I believe the human brain has a math processor that needs to be activated and nurtured regularly. Again, parents play an important role in making a child comfortable with numbers and calculations. The following are some concepts in daily life that deal with math:

(1) Time: Parents can ask children to add hours and mins to the current time to arrive at a specific time for some activity. Alternatively, give the child a time problem that he needs to solve by working backwards. For example, “if we want to reach the shopping mall at 5:15pm and we take 40 mins to get there, at what time should we leave the house?”

(2) Money: Counting money, calculating change (remainder), determining the price after discount, budgeting and calculating profit or loss are some of the mathematical activities that we may encounter daily or weekly.

(3) Shapes and figures: In toys, art and household furniture there are shapes and figures for children to think about. How about the area and perimeter of such shapes? How about the volumes of some 3-D figures? The concepts of proportion, similarity and congruency can also be discussed when observing shapes. For example, two dining table chairs are congruent. A baby elephant and a mother elephant are similar but not congruent.

(4) Lines and gradient: Look around us and we can see many parallel lines, intersecting lines and perpendicular lines. How about the slope (gradient) of a road outside the house? The steepness of a staircase?

(5) Distance and speed: What is speed? How is it determined? Observe walking speeds, cycling speeds and the speeds of vehicles. While taking a taxi, estimate its average speed and take note of the travelling time. Estimate how far the taxi travelled.

(6) Statistics: In the newspapers we can find pie charts and bar charts, and the terms “average” and “mean”. What do the charts show and what do these terms mean? Even young kids can interpret pie charts. Parents can relate pie charts to cutting a birthday cake.

There are many more examples of mathematics in daily life. When children understand cost price, selling price, revenue and profit, they are on their way to understanding business and the economy. Entrepreneurship can then develop from there.

Ilyasa, M.Ed, PGDE, B.Sc.