Don’t let the winter doldrums get you down—and don’t let the holidays erase your children’s math progress! Here are a few ideas for quick and simple daily math practice as the calendar year draws to a close.
1. Math Questions Calendar
Everyone’s eyes are on the calendar this time of year. Holidays, vacations, and the countdown to the new year all center calendars more than ever in our daily lives. Why not pair a calendar template like this one with math problems of your choice?
First, let your young mathematician flex their art skills by coloring or designing the calendar. Next, plan a different problem for them to solve on each date. If you’d like to give your learner a preview of what’s to come, you can write all the questions on the calendar at the same time. If you’d rather keep it a surprise, be sure to add one question every night after bedtime or each morning before the day begins. You could also use small sticky notes to cover up the problems, to be peeled off daily!
Another “surprise” approach is to write questions or word problems on numbered slips of paper and keep them in a bag near the calendar. Each day, draw one question slip to answer. Be sure to discard it afterward so that there are no repeats! Make sure to keep the numbered answer key on hand to easily check answers regardless of the order the slips are drawn.
Feel free to create a targeted calendar that only uses specific dates instead of the whole month, such as the days that students are on school break or the dates leading up to a holiday.
If your child needs a little extra motivation, consider offering a small prize for a completed calendar.
2. Question Gift Boxes
Many gift-giving holidays happen in winter. Bring a little bit of the excitement of opening a gift into your math practice by presenting your daily review questions in gift boxes!
Stop by a local dollar store to pick up the smallest gift bag or trinket box they have. If you’d prefer to practice your instruction-following and origami skills, follow these steps to create your own gift box using two sheets of paper cut into squares of slightly different sizes. Topping it off with a ribbon or bow is optional.
Once you have your gift bag or box, place one (or more!) math question inside. Kids will open up the gift each day, complete the new question or set of questions, and then return the box or bag to repeat the process.
As with the calendar, you might want to offer a real gift or prize after a certain number of days or questions answered.
3. iKnowIt Daily Practice
Use iKnowIt.com to take your daily practice digital! The site offers a variety of math review topics targeted from kindergarten through 5th grade. There are even ELA skills review lessons, too!
The best part is you don’t need to be a member to take advantage of a small dose of daily math practice. Even without an account, students can answer up to 12 questions each day. (After that, they must log in to continue.) Pick which topics you’d like most to focus on, then answer your daily allotment. The built-in hint and explanation systems point kids in the right direction and explain where they might have gone wrong to get an incorrect answer, which helps them master the concepts.
Especially over a holiday break, those 12 questions a day can make all the difference between maintaining skills or going rusty. And who knows? Kids might enjoy the interactive format so much that daily review becomes a seamless part of their schedules even after the new year arrives!
