math Archives - L.A. Parent

Weaving Story Time & Math

Published September 5, 2023

By Tarana Khan, Ph.D., and Rosemary Miller, Ed.D.

PBS SoCal families read together with their children. PHOTO COURTESY PBS SOCAL

“Tacos are semicircles,” my 2-year-old announces as we are cuddled on the couch reading “Round Is a Tortilla” by Roseanne Greenfield Thong. The book says tortillas and tacos are round, and the folded crunchy tacos illustrated on the page catch her attention.

When my daughter and I read together, it’s common for us to extend beyond the words on the page. We describe the images by their shapes, colors and sometimes even the sounds we think they would make. Along with helping us make connections to our own lives and experiences, reading together allows us to explore other concepts, such as math, science and art.

Books like “Round Is a Tortilla” make finding the bridge between reading and math easy by encouraging readers to seek round, square and triangular shapes. But any book we choose to read with our little ones can give us the chance to easily weave in conversations about math topics such as counting or patterns.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) suggest that preschoolers’ foundational math knowledge is best supported when math becomes holistically integrated with other daily activities and subjects, including literacy. When children see how math can be used in real-world contexts and situations in the books they are reading, they begin to recognize that math is a part of their everyday life. As a result, children’s interest in math may grow and they may become motivated to learn other types of math concepts.

–Tarana Khan, Ph.D.

Show your kids that math is everywhere

So how do you interweave math during story time with your child, especially if the book is not as explicitly about math concepts as “Round Is a Tortilla?” Making observations about the position of objects in pictures, the lines and curves in letters and the patterns in words models for your child that math truly is everywhere.

When we think of math, our mind often goes to numbers and equations first. While understanding numbers and counting is an important part of a child’s math development, equally as important is their exposure to patterns, shapes, spatial relationships (where objects are and how they move), measurement and sorting. These six concepts form the basis of more advanced math topics such as algebra and trigonometry, as well as a child’s understanding of how the world around them works.

Here are some sample discussion openers:

“The girl is hiding behind the bush. Do you see her?”

“What does the silly monkey have on top of his head?”

“I noticed that some letters have curves like C and some have lines like A. Let’s see if we can find another letter with curves.”

“The noise the dog is making is a pattern: ‘Woof! Woof! Yap! Yap!’”

Research shows that math understanding at school entry is the strongest predictor of later success in math and, in some cases, reading.

–Rosemary Miller, Ed.D.

Make an illustrated counting book

For more fun, hands-on ways to continue exploring math and literacy together, try making a version of PBS SoCal’s illustrated counting book.

Illustrated Counting Book

Learning Goal: Practice counting with words and numbers

What You’ll Need:

Sheets of paper
Hole puncher or scissors
String
Markers

Steps:

Make the book. Fold three sheets of paper lengthwise in half. Make three small holes along the fold. Loop a piece of string into each hole and tie the ends.
Write the book. Title the book and number the pages 1-10. Go back to page 1 and write the word “ONE” on top so both the number and the word are on the page. Repeat on all the pages.
Illustrate the book. Draw the objects, such as 1 pear, 2 pencils and 3 cars, on each page.
Read the book. Count out loud together as you touch each object. What happens if you read the book backward? Try to count from 10 to 1. Count how many pages are in the book and try reading the book from big numbers to small numbers.

Check out the Family Math Book List for some great book recommendations that make it easy to practice math while reading together.

Tarana Khan, Ph.D., is the Education Research and Evaluation Analyst at PBS SoCal. She received her Ph.D. in education with a specialization in human development from UC Irvine. Rosemary Miller, Ed.D., is Senior Director of Early Learning for PBS SoCal.

Fun Summer Learning

Published June 9, 2023

By Tracy Martin

Summer is the time for lounging in the pool — a time when school is the last thing on your kid’s mind. And while summer should include ample time for relaxation and play, it’s also a good idea to incorporate activities that keep your child’s brain active and attentive because “summer learning loss” is a real thing.

Many teachers report that the first few months of the school year are used to play catchup on ideas and skills that students have forgotten over break. To help you help your children mitigate these losses, we’ve rounded up some simple and fun activities that will keep kids of all ages learning and practicing necessary skills — without being a summer buzzkill.

Ages 4 to 6

Literacy

At this age, it is important to keep your child’s foundational reading skills strong. Practice sight words (words that appear frequently in texts, such as “and” and “each”) and letter blends (ch-, tr-, pl-, for example) in fun ways so your child can build on them right away at the start of the school year.

Inspiration:

Crossword puzzles: Find crossword books or printable sheets that give your child opportunities to get more and more familiar with letters and sight words.

Chalk: Use this old-school tool to get your child outside. Writing by hand with chalk helps with dexterity. Plus, it’s a fun way to have them write letters and sight words for practice.

Sight Word Twister: This is fun for the whole family. Add a simple twist (pun intended) to the game by adding a sight word flashcard to each dot on the Twister mat for your child to read.

Math

Focus on counting from 0 to 100 at this age — and on simple addition and subtraction. The difficulty level of these will depend on your child’s unique skill level. You can always use manipulatives — small toys or objects — to make counting less abstract and to model problem-solving.

Inspiration:

Problem of the day: Set up a question on a whiteboard or piece of paper and have your child complete one a day — at breakfast, in the car, or whatever works for your schedule. For example, you might write down, “Suzy has three hats and John has two hats. If Suzy gives her hats to John, how many hats will he have?” You can talk out the problem and/or draw out the problem and build skills cooperatively.

Water balloon math: Write numbers on water balloons with a marker and set up targets (paper plates, chalk on the floor) with numbers. Have your child pull two water balloons, add or subtract them together and throw them at the target with the correct answer. If your child isn’t at this skill level, you can turn it into a counting game, counting as you toss.

Ages 6 to 9

Literacy

Continue strengthening your child’s reading skills at this age, possibly helping them read their first chapter book. To keep them in the groove of reading over summer, try the following ideas.

Inspiration:

Library reading programs: Most public libraries have a summer reading club with prize incentives. This is a great way to keep your kid motivated while also supporting your local library. Don’t forget that you can request specific titles your child wants, and the library system will deliver the book to your local branch.

Journaling: Keep your child writing and using those literacy skills through a journal. Daily diary entries, writing prompts and “finishing the story” are some good ways to start. Check out We Are Teachers for useful writing prompts.

Math

Kids in early elementary are practicing mental math and word problems and, in general, working on “fluidity” and solving number problems with ease and speed. Keeping this up in the summer will help your child feel ready to go come August.

Inspiration:

Yahtzee: Yahtzee is a game the whole family will enjoy. Rolling and adding up dice helps with mental math, number sequencing and pattern recognition.

Grocery store budgeting: This is a great activity that can easily be adjusted to skill level. Your child can add up the prices (round up to the dollar for younger kids), add with decimals (older kids) and even practice fractions if you talk about discounts or coupons. Just bring your child to the store on a day you’re not in a hurry and see what kind of real-life math happens.

Ages 10 and up

Literacy

Kids ages 10 and up often have a strong literacy foundation, so the hardest challenge over summer might simply be getting them to apply those skills to reading and writing — without a teacher around to tell them to do so.

Inspiration:

Reading bucket list: Right when summer starts, make a list of specific books, or set a number goal, to complete over the summer. Choosing books they’re already excited to read should make for less grumbling. Or use book-movie adaptions for motivation. If your child reads “Ella Enchanted,” “Coraline” or “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” watch the film versions afterwards and talk about similarities and differences they noticed.

Math

At this age, beginning algebra is central to mathematical learning, so think problems with missing variables.

Inspiration:

Real-life math stories: Use your child’s life as inspiration to practice algebra. For example: “I bought 20 chip bags last week, and now there are 8 left. How many have already been eaten?” If they’re sports fans, use game points as problems. And take turns being the problem creator and the problem solver; agility with numbers grows with practice.

Daily math: Having kids “solve for x” is a standard algebraic task, so you might repeat that daily math problem idea from above. Do it with both numerals (x+5 = 12) and words (“I had some marbles, then Mom gave me five more. Now there are 12. How many did I have to start with?”) One math puzzle at breakfast every day, all summer, is a great way to squeeze in learning with that glass of fresh orange juice.

Tracy Martin is an editorial intern at L.A. Parent. She recently graduated from Chapman University, where she studied English literature and creative writing with coursework in the theories and methods of tutoring. She tutors students ages 4-14 and has worked as a nanny and camp counselor.

PBS SoCal Summer Learning Initiative

Published July 26, 2022

By Anna Gregory

For many children, summers are a time for play, but also a time to make sure those new skills learned during the school year don’t get too rusty. To combat this, PBS SoCal has taken its Family Math series to the next step by introducing its Summer Learning initiative. This initiative is a way for families to add interactive family-style games to their summer schedules.

PBS Summer Learning Initiative Cover Photo — The PBS SoCal Family Math launches its Summer Learning initiative. PHOTO COURTESY PBS SoCal.

Through family-oriented online workshops and bilingual educational activities, children ages 2-8 will be able to track and develop their math skills at a foundational level.

PBS SoCal makes tracking progress easy and straightforward with activity booklets and weekly videos for children and their families. The summer learning initiative also offers free virtual online workshops every other Thursday until Aug. 11, to provide more consistency for developing math skills. The countless workshops can be found here, and families can download or order a hard copy of the activity booklets here.

There are several free online workshops for parents and guardians to prepare children for school and familiarize them with basic cognitive math skills to succeed in the classroom. The workshops involve pointing out math in our everyday lives and doing hands-on craft activities to practice those foundational skills. For example, the math series includes “How to Make an Illustrated Counting Book” and “No Sew Sock Animals.”

Here are just a few skills that children will learn and improve on in the summer-learning initiative:

Number sense and counting
Sorting and collecting
Patterns
Shapes
Spatial sense
Measurement

Family involvement in a children’s education is one of the leading factors to success in the classroom. The PBS SoCal Summer Learning initiative aims to expand the accessibility of resources, tools and activities to make education outside of the classroom as equitable as possible.

For more information, go to www.pbssocal.org/familymath. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Study Shows Afterschool Programs in L.A. Are Providing STEM Learning

Published September 14, 2021

With a decade-long focus on the urgency to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in the U.S., afterschool programs in Los Angeles stepped up to answer the call.

In a study released Sept. 14, 89% of parents of students attending afterschool programs in Los Angeles report that their child’s program offers STEM learning opportunities. Eighty-two percent of parents of afterschool students in California and 73% nationwide say the same.

STEM Learning in Afterschool on the Rise, But Barriers and Inequities Exist is based on a household survey conducted by Edge Research for the Afterschool Alliance. It finds that 131,255 of the 148,047 Los Angeles children who participate in an afterschool program have opportunities to learn STEM there. In addition, 13,490 kids participated in summer STEM camps in Los Angeles in 2019.

“Afterschool and summer learning programs are helping engage students in the STEM-related activities they need to succeed, both in school and in life,” said Afterschool Alliance Executive Director Jodi Grant. “These programs offer hands-on, team-based activities that make STEM learning fun. But there’s more work to do. Fewer children are in afterschool programs today than in years past and we need to reverse that trend. In our country today, for every child in an afterschool program, three more are waiting to get in. Changing that should be a high priority for the country.”

“We’re not meeting the demand for afterschool programs in Los Angeles either,” said Laura Beebe, Interim CEO of LA’s BEST. “While we applaud recent investments to expand access to afterschool programs, there is still more work to be done. For every child in an afterschool program here in Los Angeles, 2 more are waiting to get in. And the same is true for summer learning programs; in Los Angeles in 2019, more than 90,000 children would have been enrolled in a summer program if one were available to them. We will keep working until out-of-school-time programs are available to every child, and all students have access to STEM learning in their afterschool and summer programs.”

STEM Learning in Afterschool is based on survey responses from more than 31,000 U.S. families nationwide. Two hundred and forty-nine Los Angeles households with 919 children were screened for the study, which also includes national-level findings from smaller surveys of parents and program providers conducted in summer and fall of 2020 and spring of 2021. In important respects, Los Angeles results mirror the national survey findings:

Parents value and are satisfied with STEM learning in afterschool. Eighty-six percent of Los Angeles parents, 82% of California parents, and 76% of parents nationwide say that afterschool programs help children gain interest and skills related to STEM. Seventy-seven percent of Los Angeles parents, 86% of California parents, and 72% of parents nationwide prioritize STEM and computer science in selecting an afterschool program.

Across the country, STEM learning opportunities in afterschool are on the rise. Three in five parents of afterschool students (60%) report that their child participates in STEM in afterschool twice or more per week, up from 52% in 2014. Learning opportunities in each of the STEM disciplines – science learning, technology/engineering, and math – are more available in afterschool programs today than they were in 2014.

Afterschool programs nationwide are providing STEM learning opportunities to populations underrepresented in STEM fields. More parents of Black (77%) and Latinx (77%) students report that their child’s afterschool program offers STEM than White (72%) and Asian American (68%) parents. Parents of color are more likely than White parents to prioritize STEM and computer science in selecting an afterschool program, with 79% of Latinx and Asian American parents, 75% of Black parents, and 68% of White parents with a student in afterschool reporting it was important in their selection of a program.

But opportunities are not the same for all families. Across the country, more than three in five children in families with higher incomes (62%) participate in a STEM activity in their afterschool program twice per week or more, but just 56% of children in families with low incomes do. Parents in urban communities (79%) are more likely to report that their child has STEM learning opportunities in afterschool than suburban (72%) and rural (70%) parents. Children from higher-income households are three times more likely to participate in a summer STEM camp than children from households with lower incomes.

Overwhelming majorities of parents support public funding for out-of-school-time programs. Ninety percent of Los Angeles parents and 87% of parents nationwide support public funding for afterschool. Eighty-eight percent of Los Angeles parents and 88% of parents nationwide favor public funding for summer learning opportunities.

This 2021 America After 3PM special report, STEM Learning in Afterschool, is based on research commissioned and funded by Overdeck Family Foundation. Data from this special report is based on the 2020 America After 3PM survey results, which was made possible with support from the New York Life Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, Altria Group, and the Walton Family Foundation, as well as the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

The full study, America After 3PM, and accompanying data, are available at www.afterschoolalliance.org.

The Afterschool Alliance is a nonprofit public awareness and advocacy organization working to ensure that all children and youth have access to quality afterschool programs. More information is available at www.afterschoolalliance.org.