Why Children Need to Experience Math in the Real World
When our children go to school, they will encounter real-world problems (aka word problems) on an almost daily basis. Starting as young as kindergarten, our children will be asked to apply what they know about math to real-world settings.
In fact, the Tennessee K-8 math standards use the phrase “real-world context” or a synonym over 80 times. This emphasis on real-world context is also true in the Common Core State Standards and most other state standards.
So how do we set our children up for success with real-world problems? As the book Young Children’s Mathematics concisely states, “For children to successfully solve a [real-world] problem, they must understand the problem context.”
The easiest (and best!) way to build this context is by opening our children’s eyes to the math that is happening all around them every day.
Take this example:
My son has been very interested in coins lately so we’ve incorporated coins into several of our activities this week. In our coin toss activity, we practice coin identification and sorting coins by type. It’s also a fun way to incorporate some math when we’re playing outside. BUT! It doesn’t teach him anything about how coins are used in the real world.
If my son were to go to kindergarten and get a problem about two children paying for ice cream cones with quarters, this coin toss activity would not have built the necessary context needed to solve.
Does that mean we shouldn’t do the coin toss activity? Absolutely not! We love it for all the previous reasons mentioned above. But, the coin toss activity in isolation won’t help him build mathematical understanding of why coins are used.
To build this context, we love to play store.
Let your child pick out and set up toys to sell.
Let your child set a price for each toy by putting out the coins needed to purchase the toy. Let them practice saying the coin names.
Take turns buying the toys by making anew set of coins to match the price.
Note: At age 4, we haven’t talked about the value of coins yet. This will come later.
When we play store, we build an understanding of money in the real world. We begin to develop the context he will later apply to real-world problem solving.