Mathematics

As the school year ended in June, my children were each given a long math packet to work on over the summer. I think they're supposed to work on it a little each week, but we inevitably do it all in one day. That day arrived this week. To keep them busy while visiting my office for the day, I brought along the math packets, and they started in on them.

While you might assume that the point of these packets is to keep your memory refreshed on basic math skills, I am now convinced that the true point of them is to keep your memory refreshed about how much you hate elementary school math!!!

The sad thing is that my kids do not really hate math. They just hate the math as it is taught in school. In fact, we've always played math games all the time. Sometimes just as simple as me asking them to figure out how much three pounds of bananas will cost if bananas are $0.49 per pound. Sometimes I'll ask them tricky questions like "what three consecutive numbers add up to 75" or "what's 75 times 6" etc. Best of all are math board games. We often play Rummikub or Muggins . And they're really good at math too. It's a shame that since the time I went to school, the math instruction techniques really haven't improved all that much!