Fractions

• Play with measuring cups and water - How many 1/2 cups does it take to fill up the 1 cup?  How many 1/3 cups to fill up the 1 cup? How many 1/4 cups to fill up the 1/2 cup?

• When you cook a pizza, bake a cake, etc. - ask your child to ask for his/her piece in math language.  “I’d like 1/8 of the pizza please.” 

• Use fractional language when you are doing fun chores like raking the yard!!  After you rake 1/4 of the back yard you can take a break!  

• Go to: McGraw hill website and experiment with the fraction circle tools. https://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/connected/login.do

Money

Count Change

• Do you have a change bowl where you put your extra change regularly? Have your child count it!  

Play Store! 

• Get some toys or something fun you can “sell”, some small pieces of paper and a bunch of change.  Then buy, sell, use exact change, make change and count coins.  

Pay for Chores

• Pay your child for completing small chores using nickels and pennies.  E.g., 4 cents to empty the dishwasher, 16 cents for vacuuming the living room.  Have them count and trade the coins into coins with larger values and … if they are lucky and have worked hard… dollars!  Make it a house competition! Or have them “buy” screen time! 25 cents or 1 quarter for a quarter of an hour of screen-time! (How much is a quarter of an hour anyway?)

Go Online or Catalogue Shopping (Pretend!)

• Together, go to a website that has lots of items (toys, clothes, movies, etc.) they would like to buy and give them a pretend budget of exactly $100.  Have them make a list of things they would like to buy and make sure the total is exactly $100. (Round the prices to the nearest whole dollar.) Use addition and subtraction.

Time

• Ask your child to tell time using an analog clock several times each day. 

• Ask them questions about elapsed time, e.g., “What time will it be in 30 minutes?”  

• Ask questions about the clock using fractional language, “What time will it be in 1/2 an hour?”