Are you running out of ideas? Here are a few examples that your child may want to try:
Go into your pantry. Look at the nutrition labels of 3 similar types of food. Here, a student finds that out of the three cereals studied, the caloric count and calories from fat make Fruit Loops the healthiest!
How does one double a recipe? Repeated addition and multiplication are useful. Suppose, instead, you were making 1 and 1/2 of a recipe? Now division and addition are important. 4 cups suddenly becomes 6 cups! And 1 and 1/2 cups becomes 2 1/4. Take out a recipe, and double it, or try increasing it by 1 1/2! (If you actually make the recipe, using measuring cups, it provides greater opportunities for understanding!) If children already experience these ideas at ages 7, 8, and 9, then when they learn to multiply and divide fractions, they have a context for these skills.
Many children have used sports statistics to explore mathematics. During baseball season, teachers were reading about various MLB teams including the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Cardinals--and, from more than one child in their classrooms. We learned about batting averages, how many seasons had existed between World Series wins, and more. Now we are coming upon another sports season that is FULL of mathematics possibilities--the Olympics! In the picture above, a student finds the gold, silver and bronze medals won by the hockey teams in her grandparents' countries of origin.
Other entries we have seen include creating math ideas from play. Children use different-colored Lego pieces in a construction. The question is posed: If (student) uses a total of 100 Legos, and 32 are red, 21 are yellow, then how many are blue?
Another student makes a pretend "yard sale". The various items are laid out on the table, and prices are added--23 cents, 28 cents, 69 cents. If the child has $1 to spend, which of the items can s/he purchase? Using actual money makes this even more compelling.
The study of mathematics has changed quite a bit from the time many of us were children. Our experiences included studying rules and algorithms and applying them to a page full of problems. Children today are required to be thinkers in a whole range of ways, and to develop multiple ways to think about and solve problems, showing their solutions in the process.
On Tuesday, the Third Grade shared the various weather reports for snowfall amounts that they had heard, in anticipation of the storm. Their various readings included 4-10, 6-12, and 8-14 inches, to name a few. Using our work earlier in the year with data--specifically line plots--this information was plotted on a line from 4-14. Students noticed a clump of data in the 8-12 range, and they noticed that the most common readings (the mode) were 8-10 inches.
And this kind of data provides another free math idea. Your child could create a bar graph showing the amount of snow NYC received in the past 3 years, or in the past 3 storms. Does your child want or need more challenge? Then s/he could create a "double" bar graph comparing the results of NYC snow totals with another city in the U.S.--perhaps in an area in which your child has relatives.
So, how did these snowfall predictions turn out? Newark received 10 inches, and NYC (Central Park) received 11.5 inches...right within the "clump" of data!