Summer Math Suggestions
“Keeping in Shape” Mathematically Over the Summer Months
This information is adapted from the final Everyday Mathematics Family Letters. To find much
more detail, a description of math games, and some materials you can go their website:
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/educators/grade_specific/ Have fun continuing your child’s
mathematics experiences throughout the summer!
Students Ending Kindergarten
Over the summer be on the lookout for chances to “talk and think” math, for
example:
• Choose some math-related books when you go to the library.
• Keep track of your activities on the calendar. Count how many more days
there
are until a family vacation or special event.
• Cook together. Cooking involves reading numbers, counting, measuring
ingredients, measuring time, and sequencing.
• Prepare meals with various geometric shapes (sandwiches in triangular,
rectangular, and square shapes, cylindrical cans, cubes of cheese, and so on).
• Set up an obstacle course: go around bushes, under lawn chairs, over the
chairs, etc.
• Allow your child to pay and receive change at the store.
• Look for numbers all around—on the mailbox, telephone, book pages, houses,
restaurants, gas pumps, and so on.
• Incorporate mathematics on a family trip: How many miles will you travel?
How many days will you be gone? How much money do you need for the gas
or lodging?
• Look for geometric shapes around the house, at the grocery store, at the
park,
in the mall, or anywhere you go! Notice both 2- and 3-dimensional shapes.
• Write numbers in the sandbox, dirt, play dough, or on the sidewalk with chalk.
• Use a thermometer or other source to find the temperature on different days.
• Create and solve number stories with family members.
Ending First Grade
• Use the clock to telling time, use a variety of clocks such as billboard clocks,
wristwatches, clocks with hands, and digital clocks
• Record the time spent doing various activities.
• Use real money in a variety of situations: allowance, savings, purchases
(including getting change back), and using vending machines.
• Look for weather and temperature reports from the radio, the television, and
newspapers. Use a home thermometer to take the temperature.
• Look for geometric shapes in the real world, such as street signs, boxes, cans,
construction cones, and so on.
• Construct (2 and 3 dimensional shapes) using drinking straws and twist-ties
from plastic storage bags.
• Continue with Scrolls and Number-Grid Puzzles
• Use games to provide the frequent practice children need in order to
efficiently recall basic addition and subtraction facts, using playing cards or
dominoes.
• Find instructions for playing these games on the Everyday Mathematics
website: Beat the Calculator, Addition Top-It, High Roller, Penny Grab
Ending Second Grade
• Fill in blank calendar pages for the vacation months, including special events
and dates. Discuss the number of weeks of vacation, days before school starts,
and so on.
• Continue to ask the time. Encourage alternate ways of naming time, such as
twenty to nine for 8:40 and quarter-past five for 5:15
• Continue to review and practice basic facts for all operations, especially those
for addition and subtraction.
• Use Fact Triangle cards to practice basic multiplication and division facts
• Find instructions for playing these games on the Everyday Mathematics
website:
Addition Top-It, Multiplication Top-It, Pick-a-Coin
Ending Third Grade
• Over a period of time, have your child record the daily temperatures in the
morning and in the evening. Keep track of the findings in chart or graph form.
Ask questions about the data—for example, to find the differences in
temperatures from morning to evening or from one day to the next.
• As you are driving in the car or going on walks, search for geometric figures
and
identify them by name along with some of their characteristics. For example: a
stop sign is an octagon, which has 8 sides and 8 angles; an orange construction
cone is a cone, which has a circular base, a rounded surface, and one vertex;
a brick is a rectangular prism, in which all faces are rectangles.
• Continue to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.
Focus on the ones your child is still having difficulty mastering. Using short drill
sessions with Fact Triangles, fact families, and games will help your child build
on
previous knowledge.
• Provide multi-digit addition and subtraction problems for your child to
solve; encourage your child to write number stories to go along with the
number models.
• Find instructions for playing these games on the Everyday Mathematics
website:
Division Arrays, Three Addends, Baseball Multiplication
• See the list below of books to enjoy with your child:
Ending Fourth Grade
• Have your child practice any multiplication and division facts that
he or she has not yet mastered. Include some quick drills.
• Provide items for your child to measure. Have your child use personal
references, as well as U.S. customary and metric measuring tools.
• Use newspapers and magazines as sources of numbers, graphs, and tables
that your child may read and discuss.
• Have your child practice multidigit multiplication and division
using the algorithms that he or she is most comfortable with.
• Ask your child to look at advertisements and find the sale prices of items
using the original prices and rates of discount. Have your child use a calculator
and calculate unit prices to determine best or better buys.
• Find instructions for playing these games on the Everyday Mathematics
website:
Beat the Calculator, Name That Number
Suggested Math Reading Resources
A Cloak for the Dreamer by Aileen Friedman
Grandfather Tang’s Story by Ann Tompert
The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns
Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday by Judith Viorst
A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams
The Go-Around Dollar by Barbara Johnston Adams
If You Made a Million by David Schwartz
Fraction Action by Loreen Leedy
How Much Is a Million? by David Schwartz
Bunches and Bunches of Bunnies by Louise Mathews
The King’s Chessboard by David Birch
The I Hate Mathematics! Book by Marilyn Burns
One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes
A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes
Eight Hands Round: A Patchwork Alphabet by Ann Whitford Paul
A Million Fish … More or Less by Patricia C. McKissack
The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy
Pigs on a Blanket by Amy Axelrod
Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe by Vera B. Williams
The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole
The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis
Fraction Action by Loreen Leedy
Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar by Masaichiro Anno
Visual Magic by David Thomas