My background is in teaching math and I never understand why so may children seem to feel threatened by the subject. There is much research that shows that, in general, the higher the level of math a child takes in high school the more income they end up making as an adult.

Having good analytical skills that come along with taking those higher levels of math will also help in life. Evaluating situations when you are shopping, be it in a grocery store, for a car, a house or a loan will come much easier and you can have confidence that you are making the right decision. The confidence and critical thinking skills that come with understanding mathematical concepts is something that I truly want for my own children.

Now, what can we do to help our children with math. First, as parents, if we have any issues with math we must make sure that we do not hand these down to our kids. Why give them our baggage? So, if you do not love math I say fake it! Be excited about your child’s math homework, play math games with them or games that require critical thinking.

Please do not tell you kids that their math seems difficult. If they are have issues with understanding a topic, and it is something that you do not remember how to do, tell your child that you will talk with their teacher because you want to be sure that you show them the same method that their teacher is using. This gives you the chance to have a conversation with the teacher and has the added benefit of buying you time to figure out the math homework yourself. Never tell you child that their homework is too difficult for you. They look up to you and if you say that you can not do it how are they ever supposed to believe that they can. Lack of confidence will bring on failure.

Now, math doesn’t just have to be about doing math homework. There are ways that you can help your child become better at math and critical thinking that may be more fun for your child, and you for that matter. Playing games is one of the best ways to help your child develop math skills while having fun.

I have had a lot of success with the games in “Making Math More Fun.” It is a huge, and I mean HUGE, variety of games of all different types. I am always able to find something that suits the child’s level and captures their interest. What is also nice it that you download it instantly upon purchase and can print off the games right away and as many times as you like.

Get your kids interested in math by keeping a positive attitude, keeping things light and having fun. Who knows, you may just find a love of math that you never knew you had.

The summer vacation is starting to wind down here. We now have two weeks left before the school year starts back up. I love to just take it easy during the summer with my kids. It seems that learning just naturally happens when we just have fun together.

Today, we are going to take out one of out favorite little books, The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions, and pick project to do together. We may pick making a big batch of goop and talk about the properties of a solid, liquid or gas. Or we can do some unique clay making project and have a little discussion about physical changes. The important thing is that I let me kids guide the activity and we have fun experimenting. That is when the best learning takes place!

Here is the Answer to yesterday’s Thursday Thinker. Since the person can dig a 1×1x1 hole in 1 hour, people often think that it should take that same person 2 hours to dig a 2×2x2 hole, but that is not the case.

The volume of the 1×1x1 hole is 1 cubic yard.
The volume of the 2×2x2 hole is 8 cubic yards. That’s 8 times as big as the original hole, so it will take 8 times as long, or 8 hours!

So it will take that person 8 hours to dig a hole that is 2 yards long, 2 yards wide and 2 yards deep.

It takes a certain person one hour to dig a hole that is one yard long, one yard wide and one yard deep. How long would it take that same person to dig a hole that is two yards long, two yards wide and two yards deep, assuming that they dig at the same rate of speed?

Making sure that my kids keep up with their writing skills this summer has not been an easy task. I have been getting resistance from my daughter who normally loves to write during the school year. This week I saw an opportunity to spark her interest and she is writing again.

My daughter’s friend is on vacation this week and they asked if we could stop by and feed their cat. I talked to my daughter and we thought that it would be a fun idea for her to write her friend a letter, story or poem every day and leave them for her friend. She liked the idea of surprising her friend with a stack of letters.

One thing that helps to motivate my daughter to write letters is that she has her own note cards with her name on them. A while back I purchased her free Note Cards from VistaPrint.com and was able to personalize them with her name. I think that having cards with her name on them made them more special and motivated her to use them more.

Yesterday, my daughter wrote her friend some poems about mermaids. Today will be a letter about how the cat has been. We will see what the rest of the week will bring.

I just checked and right now at VistaPrint you can get two different sizes of note cards, a note pad, post cards and sticky notes for free. You can find everything under the “Business” section except the sticky notes. Those are under “Free Products.” The post cards are a great deal because you receive 100 and you can personalize them so they are like flat note cards.

This frog is one of the designs that I personalized for my son last year. I thought it was cute.

Add a new dimension to your classroom this year with a felt board story set. Felt boards allow children to interact with a story. They can retell the story in their own words and also use the pieces in a new way to create a new story. Sequencing, story telling and oral language skills are developed through the use of felt boards.
Felt board sets include stories, coloring pages, sequencing page and CD with stories. All products are made of thick, high quality, washable felt and are made in the USA.

If you have any questions about out felt board sets feel free to leave a comment below or contact us.

I am happy to announce the winner to this month’s felt giveaway contest.  Using the random integer generator at http://www.Random.org, comment number 17 was chosen.  Congratulations to Mandy!  You will be receiving out Wild Animals and Butterflies felt pieces.

Here is the Answer to yesterday’s Thursday Thinker.

Each tire had a total of 200 miles of wear.

For every mile traveled, each of the 2 tires experienced on mile of wear.  So, in a total of 300 miles traveled, there would be 600 miles of wear.  Hence, 600 divided between the three tires equally give you 200 miles of wear for each tire.

Rachel rode her bike for 300 miles. Three tires were used in accumulating this entire distance. How many miles of wear did each tire experience?

A while back I was having an e-mail conversation with someone looking for reading comprehension help for their child. This is something that is very important to me because I also struggled with reading as a child. I know how frustrating it can be, so I was more than happy to help her out.

Not knowing her daughter it was not easy to make recommendations, so I pointed her in a few different directions and suggested that she talk to her daughter’s teacher about what would help her the most. The suggestion given by the teacher was to use the One Minute Reader program.

I check it out and it seemed to make a lot of sense. There are several different levels of program to choose from depending on your child’s reading level.  Your child reads the story alone and then reads along with a CD until they are completely proficient at reading the short story.  Each level comes with 7 books and CDs and there are 5 stories in each book.

There is a DVD that explains how to use the program and you can watch that with your child so that you both have a clear understanding.