Get a globe as sturdy as you can afford. Put it in a prominent place and use it often in front of your children. Their interest will be piqued soon enough. Buy a big atlas from Goodwill or similar to supplement (doesn't need to be that current to be useful for this purpose.)

Read poetry to your children. I thought every mother did this because mine did but shockingly it is not so.

Play 20 questions in the car.

This just popped up in my fb feed and it made me think of this thread: http://www.scholastic.com/parents/blogs/scholastic-parents-learning-toolkit/today-bedtime-math-following-your-favorite-shark?esp=PAR/smd/20150224/facebook/ltkblogbedmathshark//PAR/content/12pm&linkId=12531831

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can do the museums, read read read, go to library, etc.

I have trouble supplementing with math, though. What are good suggestions for this?

PP back. My daughters are 2.5 and 7. Thanks to all who have already given suggestions and I am open to more if anyone else has them.

Those a great ages to incorporate math easily and happily.
As a PP said, cook with them. Have the little one count the number of eggs you need and have the big one give you two cups of water using only the 1/2 cup measuring cup.
At the grocery store, ask the big one to figure out how much money you'll need or how much change you will get.
Driving by the fire station, talk to the little one about how many trucks are there and what shape they are. better yet, go on an impromto visit to the firestation - they love having little visitors. Ask them how many feet of hose is on a truck, how they read the maps to determine where to go, etc.

And of course the museums and libraries are filled with opportunities to incorporate math and science.

Math? Cook with your child. Use recipes that use 1/2 cup, etc. It's a good activity in so many ways--and hopefully, he will learn to cook, as well as understand fractions.

Anonymous wrote:I can do the museums, read read read, go to library, etc.

I have trouble supplementing with math, though. What are good suggestions for this?

PP back. My daughters are 2.5 and 7. Thanks to all who have already given suggestions and I am open to more if anyone else has them.

Anonymous wrote:I can do the museums, read read read, go to library, etc.

I have trouble supplementing with math, though. What are good suggestions for this?

First, don't think "math", instead think "critical and analytic thinking"
All those other things are great for those skills, too! You don't need to do workbooks to develop a better math mind. Getting him out in the real world and seeing how math and science are useful and important will do a lot more to help him in the long run than more worksheets. You still haven't said how old he is, so some of these may be inappropriate, but here are some ideas for helping with math/critical thinking/analytic

Our library has a lego night every month. Great for helping to develop spatial skills, which is a fundamental math skill. (See, there are a million and one reasons to hang out at the library!)
Does your school have a chess club? If not, help start one - very little expense! Or buy him "no stress chess" and let him learn.
When you're cooking, make him figure out the fractions to double or halve the recipe.
You can't get to the moon without math - spend a lot of time at the Air and Space Museum, especially in their hands-on room.
When you read the newspaper or listen to the news, (or really anything), and they mention a statistic, talk about it. What does it really mean? What did it really measure? How do you think they figured out that number?

If you really want to focus on "school" math skills. Make sure he memorizes his multiplication tables. Not just "knows them to pass the test" but knows them as well as he knows his phone number.
I don't think there is a single other skill that will have that much payoff. Doing fractions, algebra, even calculus will be that much easier if he doesn't have to think about his times tables.

Anonymous wrote:I can do the museums, read read read, go to library, etc.

I have trouble supplementing with math, though. What are good suggestions for this?

Don't know how old your child is.

But if he doesn't know time, please teach him--this can short shrift in school. Give him an analogue watch before he gets a cell. (Number one or two use of cells among kids is telling time--digital time does not teach children about fractions of hours, how much time before the next hour, etc.)

He should know about money as well--same thing about learning fractions, doing adding and subtraction. Pay him a dime for each pair of socks from the laundry he sorts and count them up to multiply. When you go shopping explain how you know the price for something that is 50% off, 25% off.

Get a map book and have him help navigate to where you are going in the car.

Play dominoes, cards (gin rummy--your child keeps score or cribbage), and Monopoly.

There are computer games like Math Blaster.

Apart from this, there are plenty of workbooks you can use--Kumon, Singapore Math are some homeschool favorites. Or just go onto Khan Academy.

Anonymous wrote:I can do the museums, read read read, go to library, etc.

I have trouble supplementing with math, though. What are good suggestions for this?

There are many things. There are many online math curricula that you can use. Also many math books. A personal favorite is Singapore math. If you want something less formal, things like bedtime math. The important thing is to also create a math rich environment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi Teacher here--the kids that always knocked my socks off were the ones who were really sweet kids who could look for different solutions. As PP indicated--raising great kids who can function is todays' world counts so much more than test scores.

1. Teach please, thank you, can I help you?, offer to hold doors, and the reasons behind.
2. When kids don't get something, encourage them to try a different way
3. Encourage problem solving--what can you do? Can you try it a different way?
4. Let them explore--if you have a back yard use it as much as possible
5. Encourage projects--building things, making things--these are ongoing and develop above listed skills
6. Expose to arts and various cultures through cooking/eating at various ethnic restaurants
7. Do things together--ice skating, walking in park, cleaning, cooking, etc.
8. Let them fail and talk about why that happened
9. Making reading enjoyable--give them their own library card, let them pick books, have them read to you--talk about subjects (Most schools now force test prep down kids throats so reading has become very laborious. Kids want to see you reading too! )

This will be the down fall of many Asian parents raising their kids in the U.S. who are enrolling their kids in academic activities as they are keeping them out of situations where they develop real world skills.
So many of my Asian neighbors - Indian mostly - do not give their children opportunities to do 1-9 as PP listed. Cram school and stampeding over others to be "the best", may have worked in Indian... China.... Korea... but you need creativity and people skills to achieve in this economy.

Sad....

Well you can keep hoping so anyways.

I can do the museums, read read read, go to library, etc.

I have trouble supplementing with math, though. What are good suggestions for this?