Math is everywhere and there is no better time to see it prevalent than at the Holidays. Student need to have continued practice with their math to become math proficient. Just 20 to 30 minutes a day of fun math practice is needed to stay sharp.
Here are some great ways to include math in your holiday break.
Students can use their own money for gift giving. Think of the great math skills; decimals, percent, averaging, that happen when they purchase their own gifts. It can look something like this problem: Jake has $120 to spend on 5 gifts, can he afford to buy the $25 shirt for 15% off, the earbuds for $12, the toy for $30 for 10% off, the $36 necklace and the video game for $29? Don’t forget the tax estimated at 8%.
Another great Christmas tradition, baking cookies, is a fun an easy way to incorporate math into the holidays. Here is a recipe. Double it. Figure out the average amount of cookies that fit on a cooking sheet and when rolling out the dough use spatial reasoning to figure out how many cookies can be cut from the amount rolled out. Cooking is a fun way to work on those fractional amounts.
The wrapping of gifts is all about surface area. Have your children figure out the surface area of their packages and cut their gift wrap accordingly. This is a great hands-on way to get children to understand exactly what surface area is about. Or figure out this riddle!
My favorite thing about the holiday was my Christmas puzzle. I love putting together puzzles. http://www.jigzone.com/puzzles/F3055D521677
Check out our old blog for some great math games. https://mangomath.com/math-games-for-christmas/
