A Practical Math Exercise for Kids
I had the occasion to speak at a homeschooler’s gathering a couple of weekends ago, and had a conversation with a mom about “practical homeschooling”. When I offered her my example, she suggested I share it with you. This is something my family has come to call Math Field Trip 101, and these are exercises that we do almost every time we are out together. We begin this fun at the third grade level, once we start to reinforce multiplication. Those of you have been following my blog for awhile will remember it was multiplication that got me into homeschooling in the first place.
When we go to the store to shop – and believe it or not, I almost always take my children to the store, and no, they are NOT the ones behind you in line demanding that their parents buy them candy at the checkout – I hand them the list and then we begin to go through the aisles. We will talk about whether three cans of beans for a dollar is a better deal than two cans for 89 cents. This is ALSO an opportunity to have my children begin to read the nutritional content of the purchases we are making, and teach them to be savvy consumers and read carefully the shelf labels to see if they are comparing the quantities as like in kind. So we have math AND nutrition in a single field trip.
We have ALSO turned the newspaper into a practical exercise in shopping. We prepare a shopping list, and then look at the ad circulars to see where the best value can be found. Sometimes we will clip coupons, but only for those things that are already a part of said list.
If you want to make this exercise REALLY relevant for your middle schoolers – give them your shopping list and your budget for your groceries. Incentivize them with the idea that any money they save on the shopping expedition will be given to them.
I believe in teaching real world skills. Many of you have heard me say that our overarching goal with our kids is to raise contributing members of society. This, to me, is a real world example.
I will have another real world example of money management to share with you very soon. Stay tuned.