The human being requires basic skills to defend himself and be independent within society. Being able to read, count, reason, are skills that although they seem simple, they take work to acquire and develop them.
Undoubtedly in the case of mathematics, it is one of them. Mathematics is a complex science, which tries to explain many events of our world in exact numbers. Maybe many do not notice it but everything in our life revolves around mathematics.
When we got up in the morning and thought how long it took to go from home to the bus stop, the time it takes for the bus to pass, and the time in relation to the traffic that will take us from home to school or work, we are thinking about mathematics without knowing it, because we are making calculations based on time.
Or the most common example in daily life, when we go to the supermarket and we add the prices of the products so as not to exceed our budget. Within the supermark, et we use the basic and elementary operations of mathematics, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
If I put into the cart four packages of cookies how much it will be, or if there is an offer to carry two for the price of one, how much will each product cost. They are only unknowns of daily life that are answered by using mathematics.
Mathematics in the Classroom.
Undoubtedly, in the classroom, mathematics is a matter of care for many children, we can see when we put mathematical problems their deficiencies in basic mathematical operations.
For many, the learning of mathematics can be frustrating, for others however it is fascinating, they feet the special admiration for the world of numbers, but realistically, not all children have this ability, so you must have a lot of patience when This matter is given to children.
The best advice for teachers when teaching mathematics to children, beyond patience, is to always be as clear and as explicit as possible, not to delve into ambiguous or complicated details, if possible to explain direct operations with exact results. way children will not see this matter as an enemy that has to be overcome, as a problem to be attacked.
The main problem with children in the study of mathematics is that due to the complexity of the content taught, they only learn what they will evaluate in the exam and then forget, dismiss the information as if it were a problem already solved.
The teacher should change this image that children have about mathematics, they should make children understand that mathematics is a tool that will help them solve and understand problems in their daily lives, and not a monster to flee from
All this can be achieved by the teacher through the simple explanation of mathematical cases.
Activities to teach mathematics to children:
With children you must have a lot of patience in everything you are taught, your attention regime is limited, it is your nature, so you have to do what you need to teach them.
Among the activities we can use to teach math to children we can be creative and play with the following:
1.-Teach mathematics could be a challenge, you can achieve through various daily activities, you can teach mathematics to children through manual work, such as trimming, drawing, etc.
Teaching mathematics to children is simple, since it is about solving everyday problems, and where we can get these opportunities, here: When we wake up in the morning, waiting for the school bus, to see the clock and calculate the time that is missing for the snack or the exit of classes, in many ways in the daily life the mathematics can be taught to the children.
We can ask the child to cut strips of paper, and make two groups with strips, when you have the groups cut out, we can show you very visually the processes of addition and subtraction, for example, if we cut one more strip and connect it to a group, how many? Would we have strips? Or if we move a strip of paper from a group, how many strips of paper are left in the group from which it is being extracted? Very visual and entertaining exercises to teach addition and subtraction.
2.- We can play at the supermarket, where as in real life each product has a cost, the basis of this game will be for the child to analyze how much is the value of each thing, and keep a mental account, in this way he will be exercising the sum, and his memory too.
Through games and simple activities, we can manage to teach children the world of numbers, and more importantly to promote mathematics as a tool for life and not as a problem to be feared.
