Summer break is the best time to sharpen children’s mathematics skills. Children are reluctant to join summer school as they wouldn’t want to get back to the classroom after finishing school. But studying subjects in summer school shouldn’t have to be limited to working assignments. Students benefit a lot from summer school in terms of improving their learning curve and confidence. There is no pressure of assignments or exams in the summer school. So, if you feel that your child can benefit from the summer school, then do enroll him or her in one.
Summer school is a great opportunity for teachers and parents to experiment with new teaching ideas. Teachers have complete freedom in designing the curriculum as the batch of students is small in summer school. For math summer camps, you will have to do prior preparations for taking classes or teaching your children. There are a lot of trendy ideas that you can implement while teaching maths. We have compiled some of such interesting ideas for you.
Project-based learning
Following a standard curriculum will get monotonous and boring for kids. To remove this monotony, create mini-projects that the students can do in class. These projects will keep the students engaged and excited. While working in groups they will learn leadership and team management skills. As part of these projects, you can get the students engaged in solving riddles, brainteasers, and puzzles. A lot of toolkits like the fraction kit, the theme park project, and many such brilliant hands-on projects can be used to teach math concepts. You can even modify these ideas as per your choice.
Math games
Everyone loves games. There is no activity more engaging than playing games with the students. The thought of playing games keeps the students interested and excited throughout the activity and makes learning easy. So, you can gamify your math curriculum by making students take on math-based puzzles and games. These games can be played digitally or physically. Some digital games that you can consider are graph master, Dunk Tank, etc. Printable mathematics puzzles and games can be taken from mashupmath.com.
Learning from videos
If you are teaching your child at home during the summer break, then the digital domain is your best friend. Instead of putting your child through the summer curriculum, you can use the online resources for teaching math concepts. YouTube and various other e-portals have a plethora of free math videos. These videos teach a lot of Math concepts in the simplest of ways possible. Moreover, these videos are engaging and teach with the help of examples to make the learning easy. Some YouTube channels that you can refer to are Math Antics, Numberock, etc. Every video website has a different approach. Do your research and pick the channel or e-portal that you find best suited for your child.
Reading
Reading math-related fiction books is a good way to get students to think about maths. Since, they wouldn’t have to practice any concept or theory, getting students to read wouldn’t be difficult. There are a lot of STEM books for elementary, middle, and high school students. Some of the books that students can read are
- Missing Math: A Number Mystery
- The King’s Chessboard
- Pythagoras and the Ratios: A Math Adventure
- The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat
- The Math Inspectors
Writing
Students love to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in writing. Writing about math will encourage creativity and communication. Using key math vocabulary terms and phrases to communicate will help students to gain a deep understanding of the concepts. By reading their work you will also get to know more about their learning process. Once you know about their strengths and weaknesses, you can switch the focus area accordingly. To execute this activity, you can start a math journal, incorporate writing in projects, and games. Storytelling is another great way to teach concepts. Let students write their math-related tales and share it in the class.
Maths is a tricky subject that everyone can’t teach. Children need guidance and support in learning tough math concepts. Summer schools are good to learn math as the curriculum there is more engaging and exciting. This makes learning fun for children.
