Math can be found in almost every part of your everyday. If you learn how to spot a potential learning experience and incorporate it into your daily routine you can turn usual activities into unusual lessons.

Balancing your check book

Turn an activity you can’t stand into an introduction to basic arithmetic and money management.

Meal time math

Yes, you are the mom that can whip up a casserole the whole family loves in mere minutes. If you employ your youngster’s help by having them mix, measure, and chop? How about stir? you will make much more than an enjoyable dinner.

Here are a few activities you can try out:

Revamp recipes: Either double or divide your recipe in half and have your child help you figure out the new measurements and proportions.

Talk about cooking measurements: how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, how many cups in a pint, how many pints in a quart, etc.

Have your kids set the table: Show them how to use multiplication to figure out how many utensils will be on the table in total. Example: If there are four people at the table and each get a knife, fork and spoon, how many utensils are on the table? (4 x 3 = 12)

Make math with leftovers: If you put 10 dinner rolls on the table and each of the four people eats one, how many will be leftover? (10 – 4 = 6).

Play with your food: No seriously, encourage your kids to play with their food…have them look at a ruler, grab some snacks from the cabinet and have your kids guess how long each one is. Then, have them measure the snack to see if they were correct.

Shopping

When you have to bring your kids along shopping – your once favorite activity can become a drag. But if you have them off on a math adventure you can relive your glory days of shopping.

Before you go shopping, have your kids help you make a list of everything you need to buy. Have them estimate the cost of each item. Give each child items off the list they are responsible to find in the store and see who can complete their list in the shortest amount of time. When you get home, go over the receipts with your kids to see if their pricing estimates were correct. This is also a perfect time to introduce sales tax to older kids.

Car Math

It seems like you spend your whole life in the car these days. And with gas prices as high as they are you want to get something out of it! While driving, figure out your car's monthly costs? How much do you spend on gas, insurance, maintenance? How many miles per gallon does your car get? Have your kids make a chart and let them see how much traveling costs!

Reading a map

Tell your kids a story of the olden days before your car could “talk” and give you the directions to where you are going. Bust out a map, dust it off, and plan your trip the old fashioned way. The map key and distance between home and destination will teach them the metric system not to mention reinforcing map skills all around.