(Collaborative post) Maths is a core subject taught at school and is essential to all areas of life. While it might not be one of your strong points, there are many ways that you can help your child to improve their numeracy skills. I’m collaborating with a private school in Hammersmith to share our top tips to help your child with maths.
Top Tips to Help Your Child with Maths
Use Everyday Examples
Pointing out the maths that we use in our everyday lives can help your child to appreciate its importance and enjoy their lessons much more. It can also be an opportunity for some impromptu teaching. While at a restaurant ask them to help work out how much the food you are ordering will cost, when shopping ask them to add the cost of some of the items you pick up, count the number of pieces that make up a toy they like. You can make it as simple as hard as you need to. You’ll be able to find plenty of inspiration in daily tasks.
Avoid Being Negative
Expressing any negativity about the maths being taught in school, can encourage your child to do the same. Over time they will begin to undermine school and pay less attention. Be a positive role model for your child by showing perseverance, even if you find maths or anything in life challenging. Being persistent encourages your child to do the same.
Age Relevant Games and Toys
You can buy just about anything these days. Games and toys can be used to help children learn maths and have fun. We’ve used a range of different options over the years. There are plenty of free to use online games that can help with times tables as well as physical products.
Flash Cards
I must say, I love flashcards!!! Children can struggle to remember all the jargon that seems to be thrown at them all at once. Flash cards can be really helpful to help children learn. You can make colourful flashcards with maths terms or signs and their meanings on the reverse. The repetition can help children remember. Try to turn it into a game. You can create different games and as children are having fun they don’t mind playing. It really can help boost learning. You can adjust games to teach children to learn to tell the time, learn shapes, ordering and more.
Pin It!
Teach them Rhymes
Children love a good sing-along and it can help them to remember maths too. There are lots of maths nursery rhymes, covering everything from shapes to number bonds. These are all easily accessible. Simply search on Youtube to find exactly what you are looking for.
Take a Look at the National Curriculum
Things have changed since many of us were at school. Topics are taught differently and the focus has changed around in some areas. It helps to look at the current curriculum to see what is being taught and speak with your child’s teacher to see how you can support them where they need assistance. You will find details on the curriculum online. In addition, most schools will give you an overview of the areas covered each term.
Get A Tutor
If you find that your child needs extra support with their maths, you might find a tutor helpful. Tutors are able to deliver content in ways that are easy for children to understand by tailoring their approach to their specific educational needs. This can help to boost your child’s confidence for better performance in class. It also means if maths isn’t a subject you have a full grasp of you don’t need to stress yourself or your child by trying to teach it. Children do often learn much better when someone else other than a parent is teaching.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my Top Tips to Help Your Child with Maths post.
Do you have any tips you’d like to add? If not, which tip did you like most?
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to Melanie’s Fab Finds RSS feed to see my latest posts. Posts will include recipes, reviews etc. and as a result, you will hear about my new posts and competitions first!
Watch our fab product reviews on YouTube x
Discover more from Melanie's Fab Finds
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Flash cards are a great idea, perfect for improving memory skills as well as learning! Some handy tips – maths just keeps getting harder and harder! Sim
Flash cards are great. I swear by them for kids and adults!!!
My daughter really struggles with maths, unfortunately she is like me, just doesn’t take it in but I find flash cards really helpful like you say.
Flash cards can help especially with timestables.
Great tips, since my were little we used to count all the time ie how many red cars, or how many steps, although you would think we never did as none of them liked maths
These sorts of things can really help them.
This is a great guide for parents with young kids. My grandson is in Kindergarten and I can’t believe they are teaching them fractions and PEMDAS. Goodness. It is a good thing his parents are both very good in Math so learning came easy for him.
It’s great to hear he is doing well Eileen x
Maths is a very tricky subject and parts can be hard to grasp. We have found that a maths tutor has really helped us.
A tutor can help boost a child where they need support.
These are all great tips! I myself loved math in school and fondly remember my father teaching me square calculating when I was six or seven using square objects he had in the home. That being said, our curriculum changed a lot when I was about ten and I didn’t like the story-based problems I had to solve in math from then on. These, however, of course are more relevant to daily life. I agree that familiarizing yourself with the current curriculum is very important!
Some teachers can be amazing and make a big difference to children learning.
Great tips! Jack is quite good at Maths but I am always looking for ways to help him get even better.
The more you can go over things with him the better.
Everyday examples is really helpful, I remember my mum used to get coins out to help me learn addition and subtraction when I was younger x
That can be a really fun way to do it. I’ve done that with my children too.
I know when I was a kid the thing that helped me the most with math was visuals, flash cards, and workbooks. They were all extremely helpful with helping me grasp equations.
Visuals really do make a big difference to learning in most subjects.
Rhymes and flash cards are a great way to increase concentration in Maths.
I find your other tips good too.
Thanks so much, making it fun helps children learn far more easily.
We homeschool and for us using everyday examples has been the best way to introduce maths!
It helps to find things they do in everyday life. They can put it into practise themselves and see the importance of knowing their maths.
I was no good at math as a child, and am dreading when the children get old enough to be beyond my knowledge! Part of it is leading by example and not being afraid or ma at math itself, but it’s a challenge!
It can be a challenge. The great thing is there are resources that help that are free online plus you can look to get a tutor if you’re stuck.
The rhymes is a really good tip, as having a melody/ music makes learning so much easier I find. I needed some of these strategies when I was young.
When learning becomes more fun it draws children in. If they enjoy themselves they are more likely to remember.
Math can be a struggle for kids, and it is nice to have some tools to help them succeed. These are great ideas!
It can help to have things that can help them. Some children get so frustrated with maths when they can’t understand what to do. We need to help give them support where we can.
These are all really useful tips and something I am putting into practise with my two – I find a little every day really helps
Laura x
That’s great to hear. It really makes a big difference.
My boys are learning geometry in school and that is a tough one for me. I am thankful they don’t need help.
I know what you mean, some subjects are harder than others.
Oh gosh, I struggle with math. I will keep these tips in mind. Tutors are a big help.
Thankfully one of my boys is an absolute whizz at maths and I never had any need to help him. The other struggled a bit more but I found linking it to real life things helped him see its relevance.
Math was my least favorite subject in school so I know I need to be better about not letting my negativity about it affect my daughter who struggles.
These are some really great tips! The one that I love the most is Avoid being Negative. I’m sure these tips will help me a lot.
Those were really great tips! This is a really big help to a lot of parents. I really enjoy reading this. What I like the most was avoid being negative, I totally agree on that!
I used to love playing restaurants with the kids and shops. really makes learning maths fun.
Math can be very challenging indeed. Glad my husband has the patience to tutor our kids with this subject!
I love math and I love helping my kids with their math homework. These are awesome tips to make math more accessible.
I really enjoyed reading this post, these are great tips for parents.
Thanks Tasheena. It helps when you are talking from experience.
Math is not one of my strong suits at all, my daughter grew up with a love for math and had me make her math sheets during summer breaks, after a while I had to try and get her in a program. It was beyond my scope.
Some wonderful ideas, maths can be fun and you can easily bring it into normal every day examples. We had a online tutor for my son for a few weeks, and he really found it helpful
Thank you so much for these! We are starting to struggle with math now that the boys are getting a little older and math is getting increasingly more intense. These tips will come in very handy.
Some great tips here, I have always let me kids work out the price of things they want to buy and what change they will get back – once they are old enough
It is a great way to challenge them with maths but also make it into a fun game.
Math can be a struggle, and it is good to have some strategies to help. I will keep these in mind for my kids.
It can be important to find ways to help the kids. It’s a subject many struggle with.
My hubby helping both my kids in math and reading. I don’t have that much patience. he has. Thanks for your tips these are really important when we teach kids maths.
That’s good to hear they are getting help where they need it x
I actually had a math tutor before my GCSEs because I needed additional help. I’d definitely do the same for my daughter.
A maths tutor can really give children a boost.