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As a parent, you can support your child’s learning by making math a regular part of your day-to-day life at home - talk with your child about their math school work, show an interest in what they are learning in class, and help make learning fun by finding real world applications. Some suggestions include:

• Math Games - Math puzzles, or card and board games can bring math to life. They also require trial and error thinking, enhance numeracy and logical thinking, and promote discussion.
  
• Math in Digital Games – If your child enjoys using technology, introduce them to fun and educational online games and activities.
  
• Math at the Grocery Store – Talk to your child about how to weigh items on a scale or how to estimate the total bill as you fill your cart.
  
• Math with Money – Create a budget together or save to make a special purchase to help your child manage money. You could go shopping together and ask your child to estimate the amount of a purchase, calculate tax, and check their change.
  
• Math in the Kitchen – Bake, cook and prepare food with your child. There are many great math opportunities in the kitchen, such as measuring ingredients.
  

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tvoLearn is an Ontario Ministry of Education website that supports families by providing curriculum-aligned learning activities and resources for students in Grades K-12. Select your child’s grade level and then Mathematics to access learning activities for all math strands (Number, Algebra, Data, Spatial Sense, and Financial Literacy).

Check out this sample Grade 4 learning activity on multiplication and division facts, which can help support the development of mental math strategies.

For all learning activities and additional

learning resources, go to

w w w.tvolearn.com/

Depending on your child’s grade-level and readiness, they may be learning to count, add, subtract multiply, and/or divide. They may be working on doing calculations with whole numbers, decimals, fractions, integers, and/or percentages.

Here are some activities to help your child further develop their mental math skills:

• Ask your child questions to help solve everyday problems, such as:

• “We need six tomatoes to make our sauce for dinner and we only have three. How many more do we need to buy?”
  
• “Would you rather have a box of chocolates with 2 rows of 8, or a box with 3 rows of 5? Why?”
  
• “Would you rather order two pizzas for $9.99 each, or two pizzas for $11.99 with a 20% off coupon? Why?”
  

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Ask your child to gather a collection of small items and put them in a jar, such as buttons, beads, shells, popcorn, candies, and so on.

Together discuss:

• About how many items might be in the jar?
• How they came up with their estimate? - Younger children may try to count, or just ‘guess’; older children may use a strategy like counting how many in a small section or row, and then use that to judge how many are in the entire jar.
  
• The actual number of items compared to their estimate.
  

Try making it a family contest where every family member comes up with an estimate to see who is closest!

Families can engage children in estimating when doing things like counting, shopping, cooking, scheduling, and budgeting.

About how many ​candies might be ​in the jar?

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To further support children’s development of math understanding, The Math Learning Centre also offers digital math tools for students to explore math using visual models. Tools include Geoboards, Fractions Strips, Pattern Shapes, Math Vocabulary Cards, as well as a Whiteboard App. These Math Apps can be accessed at: https://www.mathlearningcenter.org/apps

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Here are some activities to help your child further develop their understanding of algebra:

• Go on a pattern hunt. Help your child understand that patterns are something that repeats by looking for patterns together in your home or neighbourhood, such as the stripes on a shirt, a spider web, a snowflake, or leaves.
  
• Create a pattern together using blocks, small toys, or a sound pattern with claps and snaps. Ask your child what part repeats, and what comes next.
  
• Older children can play “Guess My Rule”:
  
• Draw a table with two columns, the first labelled “IN” and the second labelled “OUT”
  
• Decide on a rule related to addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, such as add 4 or multiply by 3. Then, choose a number to write in the “IN” column, apply the rule and put the result in the “OUT” column. Example: If your rule is subtract 5, you might write: 20🠆15, 15🠆10. Continue writing examples until your child guesses your rule.
  
• Take turns with your child, guessing each other’s IN/OUT rules.
  

Is the ​rule -5?

IN

OUT

20 ​15 ​10

15 ​10 ​5

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Your child can explore coding at home!

Code.org offers engaging, easy to follow tutorials ​and videos to explore the world of code, as well as ​‘unplugged’ activities. Encourage your child to try ​the “Hour of Code” tutorials, or one of the ​introductory self-paced courses. ​www.code.org/athome

ScratchJr is a FREE app that can be downloaded on ​iPads or tablets. “With ScratchJr, young children ​(ages 5-7) can program their own interactive stories ​and games.” See www.scratchjr.org for more ​information and links to download.

Scratch is a FREE coding site designed for children ​aged 8-16. Using the Scratch language, children can ​create projects such as stories, games, and ​animation. Go to www.scratch.mit.edu

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Here are some activities to help build coding skills:

• Try an ‘unplugged’ activity (no device needed!):
  
• Have your child act out a step-by-step sequence of instructions, such as walking to the kitchen, or walking to make a shape such as a square. For example, “walk 8 steps, turn left, walk 10 steps, turn right, open the fridge, take a snack.”
  
• You can then ask what they noticed about your instructions.
  
• Take turns and have them give you instructions.
  

In school, children will be using coding to explore and represent mathematical concepts. Home is a great place to practice the skills of coding using sites like code.org, Scratch and ScratchJr.

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Here are some activities that help your child to build Financial Literacy:

• Play ‘shop’ or ‘restaurant’ with your child. You can use real or play money, and can help your child match the bills and/or ​coins with the name and value. Older children can practice making change. Ask your child:
  
• What is something you ‘need’ and something you ‘want’?
  
• What is the difference between a ‘need’ and a ‘want’?
  
• Talk about money when out shopping with your kids. Ask them questions like: Is this item a need or want? Is it a good ​deal? Are there less expensive options?
  
• READ together! Marvel Comics has released two online educational comics to teach kids about money skills: Guardians ​of the Galaxy and Avengers. Check them out at: www.practicalmoneyskills.ca/resources/comics
  

Have fun learning about money and finances with activities and games for all ages at: ​https://www.bankofcanadamuseum.ca/learn/activities/

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Here are some activities that help your child further develop their understanding of data:

• Have young children sort toys, socks or other small items. They may choose to group them based on colour, type of item or another way. Ask them how they sorted the items and why they chose to sort them that way.
  
• Ask your child what questions they have about things their friends or family members like, such as what is your favourite food or activity. Encourage them to take a ‘survey’ to find out. Ask them how they will keep track of the answers.
  
• One of the biggest applications of data is targeted advertising and advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money for access to our personal data. Let children know that information about their online behaviours is constantly being collected, everything from their likes, things they click on, online surveys they do, favourite websites, and so on. All children can be taught the importance of protecting their personal information when online.
  

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Here are some activities that help your child further devlop their understanding of fractions:

• Young children can play with cups or containers of different sizes. You can ask questions like, how many smaller cups will fill the whole ​cup?
  
• Let your child help you when cooking or baking using measuring cups and spoons.
  
• Discuss with your child how to divide a food item into equal pieces or portions, such as a pie, cake, pizza, chocolate bar, group of cookies, ​etc. Older children may be asked to to cut or divide whole items into equal pieces.
  
• Ask your child to gather a collection of items they like (such as marbles, toys, rocks, etc.) and to divide them into equal groups.
  
• Ask what fraction are you actually saving if you buy two items that are ‘Buy One Get One Half Off’?
  

Big sale!

BOGO ½ off

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Here are some activities that help your child further devlop their understanding of geometry:

• Help your child see that shapes are everywhere by going on a Shape Hunt. Look for shapes around your home, outside in the ​environment and in your community. You can look for flat, 2-dimensional shapes such as windows, tiles, and traffic signs, as well
  
• as 3-dimensional shapes like oranges, boxes, balls, and buildings. Ask them to name and describe the shapes they see. Ask them ​questions like, “how do you know that’s a square?”
  
• Have your child draw a picture using shapes, or build something using blocks or recycled materials such as boxes and toilet paper ​rolls.
  
• Use 20 toothpicks to make 3 shapes. None of the shapes can use the same number of toothpicks. Have your child name the shapes ​and share why they decided to make those shapes.
  

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Measurement is all about comparison. When we measure

something, we are usually trying to determine something

about its size, distance, mass, capacity, time, or the amount of space it ​takes up. We do this by comparing what we are measuring to a ‘unit’ of ​measure. In early grades, students begin exploring measurement ​using non-standard units. For example, how many paper clips long ​something is, or how many square tiles will cover something. They ​then move on to standard units of measure (e.g. metres, grams, ​kilometres, litres, minutes, etc.).

Measurement is an important part our everyday lives.

Whether we’re cooking, telling time, driving, or buying

new shoes, we’re using measurement. Even computers and cell phones ​rely on measurement to operate.

Questions to Support Thinking

Here are some activities that help your child further devlop their understanding of measurement:

• Let young children play with containers of different sizes that they can fill with water. How many small containers of water does ​it take to fill up the big container?
  
• You can make measuring objects fun by having your child choose different items to measure with. Instead of using a ruler, they ​might measure how long something is using crayons, or how high something is using blocks. Ask them how they might measure ​how tall they are.
  
• Scavenger Hunt - Ask your child how many items they can find around the home that are about as long as their arm, or thinner ​than a pencil. Can they find 3 things that weigh less than their shoe?
  
• Cook together! Let your child fill measuring cups and spoons, or add a ‘pinch’ of something.
  
• You might ask older children: How much time is there between dinner and bedtime? How long will it take to get to someone’s ​house if the distance to get there is 150 km and we’re driving 50 km/hour?