Math is a part of everything. It is all around us - and we actually use math more in a day than we may believe. Math is involved when we are trying to figure out how much time we have left to get ready in the morning, budgeting our paychecks to pay bills, paying a parking meter and even measuring out detergent to do a load of laundry.
Math isn't just straight computation. It has a lot to do with identifying relationships between one thing and another. Adding things gives us a total, multiplying things tells us how many groups we have, ratios tell us the relationships between one thing and another in a group, and probability gives us the odds of something happening. We see probability on the weather forecast and we decide to bring an umbrella based on the chance of rain. We use ratios when we are baking cupcakes and we need to double or triple, or even half the recipe.
Understanding that math is a part of everyday life is important to instill in our children as young as possible. It is an essential skill that we will use for the rest of our lives, whether we want to or not. It is also important to teach math everyday to our students. There is so much to learn, and not enough time to learn it or practice it!
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