Though mathematics is an interesting subject, the majority of students seem to be puzzled with numbers, and some even fail to pass the exam. It is an open secret that regular practice play a crucial role in helping students improve their mathematical skills. A great way to help students learn math fast is to bring them in real situations where they can practice math.
As a caring parent, you must be concerned about your kids’ school performance in math, especially if your kid has not been doing well. You must feel that your child needs more practice and support at home to improve his/her mathematics. Well, it might be a little surprising for you, but you can take your kids to the shopping trip in order to provide them math practice in a practical environment.
This fun coexistence can yield significant results. It is proven that applied mathematics to real life is the best math tutor. In this post, I will share some tips in this regard. Once you start applying these tips, you will witness noticeable improvement in your kid’s math performance. Moreover, your kids will take great interest in practicing math. Now go through these tips and apply them to help your kids learn math in the most fun and practical way.
Plan
Before you go shopping, get the newspaper ads and coupons of stores mailed or emailed to you. Browse those ads with your child, and look for interesting deals, which highlight numbers in terms of discount, price-cut and the like. In a special notebook for shopping, invite your child to make a list of the places you want to visit, based on the offers. Next to each place, point the things you want to look. This shopping trip has to be meticulously documented here, so that the child can be well equipped with pencil, eraser and calculator.
Calculation
If the sweater is worth $15 and there is a 10% discount, how much you are paying? If your child brings his/her own pocket money, this type of questions will be very significant. Anyway, you must assign a fixed amount to spend on this output.
Ask your child to estimate how many things he/she will be able to buy, and how much money is left at the end of every purchase.
All these calculations must be documented in a notebook, so that at the end of the shopping trip, your child can draw the conclusions.
Compare
Once you are in the store, make your child a good buyer, so that he/she never buys the first thing he/she sees. Always ask your child to compare the prices and quality to choose between several options.
Help the child to assign a value to certain characteristics of the product. For example, clothing can be counted for more comfort and versatility. All things the child considers as potential purchases are to be recorded in the table.
Choose
Having made the table, ask your child what the best option is and he/she should explain the reasons for his/her decision. For example;
‘I really like the red sweater, but it makes me missing a blouse. The blouse is on sale and will cost half the price of the sweater, and I’m also saving $10 because they have 50% discount. If I buy the blouse, it spares me $10 which I can save or spend on something else. So I want the blouse instead of the sweater.’
Buy
Let your child pay cash to take responsibility for change. Being in the cash register, you can see that perhaps it did not take into account tax, or there may be other discounts or benefits at the checkout.
There’s nothing like releasing your own money to make you use all your mathematical skills, and learn that it is easier to collect, but it is hard to get rid of your savings.
Right now your child must know that you have the right to ask and claim any detail before buying. The child is paying and has the power to give effect to the expectations as a consumer.
Do not forget to write down the details of the purchase in the book, i.e., how much they paid, how much was left, etc.
Draw Conclusions
At the end of the shopping, coming home with full bags and an empty wallet, sit down with your child to evaluate your purchases. Using the notebook, review the process and let the child just the expenses.
The satisfaction of making good use of money to achieve the greatest benefit is a great lesson. Mathematics applied to real life gives your child the power to calculate, estimate, compare, save and make good consumer choices and functions as a great math tutor.
I hope you have found some great ideas in this post, and they will help your kids excel at solving math problems in no time. You can also make your shopping trip work for UK essay help for kids. I will cover the essay writing topic in my next post. To give you a hint, this time you have to focus on reading labels and make comparisons of products and brands.
I would love to hear your experience and your kid’s response. Please, share your feedback, your process, approach and issues you faced while applying these tips. Your feedback will be a great help for other readers.
