Traditional mathematics has always held a crucial role in the academic journey, especially for kids who plan to pursue engineering or science during higher studies. Even if you look beyond academics, you’ll realize that math skills are important for each and every aspect of life. But have you ever thought about mental math?
We at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, one of the Top 10 Best Schools in Gurugram, firmly believe that in today’s era of rapidly rising competition, mental math is one of the most essential skills our children must be equipped with. Regardless of the profession they plan to pursue going ahead, mental math is imperative. It not only makes their daily activities faster and more efficient but also helps to boost a person’s confidence, problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking. The benefits of having strong mental math muscles also extend to other areas of life, improving the overall quality of life and daily interactions.
While there are numerous ways to nurture the mental math skills, we recommend starting with the following:
-
Leverage the Power of Exciting Games
Even if everyone agrees that mental math is crucial for kids, making them work consistently on it can become a tedious challenge. And they cannot be blamed because no one wants to sit solving mathematical problems after finishing their regular academic work. We at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok have the perfect solution to this problem. Instead of using the boring, traditional way to strengthen their mental math muscles, blend fun games into their schedule to sneakily add mental math practice to their routine.
For example, you can encourage them to participate in a ‘beat the clock’ game. In this activity, they must race against time to solve a series of mental math challenges. If you have dice in your home, ask your kids to add or subtract the numbers rolled. Include a movement or challenge element to make it fun, like telling them to do squats or jumping jacks for the sum of the dice numbers or their difference. You can get creative and find innovative ways to facilitate more such activities.
-
Turn Your Surroundings into a Math Playground
Contrary to the common belief, textbooks/worksheets aren’t the only ways to stimulate your child’s mental math muscles. If your child doesn’t like sitting to study for long hours, you can schedule breaks between their routines and encourage them to participate in small and quick scavenger hunts to sharpen their mental math abilities. For instance, hide objects of a particular shade in the house and ask your kids to find them based on cues that involve addition or subtraction.
If your kids are too small, encourage them to find three blue objects and five red objects, and ask them how many total items they collected at the end. You can also ask them to guess the quantities of ingredients if the dinner is to be cooked for more or fewer people or let them estimate how far it is to the next traffic signal. Activities like these will keep them busy and entertained, sharpening their mental math skills.
-
Master Number Relationships
In our years of experience in the education world, we at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok have seen that there are two ways of learning – regular and smart. While regular learning techniques have merits, smarter learning techniques are better suited for crucial skills like mental math. If you want your kids to master mental math, ditch the rote memorization method and teach them about number relationships. This concept offers a unique way of looking at things, making learning fun and exciting.
You can keep aside twenty to thirty minutes daily and ask them to identify hidden relationships and connections between numbers. For example, if your child takes time to add 18 and 7, tell them to break this addition activity as 10+8+7. Splitting 18 into two numbers and visualizing them as 10+8 makes it easier to add 7. It not only fastens the addition process but also teaches them about place value and regrouping. The concept of number relationships isn’t only restricted to addition and subtraction but can also be applied to multiplication and other mathematical concepts.
Conclusion
Mental math is no less than any crucial life skill because it equips children with the abilities needed to navigate many of the daily activities. Whether it’s about the basic everyday tasks like getting groceries from a nearby store or the kind of work they are going to do in their professional sphere going ahead, they need strong mental math skills to attain proficiency and boost their potential. It will also give them a competitive edge in their adult years, especially at their workplace. This is why, through this blog post today, we at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, one of the top CBSE schools in Gurgaon, would like to urge all parents to begin nurturing their kids’ mental math muscles from a young age. Trust us; they are going to benefit immensely from this skill. You can start by sticking to the tips discussed in this post, and you’ll surely notice significant improvements with consistent effort.