Part of the secret of getting kids interested in math is relating abstract concepts to their everyday lives. Telling time, reading a ruler, counting music, measuring cooking ingredients – these make math "real."

by Joan M. Thomas

Often when we ask a small child his or her age, the answer is, "I'm this many," accompanied by a display of fingers. Likewise, successively higher lines penciled on the bathroom door or wall mark the same kid's annual growth. Could any math be more important to a child, or more concrete? That's part of the secret of getting kids interested in mathematics—relating abstract concepts to something "real."

In my own experience, I came to appreciate math relatively late in life. My eventual enlightenment resulted by applying mathematical principles in my personal everyday life, using math in my special interests, and enjoying math for fun and games. All of these involved making math "real." If children develop a keen interest in math through these same applications, they will probably not suffer from math phobia as adults. With a little direction and supportive parenting, children can fare better in school and throughout life.

Not everyone is born with a passion for numbers. Still, no one is born loathing math. Any child can get enthused about mathematical concepts that involve personal data and interests. As expressed by master educators Peggy Gisler, Ed.S. and Marge Eberts, Ed.S., who have been writing books together since 1979 and co-author the nationally syndicated "Dear Teacher" column, "Mathematics will become more meaningful when your kids see how important it is in so many real-life situations."

Make it personal

The simple methods we use to help our children calculate their physical progress, such as counting their age on their fingers and measuring their growth by lines on a wall, can actually serve as a basis for their first awareness of math. Hopefully, long before their age exceeds their total number of fingers, they will be well beyond such rudimentary methods. By then, they will also be able to easily compute how much they've grown each year, and perhaps even calculate percentage-wise the year of their greatest spurt.

It is easier to understand anything in concrete terms. And once you understand the basics, you can adapt them to something more abstract.

Think about the various figures a child learns besides his or her own vital statistics. Telling time, reading a ruler or tape measure, reading a map and measuring the distance from home to grandma's, dividing portions of food—these are some of the many activities that allow adults to aid a child's comprehension of numerical figures.

Helping in the kitchen is an especially practical way to learn about fractions. A child who pours out the sugar when making cookies can see for himself that 1/4 cup plus 3/4 cup equals one cup.

Getting an allowance and learning how to budget its use will contribute greatly to the kid's life skills. Say she wants a certain toy, and must pay for it herself. That's a strong motivation for calculating how much allowance to save and how long it will take to do so.

Making it special

Many special interests involve mathematical concepts—for instance, music. Keeping time means counting. Simply learning to read music involves math.

Many athletic kids come to understand—and even enjoy—terms like averages, percentages and statistics through sports, especially baseball. Just browse through a copy of Total Baseball: The Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball. It appears to be a mathematician's dream book, when it's really a baseball fan's bible.

Making it fun

There are countless board games, puzzles and other fun activities that can culture a child's love for math. There are also plenty of math-oriented books for kids available through the internet or at bookstores.

Some good ones are The Grapes of Math: Mind Stretching Math Riddles by Greg Tang, 25 Super Cool Math Board Games (Grades 3-6) by Lorraine Hopping Egan, Sir Cumference and the First Round Table: A Math Adventure by Cindy Neuschwander, Cool Math Tricks, Amazing Math Activities by Christi Maganzini, and Math Trek: Adventures in the Math Zone by Ivers Peterson.

These are but a few of those sold for young readers up through age 12. There is no rule that says learning math can't be fun.

Besides learning to read and write, a child also needs to be literate in math in order to succeed in any field of endeavor. The three R's include Arithmetic.

Making it profound

On a much more intense level of making math personal and concrete, children in the small town of Whitwell, Tennessee, found that by using physical objects to understand a large number, they also gained an understanding of the human propensity for good and evil.

In 1998, when the eighth graders of Whitwell Middle School were told the number of Jewish Holocaust victims, they asked, "How many is six million?" It was a number they could not even remotely grasp. So, they took on the task of collecting that many paper clips. Each clip represented one person's life.

It took the students several years to reach their goal. By seeing how long it took to reach six million, by counting the clips contributed by many generous supporters, they could relate an abstract number to something real.

As were others who heard about the paper clip project, I was deeply touched by those students' efforts. Additionally, it forced me to recall that I myself had not fully grasped "how many" was a million until my job required it, when I was already 21. None of the kids in Whitwell will ever suffer that embarrassment.

And there's much more. Whitwell's paper clips have become part of a permanent Holocaust memorial at the school. In 2004, an internationally award-winning film was made about the project. "For generations of Whitwell students," says the school's website, "a paper clip will never again be just a paper clip. Instead, the paper clip is a reminder of the importance of perseverance, empathy, tolerance, and understanding." 

All that from math. That's what can happen when you make math "real."

The author of three books, freelance writer and historian Joan M. Thomas also enjoys writing feature stories and essays on current topics. Born in Carroll, Iowa, she now lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, Bob, and canine pal, Sasha.