In the Kitchen:
When you cook you use fractions. Have the kids prepare a meal and tell them to double or triple the recipe. You can freeze the difference as equivalent family meal amounts for you to eat at another time. Your child will learn math and also acquire a few other skills like meal planning and preparation plus time management.
Construction:
Pick a project that demands measuring with tape different distances. My son and I are going to try to build a tower for a flower garden from scratch pallets. Construction allows you to practice geometry, addition, substraction, division, multiplication, and so on so forth.
Interior Decoration:
If you paint a room in the house have the kids join in this task. Analyze with your child how much paint you will need to buy by reading the back label of the paint at the store. Don't forget the calculator.
At home:
Kids can waste resources easily. They don't have to pay for rent, utilities, food, clothing, and transportation. And those are basic necessities! Let's not mention the wants. Yeah, all those things that allow us to have fun!
I have been slowly but surely reminding the kids to help save on resources and have included telling them how much each thing costs. They have a clear picture in their mind and they try to help.
Also try to have them measure different rooms and figure out the square footage of such rooms. Walls can be measured as well. And for a greater challenge have them measure the perimeter of the house or property. They can walk around it by counting the number of steps that they take to measure the perimeter.
For younger students have then measure the dining room table or coffee table. Encourage also measuirng the surface area of 3D objects like a cereal box. Check out this video to brush up on this concept: Surface Area of Three Dimensional Figures,
At the Store:
Let the kids make purchases. As you supervise you can see how much your child knows and where you need to work on. I let my teenagers purchase supplies for our house.
At the gas station:
My teenager son helps me gas up the vehicle. He is learning how much money it takes to fill up the car and to know how much gallons to purchase when the tank is at different levels. He will soon be driving so he needs to learn this skill.
Sewing:
Follow tutorials for drafting patterns for clothing or craft projects. I made a skirt following this pattern. I follow different sites or videos that are user friendly. When creating a pattern you have to work with geometrical shapes, measurements, and fractions.
How To Create A Sewing Pattern
Computer Games:
If kids love playing on computer then allow them to build in Minecraft. These game allows for a lot of creativity. It uses only blocks and I have seen some very amazing projects done with this game. Have kids do school projects in this game. I always tell the kids no zombies allowed while building in school hours.
Google Minecraft buildings to see what can be done with this game.
Another game place that I love for them to explore is Scratch. It uses a cordinate plane and there is a lot of Algebra that can be practiced creating functional games there. Kids play there, learn from experts, and build their own games.
Graphic Design:
One software that I have really fallen in love with because is free (for now) and also fun to learn with is Blender. Kids can create tridimensional (3D) art with this tool. It also uses Algebra as you have to depend on x, y, and z axies .
Music:
My family is very musical and we like to come up with different music compositions. Music is a composition of notes, each holding a note value (beat and sound), with steady mathematical arrangements. Sometimes there is a display of quiet breaks still subjected to the musical composition of the whole piece. We all play different instruments so we have to learn how to count for the sake of music! Here a couple places to show you more about music and the math that goes with it: Musical Form and Song Structure
Also check out this video:
Something fun to explore:30 apps to make music on mobile devices
Dancing:
Dance is a coreographical arrangement of patterns and mathematical count. Have kids learn a dance that demands counting the steps.
I really love how the coreography works here with visual effects:
Because I have some kids working with Algebra at the moment I try to find inspiring material for them in this journey of math. Here is some great resources in that vein of thought:Homeschool Algebra
I imagine that dad works with mathematical problems at work. Ask dad to tell the kids which math he uses at work. Ask them to teach the kids a simple yet challenging problem. Help them reason from beginning to end. If it takes having the kids learn new mathematical facts then do it.
A while ago, I learned that languages can be translated with the aid of math. That is the world of linguistics. Here is a 1971 document by Wycliffe describing this skill as it relates to mathematics: Christian Linguistics.
"The tools of mathematics can be adequately applied to language structures only by people actually at work in language analysis. This requires a competence in both linguistics and mathematics"
Also read more on: Mathematical Linguistics
One more thing I would like to say is that math is everywhere really. The fields of science and history also have a good measure of math in them. A few examples are the formulas used in physical science and in chemistry. Time is a little word but it really contains a lot of numbers when you think of it in the context of history and even day to day living. Just managing our busy schedule demands a synchronized management of time. Think of the places math is around you and work out mathematical problems with the kids. Anyplace and anywhere is a learning opportunity! Math is just a reflection of how amazing God has created everything. It takes a few brilliant minds to unravel some of the deep mysteries of math and there are some mysteries yet that cannot be reached with the human mind. One of the largest number that can be counted by a human machine is the googol (10100)! Check out all the zeros contained in this other large number by clicking this link:googleplexian Yet no one and nothing that is terrestrial can count beyond that yet there are numbers that keep going beyond these human or machine countable numbers.
"The tools of mathematics can be adequately applied to language structures only by people actually at work in language analysis. This requires a competence in both linguistics and mathematics"
Also read more on: Mathematical Linguistics
One more thing I would like to say is that math is everywhere really. The fields of science and history also have a good measure of math in them. A few examples are the formulas used in physical science and in chemistry. Time is a little word but it really contains a lot of numbers when you think of it in the context of history and even day to day living. Just managing our busy schedule demands a synchronized management of time. Think of the places math is around you and work out mathematical problems with the kids. Anyplace and anywhere is a learning opportunity! Math is just a reflection of how amazing God has created everything. It takes a few brilliant minds to unravel some of the deep mysteries of math and there are some mysteries yet that cannot be reached with the human mind. One of the largest number that can be counted by a human machine is the googol (10100)! Check out all the zeros contained in this other large number by clicking this link:googleplexian Yet no one and nothing that is terrestrial can count beyond that yet there are numbers that keep going beyond these human or machine countable numbers.
image by Information In
Here is an attempt my daughter made at typing a large number. She got so dizzy so that is why she mirrored the image on the left.
