Monday, December 21, 2015

5 Ways to Motivate Kids to Learn Math!

For most kids, math can be a total bore.  This year I taught I an after-school math class called Dramatic Math, and my goal was to make a math class that I would have loved to gone to.  Here are some ideas we came up with to make math fun and exciting.

1. Warm Up to Math!
After spending all day in class, the last things kids want to do is sit down and do some math problems. So we always start with a math warm-up exercise.  A math warm-up example:


16 Shakedown -Shake each limb starting with arms and going down to the leg sixteen times.   And count together.  Then ask what half of 16 is.  8! Perfect, now shake every limb 8 times.  Now what is half of 8?  4, of course!  Shake every limb 4 times.  Keep going to till you get down to 1!

2.  Make it a Game!
Kids love challenges, strategies, and games.   A math quiz SHOW is always going to be better than a plain math quiz.  Plus, it’s a great way for kids to interact in groups.

  
3. Keep it Physical!
Lots of people think math is just a lot of worksheets and written problems. I always like to give physical challenge to test kids bodies as well as their minds.  Examples include:


Division Exercise – Break kids in to groups of 2-6 depending on how hard you want their math to be.  Then challenge to do something ridiculous like 120 push-ups, but also let them know that they can divide 120 by the amount of people in their group.  This also works great with crunches, jumping jacks, and running.

4.  Make it Hands On
A lot of the problem with math is it very abstract and hard to understand when if you can’t see it or touch it.  That’s why we try to let kids interact with math in a tactile way such as making a lemonade stand where they have to use money to and make transactions.


 5.  Keep it Dramatic!
Our math class was called Dramatic Math because wanted to tell a story with the math.  One of the ways was having the kids come up with sketches or even movie ideas that involved math.  We did an Indiana Jones type movie trailer where kids going into a candy cave and have to solve math problems!



By Chris Walsh


No comments:

Post a Comment