Math Outside the Classroom

It's mid-December, which means in Southeastern Michigan Girl Scout cookie season is kicking off. My daughter has been a Girl Scout for 5 years. I was never a Girl Scout growing up, so I was hesitant at first how much would she really learn and how much cookie season is just about making money. I have to say I'm pleased to announce she really does learn a lot. Her people skills and money skills have improved. Girl Scout cookie season with a first grader was rough. Kids that age take a long time to add up big totals at cookie booths. We want them doing the math, but we have to balance people's time and patience too. At that age we tended to add up the total but have the young girls count out the change from the money box. As second graders, the girls could add up totals a bit better though they were still using addition so depending on the size of the order they sometimes needed help. Third grade is when it really all clicked! Third graders have learned multiplication! They m

As I write this, my son is playing on the family's Xbox One. Everything from Minecraft to Lego Star Wars has him enthralled. My general philosophy is life is not about banning things but everything in moderation so although he plays daily, we have strict time restrictions. We've recently learned extra video game time is his number one motivator. He'd rather do chores for extra video game time than money.  One perk to this arrangement of him earning extra screen time has been the discussions this has started around the concept of time. My son starts with 20 minutes of play time. Depending the chore he completes he gets to add 5, 10, 20, or even 30 minutes to that time. He adds those minutes together with ease. The challenge becomes he's often squeezing his video game time in between school, dinner, and sports. When he asks, "Do I have time?" I put it back on him to figure that out. With this approach he's learning things such as if he starts at 4:15pm and p

This winter both of my kids are playing basketball for the first time. Before this they've only played tball, softball, and soccer. Needless to say, my kids are used to runs and goals being 1 point each. Basketball has been a new challenge as baskets are two points and foul shots are 1 point. At least at this age they don't have three pointers. Kids don't make the best spectators, at least mine don't. Mine get bored watching each other play. I've taken this opportunity to engage them in discussions about the score. In our rec program, local teenagers are the score keepers managing the score board. After someone scores my kids start to predict what the score should change to before they have a chance to update the board. In between periods, I ask my kids how many baskets a team is ahead or how many baskets a team needs to catch up. They've gotten so good, they actually comment now without me leading the conversation with questions. Last week my son's team los

 It's December, the perfect time to curl up and watch your favorite holiday movie. In my house every Saturday from after Thanksgiving until Christmas we watch a holiday movie together. The kids picked Santa Paws for tomorrow night. We'll heat some hot cocoa and pop some popcorn. Before I hand over the popcorn though, I want to introduce my kids to the concept of volume. I saw a great PBS LearningMedia lesson that's perfect for popcorn! At the movie theater there's multiple sizes of popcorn. Everything from a short and fat cylinder to a skinny and tall one. Did you ever think about which actually holds more popcorn? Try setting out two bowls for popcorn. Grab a piece of regular printer paper that'll serve as our cylinder. First, roll the paper so that it forms a short sided, big bottom cylinder. Fill it with popcorn and put all that popcorn in a bowl. Then, unroll the paper and roll it instead so it forms a tall skinny cylinder. See if your kids can predict if this