Family Math
Growing up I lived in a house with 5 people. There was me, my mom, my dad, and my two sisters for a total of 5. We also always had a dog, so there were really 6 members of my family in the house. When my older sister left home, there were 4 of us left, with one dog.
No matter how you do it, young children love to talk about their families. Last week we looked at how you can encourage this conversation by putting pictures of the children’s families up on the wall. You can further explore this by looking at children’s homes. Of course, we should always be mindful of where the children come from. Some may not have a home, or may be staying with relatives. If this is the case with some of your children, I wouldn’t do this activity.
However, if all of the kids in your program live with their families in a house, or an apartment, or a farmhouse, or a condominium, then an exploration of who sleeps where can be an interesting math exploration.
Start with a simple question. “Who has their own bedroom?” or “Who shares a bedroom?” You might have a large piece of chart paper up with OWN on one side and SHARED on the other side. The children can come up and write their names under their situation. As a group, you can determine if more kids have their own bedrooms, or if more kids share bedrooms.
As a follow-up activity, the children can draw their bedrooms. If they choose, they can draw the people who sleep in their bedroom and number them.