Everyday Math – Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Like it or not Math is one of the constants in our life. Our everyday activities are riddled with it from cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. Most of the time we are barely aware of these Math encounters but some Math in daily life can prove to be challenging. This is why we need to hone our math skills and equip ourselves with tools that’ll make it easy to deal with everyday math throughout our lives. Here are some of the challenging bits of everyday math that can be made easy with the help of some tools.
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Everyday Math for School
Math is taught as early as pre-school in the form of colors, shapes, sizes, and patterns. It would then progress to numbers, operations, problem-solving, and higher-level analysis as the child gets older. Some kids can breeze through these stages while some may struggle. Aside from worksheets and drills provided by teachers and tutors, games can also be fun and effective tools for learning math. Math games can help kids with their learning by engaging them in problem-solving activities to achieve a goal. Since these games can be played over and over again, kids can explore different strategies to achieve their goals. Games can be played alone or with a group. Thus with these games, the child’s creativity, confidence, and social skills can be boosted while building their math skills.
There are plenty of Math games and tools that can help kids with their everyday math in School. For preschoolers and kids, some examples are board games for counting, Uno for color and number recognition, and Connect 4 for patterns and strategies. For higher-level math problems, there are a lot of online video tutorials that are both entertaining and educational. Another interesting tool is the Microsoft Math Solver which offers a step-by-step solution for Pre-Algebra to calculus level problems. There are also available resources that can help those with dyscalculia cope with their math challenges.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Everyday Math for Health
Physical fitness is essential in taking care of our health. Two basic components are proper diet and exercise. This means doing a bit of math for calculating your nutritional intake as well as energy spent or fat burned on physical activities. The nice thing about our current technology is that you don’t have to do mental math or its paper and pencil equivalent to care for your health. There are health apps that can help calculate your way to fitness. All you have to do is input your food and liquid intake, wear your fitness tracker, and monitor your progress. You can also have your meals prepared by a fitness chef so you don’t have to calculate the nutrition value of your ingredients during meal preparation and meal portions throughout the day.
Everyday Math for Personal Finance
Budget management is essential to one’s financial success. This is why it’s important to teach kids about saving and spending at an early age. This could be done by involving the kids in grocery shopping with a set budget. In this manner, kids can have a concrete application of math concepts and somehow instill the value of spending wisely. As adults, the area of personal finance extends to far more than everyday expenses. Long-term plans like home and car ownership, career or business plans, and retirement come into play once you start your own family. You could use a wide array of Mathematical tools for these needs. This could range from the good old calculator to worksheets on your computer. But right now the simplest and easiest tool that you could use for everyday math is an online calculator. With these tools, all you have to do is input the required data and you’ll get the figures you need.
There is no escaping math in our everyday life. It’s there when you wake up to check the time, pick clothes that fit, eat, travel, and work. But admit it or not, doing Math every day isn’t that bad. It can even be enjoyable sometimes. In any case, when Math challenges seem too great, remember that there are Math tools right at your fingertips.
