Math anxiety is a self-perpetuating fear of math that can afflict students of any age regardless of their actual ability. These children avoid advanced math courses later in their academic careers, limiting their career options after graduation. Teachers and parents can help by showing genuine enthusiasm for math, presenting it as a skill anyone can learn with practice, not a discipline impossible for all but a gifted few. Older children respond to math with practical applications, so teachers should introduce lessons based around everyday concerns such as wisely using money. Placing children into groups to collaborate on problems relieves pressure from anxious students and they share in the group's achievement as they grasp the concepts behind the equations.
Math often involves sorting and classifying - activities that preschoolers enjoy. The Illinois Early Learning Project indicates that preschoolers are quick to learn and recognize sizes, colors and geometric shapes, and parents can reinforce this knowledge by asking their children to identify shapes and colors of things they see throughout the day. Colored blocks in familiar shapes provide early geometry lessons and simple puzzles can teach preschoolers pattern recognition. Parents can teach preschoolers basic graphic techniques by asking them to draw a small picture of the weather outside each day. At the end of the week, parents and children can paste appropriate headings such as "Sunny" or "Raining" on poster board and place the appropriate picture under each heading to create a bar graph.
When your child is old enough to begin counting, count with her and encourage her to count things during her daily activities. Once your child has the hang of basic counting, make counting more interesting for her by teaching her to count in increments of two and ten. Counting is math's most fundamental activity, preparing children for the more complex and abstract concepts they'll encounter in school. Parents should also involve young children in cooking and simple repairs, which involve practical math use. Letting a child pour flour into a measuring cup and teaching her about different socket head diameters offer introductions to the concepts of fractions and measurements.
Math games give students appealing activities to balance drills and rote learning. Preschoolers and kindergartners best retain information through patterns, rhythms and rhymes, making math games with songs and clapping excellent learning tools. Once children have entered first grade, they're ready for more challenging cognitive activities such as Math Bingo, with teachers providing simple math problems whose solutions provide the card numbers to mark. Teachers and parents can use more complicated logic problems and other brain teasers as fun math exercises for middle-schoolers. Board games with play money transactions and card games with point scoring systems are also excellent for reinforcing fundamental math concepts at home.