollars will buy in Euros, South African rand or Mexican pesos, check out the Bank of Canada.
Math in Daily Life is a terrific web site that shows how we use math in everyday situations: home decorating, cooking or saving money.
Sometimes it’s the words in math that make it tricky. St. Francis Xavier University of Antigonish, N.S., hosts a web site on word problems for students and teachers from Grades 5 to 12, complete with hints and explanations.
If your children are motivated by the thrill of competing against others, they may want to enter the Canadian Math Competitions. Find out more about the tests, sponsored by the University of Waterloo.
Kids (Grade 9 and up) can prepare for the contest or just challenge themselves by downloading tests and solutions from past years.
