Summer Mathness: Five Activities to Integrate Math into Your Childâ€^™s Summer Routine

  Summer Mathness: Five Activities to Integrate Math into Your Child’s Summer Routine

Summer vacation is a time for your child to relax, release and celebrate completing another successful school year. However, summer vacation is also two to three months of time that your child could be losing a significant portion of the knowledge they gained over the past school year, particularly in math subjects.

In a study performed by the University of Missouri, it was found that kids typically lose up to two months of their math knowledge over the summer!  That amount of loss can have a detrimental impact on your child in the upcoming school year and beyond, if not recovered. Knowledge loss is to be expected. Just like with any skill, if it is not used, it's easy to lose. The good news is, it’s possible with just a little effort to curb some of that learning loss. To help, here are some practical and fun ways to combine math skills while carrying out your normal summer activities.

• Give your child a budget for each week or month when you do the summer grocery shopping. If they ask for a special treat, let them know the cost of the treat will come out of their budget. If your child is younger, you can start them out with a small budget, such as $5 at the store, helping them add and subtract the cost of their chosen items. Advise them that once the budgeted amount is spent, that’s it until the next shopping trip to help them decide whether they choose to spend it all in one grocery trip or choose to save the money.
• If you have a summer vacation planned, involve your child in the planning process. Work with them to price airline flights and hotel prices. For a trip to the amusement park or other local activity, assign your child the responsibility to oversee the budget for the day for the family. 
• On the next road trip, allow your child to be your co-pilot. Allow them to help to calculate the distance to the next stop or exit or read the GPS directions (or map if you have one!). This is a great opportunity for a real-world lesson on using math to calculate distances, measurements and determine geographical directions.
• Now that this year’s spring cleaning is complete, it’s most likely time to take that seasonal trip to the local Goodwill or Salvation Army to drop of your donations of clothes and other items. Prior to the trip, allow your child to help you sort out and divide the items they will be giving away. This is a good exercise to reinforce counting and multiples and sorting, especially for younger children. This can show them that through math you can not only learn but also feel good in giving back.
• If you notice that your child is a budding entrepreneur, they can learn to apply math while pursuing a summer business. You can always open the tried-and-true lemonade stand. Not only will this be a lesson on how to manage money through the selling transactions, but your child will also learn about measurements through the recipe for making the lemonade. If your child enjoys looking after children and wants to start a babysitting business, you can assist them with learning to research how much to charge for each hour of their time, as well as learning how math is involved in scheduling customers each week.  It’s not officially summer, until you’re awakened on an early Saturday morning to the sound of a roaring lawnmower! If your child enjoys being outside and you notice they comment on how the neighbor’s yard looks, beginning a grass cutting business may be just for them. They will learn to become knowledgeable about measuring square footage and keeping an inventory for the supplies they will need.

In addition to incorporating math into your summer routine at home, our Mathnasium center is here to provide more fun math enrichment for the summer. Our center is open during the summer for in-person and online learning for kids in grades 2-12. Studying over the summer doesn’t require hours of pouring over a lesson. It can be concentrated study for a short period a few times per week. The point is to connect the dots between math and the real world.

We can help reinforce the classroom learning over the past year and support what you are doing at home. Together we can ensure your child will have a fun and productive summer and be prepared to meet their goals for the upcoming school year. Reach out to us today to schedule your free child’s free math assessment and to learn more about our program options for the summer.