How to Help Kids with Math: 6 Innovative Approaches

Let’s face it, math is not everyone’s favorite subject. Most children and their parents hate math. They see math as a giant monster that sucks away all their creativity. 

But what if we say math is a great bonding activity for children and parents? And what if we say math is everywhere — from calculating money to negotiating with local vendors? 

Math is a lifestyle. It is not just numbers or complex problems. Math helps you develop a logical mindset and build confidence in your child. 

But how?

Well, parents, you have to help your kids with math first. Then, you have to use innovative approaches and activities to make math learning fun and exciting for your kids.

How to help kids with math – 6 innovating approaches

Let’s not scratch your head and see how you can help your kids with math for better learning and bonding. 

Helping Your Kids With Math Is Beneficial For Their Intellectual Development — How?

Is your child slow at processing information? Does your child struggle to respond spontaneously or show creativity? If so, you should start helping them with math today.

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Yes, logical and problem-solving math can encourage intellectual, creative, and cognitive development. When you start helping your kids with math early, this can lead to:

Related Reading: Best Math Apps for Kids

1. Stimulated Creativity 

No matter what other people say, mathematics is the root of creativity. You can stimulate creative cells in your child’s mind with math skills. For example, when your child uses their imagination to create a paper plane from waste paper, it shows their pattern and measurement assessment skills. Likewise, your child needs to understand patterns, shapes, and measurement skills to create simple origami art.

2. Initiates Enthusiasm 

Math is not a buzz kill. In fact, when your child solves complicated math problems easily, it will build their confidence and motivate them to learn new things. They will show more interest in their classes and enthusiasm for other academic subjects. 

3. Confidence Booster 

Helping your child with math is essential to developing their confidence. However, when your child struggles to solve simple math problems, this will deflect their confidence, and they might lose interest in other subjects. Importantly, your child might refuse to go to school because they could not perform in math class compared to their classmates. 

Therefore, when you provide the right assistance with math, your child will feel more confident and won’t hesitate to take on challenges. When they can solve problematic math equations with ease, this will give them confidence and courage to deal with other complex subjects like science.

4. Prepare Them to Take Down the World

Math is a universal language. You will use the same method to calculate grocery bills in Spain or India. You can prepare your child to travel around the world alone with math training. Math is an essential life skill that everyone needs to survive anywhere worldwide. 

5. Cultivate Interest 

Math is a foundation for many other career fields. For example, accountants must learn fundamental mathematical calculations to create journals and balance sheets. Similarly, architects must understand measurement and pattern equations to create sturdy buildings. Therefore, when you help your child with math, you are helping them to develop an interest in different fields. This can eventually help your child choose a future career path.

6. Social Value Development

Math has no religious or cultural boundaries. A scientific approach trains people to help humanity with better research and development. When your child knows how to solve some social issues using math skills, they can work to better society. Helping your child with math today can make them a better citizen of tomorrow.

How to Help Your Kid With Math? — 6 Innovative Solutions 

Mathematics is vital for your child’s social, intellectual, and cultural development. But, we cannot ignore that teaching math from an introductory textbook is not fun. Simple numbers and word problems can quickly put anyone away from math. 

Therefore, if you genuinely want to help your kid with math, you should use innovative methods to teach them. Here are some exciting ways to make math fun and entertaining for you with children:

1. Never Demotivate Your Child

The worst thing you can say to a child is that they are bad at math. Unfortunately, when you start telling your children they are bad at math, they will eventually begin to believe it and even stop trying to improve their math skills.

Therefore, you should always encourage your child to learn math. Even if they don’t get a correct answer on the third or fifth attempt, you should never say that you cannot do it. It would help if you motivated them to give it another shot and try different methods to approach the same problem. 

Related Reading: Best Math Tricks That Will Turn Your Kids Into a Math Whiz

2. Leverage Video Games

Every child loves to play video games today. So, you can use your child’s passion for video games to teach them math. Many great gamified platforms are available to teach math with animations and attractive videos. For example, SplashLearn is an excellent math game app to help preschoolers to 5th graders with math. 

3. Use Various Math Activities 

Organizing math activities at home can teach your child different math concepts practically and enjoyably. For instance, creating a simple budgeting exercise with your child can introduce them to common core math standards, such as addition, subtraction, and understanding value, in a real-world context. This approach not only makes math relatable but also demonstrates its everyday applications, enhancing their learning experience.

4. Cook With Them

Yep, cooking also involves calculation and measurement. It required measuring scale and common sense to create a recipe following the instructions. So, you can pick a complex recipe with lots of calculations, cook it with your child, and teach them math.

5. Practical Training 

Once you teach a math concept to your child, you should take them out and show how this skill can help them in real life. For instance, once you teach your child how to calculate money, you can ask them to pay grocery bills.

6. Visual Lessons 

Your child might need more time than other students to process a math equation. In that case, you can provide them with visual lessons so they can play, rewind, and pause as many times as they want. 

This way, they don’t have to wait for a teacher’s free time to ask for help. Plus, many children hesitate to ask teachers a second time. So, visual lessons can easily allow children to learn at their own pace.

Besides this, if your child requires 1:1 math training and you don’t have much free time, you can hire a professional math tutor for them.

Let’s Bond Over Math!

When you and your child use different math activities, games, and practical training lessons to learn math, this will nurture a strong bond. In addition, this will give parents more opportunity to spend time with their kids, especially teenagers who no longer find their parents cool enough to hang out with.

Plus, helping your kid with math will develop their overall character. So, whether you have a preschooler or a high schooler, you should find an opportunity to help them with math.

Related Reading: Brilliant Math Quotes to Share with Students to Inspire Them

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