How To Find Math In Real Life.

 Here are some of my cheerful Unschoolers this morning. Biggest brother is playing Monopoly with little sister and littlest brother. So much adding and counting! Rylan is teaching Lincoln how to count on. For example. Linc rolled a 5 and a 3, so he starts with 5 and count on 3 more = 8. Now, time to practice his one to one correspondence/counting skills with moving his airplane 8 spaces. Plus, who doesn't enjoy playing with money? What an awesome biggest brother they have! Which do you think children would get more out of? A counting worksheet or hands on and having fun playing Monopoly with their biggest brother?

Another math source that happens naturally at our house is playing card games.  Poker games are excellent ways to teach many math skills. We don't play games/cards, etc.... every day, but I wanted this post to be about how Math comes in naturally as we live our lives. Fridays are our Perkins Family Fun Night and we usually have fun food (make your own tacos, pizza, etc..) and play games: Monopoly, Poker, Scrabble, etc...So for us, those games do come into play naturally as we live our lives. However, I'd like to share some other ways that we purposefully teach our children Math through just living our life day to day.

Nolan and Dad playing a quick game during 21 during lunch....

and then everyone wants to join in. 

A Quick Peak At Percentages: 

Taking advantage of eating dinner out is an excellent way to share with your children all about percentages. When it is time to tip the waitress share how to figure out 10% of  the bill. To calculate a percentage in your head, start by breaking the percentage off into smaller units. For example 25% is 10 + 10 + 5. 30% is 10, 10, and 10. Now you have numbers you can easily work with in your head. You can find 10% of the number easily by one of two methods. You can either move the decimal point one place to the left or you can drop the last number. Dropping the last number sometimes gives you an estimate, though, if that number is not zero.  Simple. So, 10% of $100.00 is $10.00. 10% of 20.00 is $2.00. 

 So for example, this Pizza Hut receipt total was $15.18. So, 10% of this total would be $1.51. We just dropped the last number. We don't pull out the calculator or official worksheet. We just pull out a clean napkin and pen and do a few examples IF they need a visual. Then, we ask them what they think 10% of the total on the receipt is. They usually figure out 10% pretty easily and quickly. Then, we explain that it is common to leave 15% for tip when going out to dinner. 

So, how would we figure out 15%?

 We already have 10%, so we just need to add another 5% to =15%. So if we cut 10% in half, then we'll know what 5% of the total would be . So, let's see 10% was $1.51, so half of $1.51 = .75(ish), so now we take our 10% ($1.51) and add our 5% (.75) which equals our 15% ($2.26). Yay! They just figured out percentages! If they know how to calculate 10%, then any percentage can be calculated. 

So, to challenge our kiddos, we give each of them a challenge in calculating the tip whenever we go out to dinner. We may ask our 6 year old to do 10% and our 15 year old to figure 17.5%! They enjoy the challenge. Of course this transfers over to shopping and sales too! 

Once, when Rylan was 12, we went sofa shopping at the consignment store, just him and I. I asked the clerk if a certain sofa ($225) was on sale and he told us it was 25% off of the original price. The clerk took out a calculator from his pocket to tell me the sale price would be and before he hit equal Rylan said, "It would be around $170." The clerk checked him and couldn't believe it! He was impressed and asked if he was a genius. Rylan just said, "Um, it was easy, but we homeschool." It made me laugh and know that we have given him a skill that will be useful in his life, not just in a Math book completely unrelated to real life situations. 

Estimation and Rounding and Running Addition in our Head:

Go grocery shopping!  We have a large family and live on a food budget. So, when we go food shopping we have to keep a running tally in our heads to be sure we stick to our budget.

So, when we go to the store we do tons of math. 

Example, bananas are .49 per pound. Gideon Weighs them....then estimates that the bananas are around 2 lbs, so we will pay about $1 for the bunch. Next is beef. The package is $4.66. So, he rounds $4.66 to $5 and adds it to the previous $1 for bananas  Currently, we are $6 into our shopping. Now, we spend hundreds of dollars in one trip, so sometimes Gideon may help me for a while and then want to be done..and that is ok! I continue without his help. However, he just did more rounding, estimating, and adding than most kids do in a week of public school math AND he did it all in his head! 

Now, I don't purposefully decide "We are going to learn rounding today." Um no, I don't do that. First of all, that takes too much planning on my part and makes my brain hurt just thinking about it. Unschooling is a way of life, so we take advantage of opportunities that occur during our day...everyday! We don't TEACH, we TALK. So, if Layla decided she wants to buy a toy with her money today and she only has $3, then as she shops and I take the opportunity to talk the prices of each toy and how to round them to the nearest whole dollar and she continuously will ask herself, "Do I have enough to purchase this item?" See.....easy..and real life. 

Look around. Open your eyes. 

Math is everywhere! 

Use it. Talk about it. Think out loud. When you get gas, get back in the car and vocalize how much it was per gallon times how many gallon you got. Or better yet, tell them you have $20 to buy gas with. How many gallon can I buy? Then, have them go purchase the gas. Will they receive change? Do they have enough to purchase some candy or gum for themselves?

When you cut pizza or cake, talk about how many you each get. How many slices to cut? When you bake, double, triple the recipe, or 1 1/2 times the recipe...and then, talk out loud about the conversions.

When we go grocery shopping the three boys often get $20 and have to work together to buy snacks for the week (or two). They compare ounces, prices, use coupons, weigh options, and collaborate together to come to a consensus on what snack options will last the longest, they'll get the most from, etc... I am always amazed at their motivation and ingenuity on what they have bought. Sometimes we will assign one child to plan, purchase, and prepare dinner for the evening and give him a budget of $10-$15. They love this and come up with some scary and some awesome meals!

Math is everywhere. 

As some of my boys have growing into young teens and full grown teens, Math has taken a different turn. They've opened bank accounts and handle their own registers.  They calculate tithe, savings, and spending o their own. They research retirement. What the yearly salaries are of future careers they are interested in. What are taxes? How much do they take out? What will that leave me with? They work and save for camps. Calculate how many months at the pay they receive will it take to make all the money they need for camp. My oldest became interested in the stock market. He follows stocks. He went to China and had to convert his US money to Chinese currency. He purchased items in China using the conversion factor to be sure he was getting a good deal and not taken advantage of. Math opportunities will grow the more your children grow. 

Math really is everywhere. So don't TEACH math, explore it, talk about it, use it, think out loud about it, and soon you will realize that they have filtered sooo much math through their fingertips and brains in and through real life experience than they ever could through black and white curriculum.