Homeschool Diva

Here is another fun addition of real world math.  Firstly, we use and adore Math-U-See consistently throughout the year in our homeschool.  There are days however, that I like to mix it up and do something a little playful to get them thinking about math in the real world.

This morning we played a game of monopoly.  We received the newest version of Monopoly: Here and Now the real World Edition for Christmas.  It is a fun version that incorporates geography, world facts on the chance and community chest cards, and interesting games pieces that take the kids literally around the world in every game.

Our youngest got to work on basic counting by moving the pieces and rolling the dice.  Our middle worked on basic addition by  adding everyone’s dice together and telling them how far they had to move the pieces and our oldest had to read out all of the chance and community chest cards for each player.  We had a ton of fun.  This particular edition, does not have money, but cards and a banker machine that you add and subtract money for each transaction made.  By the end of the first game, they were working through place values in the millions, Large number addition and subtraction and how to work the key pad which is similar to a calculator and a keypad on the computer.  I wont even get into the idea of money management and budgeting as more abstract ideas they begin to absorb through this game.

All in all, I think I hid a little real world math by way of a game today. Give it a try it is easy and fun to do. Tomorrow, we will do a little more real world math, when they get to spend a few real dollars at the zoo to purchase a drink and choose a few animals they would like to feed.  I will hand them each a zip lock bag of coins and they will have to count their way out of it.  That should be a barrel full of monkeys…excuse the pun.

Grace and Peace to all budding mathematicians in the real world!