Math and Problem Solving Skills

As summer approaches most parents want their children to maintain their math skills for the next school year. For parents whose children go to school year round and home school parents, the search for helping their children to make good grades in math is a continuing cycle. Developing the ability to understand how to problem solve is key to learning math. See 12 Tips For Solving Word Problems for problem solving strategies.

Problem Solving in Math is Personal

The ability to solve problems is the foundation of mathematics. For a student in any grade in school, the road to understanding math is through the problem solving gateway. This is not to be confused with completing worksheets; these are real world personal problems which require logical thinking and reasoning skills to solve. For example:

• How many songs can be downloaded from iTunes with $7.75?
• How much to charge a neighbor for cutting their grass?
• How many cars do I need to wash to buy a new video game, when charging $5.00 each car wash?

To develop the ability to solve problems, children need to make a personal connection as they visualize, touch, and see the problem. In grades K – 7, children cannot think in the abstract like adults. Most children, but not all, begin to develop abstract thinking in the 8th grade.

Using Math Websites

There are several math problem websites which can be used to stimulate problem solving skills in children. When using technology, all children immediately become more focused and are willing to work on math problems. The following websites provide problems of the week and they maintain archives for using former problems to help develop problem solving skills. Try this website which can be accessed through the summer months.

• Math Problem of the Week – Grades K - 12

Math Problems

When developing math problems, the topics must be appropriate for the grade level and cultural environment of the child. For example:

• Rural farming communities should use examples which are farm related.
• Suburban schools should use examples related to the community and the child’s life.
• Urban settings need to use examples related to the child’s environment.

Regardless of the setting, math problems are everywhere; making it personal and meaningful is critical for stimulating problem solving.

Additional problem solving exercises include:

• How many marbles will fit inside a jar? They determine the volume in the jar. Next determine a reasonable estimate of the number of marbles by using similar materials.
• Cooking – using fractions for baking.

Geometry Math Problems

How about seeing what geometric shapes are in your home or outside the home. Geometry is everywhere in homes and nature, examples include:

• Traffic Signs – octagon, square, round, etc.
• Bicycles – using “Pi x d” to find the circumference or “Pi x r2” for area of their bike’s wheels
• Windows – square, circle, rectangle, etc.
• Walls, Floors, Ceilings – rectangle, right angles, perpendicular, parallel, etc
• Trees and Bushes – oval, 2 dimensional, 3 dimensional, Round, Cone, etc.
• Swing Sets and other playground equipment – triangle, square, rectangle, etc.
• Pythagorean’s Theorem – how to determine a right angle of anything being constructed to ensure the corner is exactly 90 degrees.

There are so many more possibilities, just get your children to look at what they see. Learning how to solve math problems will make bad grades go away. This is because they develop a better understanding of math by using problems solving skills.

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