Just because your child isn’t in school all day doesn’t mean he or she isn’t learning throughout the day, even while at home. The more you can challenge your kids to incorporate skills they are learning in school into real-world situations, the more they will internalize the learning! It’s easier than you might think to integrate reading, writing, reasoning, and math skills into everyday tasks that can help your child learn.

The following ideas are best for elementary and middle school students. However, they can be easily modified to include more complex aspects that will suit high school students’ learning.

Cooking or Baking

    • Reading skills:
      • Ask your child to read the recipe aloud to you as you search for ingredients and work through the steps.
    • Writing skills:
      • Dictate the grocery list to your child and have him or her write it down for you. Work on organization and notetaking by having your child sort items into categories on the list.
    • Math skills:
      • Cooking for more or less people than what the recipe serves? Have your child do the math to convert measurements to the desired amount. For example, the recipe serves 8, but you only want to make enough for 4. Have your child divide all the measurements in half.
      • Create a word problem: “I already added one cup of flour, and the recipe calls for 2 and one half cups. How much more do I need to add?”

Going on a Trip

    • Research, reading, and writing skills:
      • Have your child do some research on the destination and write down a few places he or she is interested in visiting–restaurants, museums, parks, etc. This is a great chance to practice reading and notetaking.
      • Buy your child a journal to use throughout the trip. He or she can write about the events of each day. Or, buy postcards throughout the trip and have your child write notes to friends and family.
    • Math skills:
      • Give your child the trip budget and have him or her subtract expenses whenever a purchase is made.
      • You can also create math problems using the mileage you plan to travel and the price of gas. For example: “We need to drive 100 miles today, and gas costs $3.50 per gallon. Our car gets 17 miles to the gallon. How much will we spend on gas to travel 100 miles?”
      • For younger children, create simpler problems, such as: “Our hotel is 16 miles away from the theme park. We’ve already traveled 4 miles, so how many miles do we have left to travel?”

Watching a movie or show

    • Summarizing and storytelling skills:
      • Reading isn’t the only way to work on summarizing skills! Pause a movie halfway through and ask your child to explain what’s happening so far. Ask about the conflict (main problem) and for descriptions of main characters.
    • Reasoning skills:
      • Ask your child to predict what he or she thinks is going to happen. You could even make it a competition and write down predictions. See whose prediction was closest to what actually happened and reward him or her with a bowl of ice cream!
      • Ask your child why characters make certain choices in a movie or tv show. This encourages children to think about the reasoning behind characters’ actions, a skill that can help them interpret characters’ actions in books and other texts they read.

Creating a Daily Schedule

    • Reasoning, math, and writing skills:
      • Ask your child to be a part of scheduling the day. Talk about all the things you need to do that day, and how long each task will take. Have your child schedule everything out, accounting for transportation times, meals, and other logistics.
    • Math skills:
      • Have your child use math to figure out what time you’ll need to leave for an event or practice. For example: “Swim practice starts at 10:00am, and you need to be there 10 minutes early to change. The pool is 18 minutes away from our house. What time do we need to leave?”
      • Extend the problem by adding more factors: “If we need to leave by 9:32am, what time will you need to wake up in order to have time for breakfast (15 minutes) and to pack your swim bag (5 minutes)?”

These are just a few examples of easy ways to incorporate math and English practice into everyday activities. Even the most simple tasks can quickly become learning opportunities!

If you are looking to further develop your child’s skills, MMT offers tutoring sessions for students of all ages and all subjects. Our tutors are prepared to work with any skill level, and we will work with your child to advance his or her knowledge and skills!