Scientist/Mathematician Activities & Resources: Ages 8-10

Feb 01, 2013

Ages

8-10

Parents and daughter (8-10) shopping in supermarket, girl standing on trolley

Feb 01, 2013

Scientist/Mathematician

Many traditional ways of teaching and learning are easily accessed by the Scientist/Mathematician child.  Even so, you can extend what your child is doing at school, and support your child to branch into less favored areas with these activities & resources.

  • Shopping savvy:  Make shopping a math puzzle by asking your child to find groceries on your list that will amount to $15 or $20.  Let your child ring them up and see how close to her target they were.
  • Coupon clipping:  Have your child find coupons for items you typically buy, but not the brand you get.  Have her compare: which is less expensive—the item with the coupon or your typical brand?  Have them calculate your savings over a number of different items.  How much money will you save through her calculations?
  • How much in the cart: Have your child estimate how much the items in your cart will cost.  Use rounding to work with manageable numbers.  With your child, graph your weekly costs over a month.  Or chart the costs of healthy foods and unhealthy foods.  Which are you paying more for? What trends do you see?   On average, how much are you paying for each kind?
  • Make spelling more fun:  Use Scrabble® tiles to put together spelling words.  Add up the points each word is worth.  
  • While math is often relatively easy for your Mathematician/Scientist, you can foster their learning by emphasizing the logic behind the math, as opposed to having them simply memorize formulas.
  • Introduce your child to puzzles and games, such as crosswords or Sudoku or anagrams.
  • Enhance her interest in art through patterning activities or paint-by-number types of experiences.
  • Online resources:
  • Let your child explore her interest with Scholastic Study Jams, which incorporate multimedia tools to extend and enhance interest around topics of math and science: http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/math/index.htm.  Click on “see all topics” under both math and science to get topic heading, which will then have a wealth of subtopics to choose from.  Awesome!
  • Another great site to let your child explore on her own is the Lawrence Hall of Science kids site.  Scroll down, click around, and be amazed! http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/kidsite/
  • Have fun with these brainteasers and logic riddles: http://interactivesites.weebly.com/brainteasers.html#  and http://www.uclick.com/client/mwb/tmjkf/
  • If your child is interested in animals, check this out! Not only can you easily research any number of different animals, your child can actually contribute to the database of knowledge! http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/index.html
  • Check out these cool science experiments! http://www.x-raytechnicianschools.org/100-coolest-science-experiments-on-youtube/
  • Your science lover may also like the experiments and ideas on Science Bob: http://www.sciencebob.com/index.php.
  • Kinetic City:  A great collection of science experiments, activities, games, etc. http://www.kineticcity.com/
  • Mathematician/Scientists often think mathematically, even when they are not doing formal math. Apply these skills to engineering activities! http://www.engineeringinteract.org/
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Age 8