Schoolwide News

As we wrap up the school year and head into the long-awaited break, Let’s talk about how to keep our math brains active and engaged over the summer.  It doesn’t require long hours on IXL or worksheets—just playful, everyday interactions that involve math in natural ways.

Just as we keep literacy skills fresh by reading aloud and telling stories, we can keep math thinking alive by encouraging kids to ask questions, estimate, reason, and problem-solve in everyday life.

Here are five ways to keep math alive over the break, no worksheets required!

1. Let your kids take the lead while shopping

Whether you’re grocery shopping for the week, clothes shopping for a vacation, or running into a convenience store to pick up road trip snacks, hand your child a budget and a mission.

•  “Here’s R$250.  Go ahead and grab us some healthy snacks for the car ride.”
•  “We need a birthday gift under R$500. What can you find that’s thoughtful and fun?”
•  “We’re going shopping for clothes for our trip. Which items make the most sense to buy now?”
• Encourage them to compare prices, think about quality vs. cost, and explain their reasoning. Before checkout, ask: “How do you know you’re under budget?” These mini-decisions build number sense, estimation, and logical reasoning, as well as confidence.

2. Invite them into the planning

Trips, errands, meals, even lazy days at home—these all involve logistics, and some kids love to help plan if we let them. Try questions like this one:

“We need to be at Grandma’s house for dinner. It’s a four-hour drive if we go straight, longer if we stop. What time should we leave? Should we plan to stop along the way? How much time would you like to spend with Grandma before dinner?”

That kind of open-ended thinking gives kids a chance to consider constraints, estimate time, and weigh trade-offs—real-world logic at its best.

3. Host family game nights

Play is our natural way of learning, and games help develop flexible thinking, logic, and strategy, all while spending quality family time together. You don’t need anything fancy. Classic games such as Rummy, Yahtzee, and Monopoly are excellent for encouraging planning, probability, and mental math. Strategy-based games that involve keeping track of multiple variables are especially rich.  Chess, Risk, and Settlers of Catan are also good for long-term strategic planning, helping kids to think many moves ahead.  

4. Cook a meal, start to finish

Do you have a spare half-day with nothing planned?  Have your children plan, shop for, and prepare a meal.  Cooking brings math to life for your kids.  They’ll have the opportunity to practice skills such as:

• Scaling recipes: “We need 1.5x the ingredients—how much flour is that?”
• Reasoning about portions: “Will one portion actually feed one person?”
• Budgeting: “How much of each ingredient should we buy for 5 people?”

Give them room to get a little messy, figuratively and literally. It’s not the perfect outcome that leads to the most learning, it’s the problem-solving that happens along the way.

5. Logic puzzles for sedentary times

If you’re traveling or just want a quiet moment of challenge, logic riddles are a fun way to stretch thinking muscles. I’ve created a short packet of logic problems that you and your children can do without needing to print anything. They’re playful, thought-provoking, and perfect for sparking conversations at the table or in the car.”

We don’t need to work hard to keep math alive over the break, we just need to notice the moments when it's already there. Whether your child is calculating travel time, estimating snack portions, or planning a family dinner, they’re engaging in real-world, joyful mathematics.

Wishing you all a restful, curious, and creatively mathematical break, and I'm looking forward to reengaging with you in August!