A new school year is right around the corner for most of us. Now is the perfect time to start reviewing the skills and concepts that your children learned last year. Going over those math concepts allows your child to be fully prepared for the school year ahead. Here are some ideas of concepts to review with your upper elementary child.
Basic Math Facts
By the time your child is in upper elementary, your child should be working on memorizing their multiplication and division facts. Now is a great time to pull our those flashcards and start reviewing. You can even make it a game by encouraging them to beat their own time going through the pile. Just remember to separate out the cards they are struggling with and spend some extra time on those facts.
While your child is probably telling time easily at this point, you may want to review elapsed time. Elapsed time deals with how much time has gone past from one time to another. This is a very important concept because it is one that we use often as adults. However, it is also a very difficult concept for students to grasp. You can practice this simply by giving your child two different times and asking them to tell you how many hours and minutes went by from one time to the other. You can also use real world examples to practice this by asking how long events in your child’s life are.
Again, counting money should be fairly simple for your upper elementary child at this point. Instead focus on making change. You can review making change by choosing the cost of an item and then telling what dollar bill you would pay with. Have your child then tell you how much money you would receive for change. (For example, if this pen costs $3.47, and I paid with a $10 bill, how much change would I receive?)
By reviewing even these three simple skills, you are helping your child do their best in the upcoming school year. And if you have lower elementary or Kindergarten age children, you can find some tips for those grade levels in the other posts in this series.
How often do you review math concepts with your upper elementary child during the summer?
Photo by: Eden, Janine and Jim