Teach your children math when you go to the supermarket
Going to the supermarket can be a great opportunity for your children to learn mathematics applied to daily life.
Put math on your shopping list! Many parents refer their children to academies to reinforce mathematical concepts when they do not realize that they themselves and with the day to day can achieve good results. Math is part of everyday life, especially when shopping. Since you have to go to the supermarket anyway, why not turn it into a math game? There are several different skills to practice both before and during shopping. Make a shopping list and budget with the help of your children, and start math classes for everyday life!
Index
SHOPPING FOR FOOD
To reinforce the most basic mathematical concepts such as operations, estimating or calculating money. You do not want to do everything on the same trip to the supermarket, take advantage of each weekly outing so that your children go with you and thus focus on one concept at a time. Children will have a good time and learn with you.
ESTIMATE
Before buying, ask your child to write on a piece of paper a budget of the estimated cost of each item on the shopping list (help him with the items he has more questions about). You can also learn to estimate how much purchased food can weigh by weight, such as fruits or vegetables.
ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION
Use the shopping list in which your child calculated the cost of each item and add the estimated total and subtract from the budget, is it over or under budget? Will expendable items have to be removed from the list or will there be money left over to save it? If the price is too high, ask your child to help you figure out how much to cut and what items would need to be removed from the list to stay within the budget.
COMPARISON
Buying the cost of products with different brands and finding those that are best suited for quality and price to the desired item is also a good way to teach your children to shop efficiently. It is necessary for children to learn to compare the quality of the items with the cost per unit and to analyze whether the quality has a great difference in terms of the final quality of the product.
MULTIPLICATIONS
Ask your child how much it would cost to buy an item if you need, for example, 5 more. This way you will be able to know how much the budget would increase by doing a simple multiplication and reinforcing the multiplication tables.
COUNT MONEY
Allow your child to have some coins banknotes to learn to count and use correctly. Pick some items from the store and tell her how much money she would need to buy those items. Do you have enough money? Do you have any left over? In case you don’t have too much, do you have it just right or would you need more money?
You can also provide your older children with coupons or discounts so that they can calculate with a calculator if necessary how much they could save by buying a promotional or discounted item. Is it worth the discount or is it not as much as it seems? They should also learn to think about whether their money is worth spending on discounted items if they really don’t need those items. Teach them to think critically and not be tempted just because they’re discounted if those items aren’t really necessary.
You can also ask them things like: Is it worth buying the most expensive brand with the coupon or the generic one that is even cheaper? In this way you will be promoting critical thinking. You’ll learn how to make healthier choices about what items to buy, what you need, and what budget you have to make the purchase. Thus, in addition to learning mathematics, you will also learn to make healthier decisions regarding spending and saving money.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.