Mathematics (from Greek μάθημα (máthēma) - knowledge, study, learning) is the study of quantity, structure, space, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity.
The above is an extract from Wikipedia and I'm not sure about those of you reading this, but my eyes were getting heavy by the end of the second sentence. However, I think most of us would agree that maths is far from the most exciting subject we encounter during our schooling lives. It would also be fair to say that Maths, alongside English, is the most important and useful subject as it's essential to daily life, from managing your budget to baking a cake; it all involves the use of maths to some extent, assuming you follow a recipe.
As such it's important we encourage our children to do well and at the very least get a strong grasp on the basics, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. These four basics are all I've ever needed since leaving school and again, without them, life would be much harder to manage let alone any embarrassment that would come from a lack of basic maths skills.
Learning via Maths Games
So how do we encourage our kids to master these basic skills without making it a drainer for them? I've found some cool maths games online to be the perfect solution, the kids get to play a game on the computer, which they love, while learning at the same time. To be honest finding good games they will enjoy without advertising or some sort of virus wasn't an easy task but after a couple of days searching and testing I'd found some good games I was happy to let them loose on.
Cool Math Games
Some of the games I really like are Extreme Maths, Add Like Mad, Subtraction Action and Tower Blaster. You can find all these games via the links in the author section of this article or by searching for them online. I'd recommend using the links below as these game are 100% virus and ad free and cost nothing to play, as for other sites online offering these and other games, I can't assure you they won't contain any inappropriate material.
My 7 year old daughter often asks to play these games and while she isn't breaking any records just yet, she is definitely getting better at the basics and having fun at the same time. I can't really think of a better way to encourage a child to improve their maths skills in an enjoyable way that doesn't feel like homework.
If you, like me, want your children to do well at school, and I'm sure you do, encouraging them to study hard and do the very best they can usually doesn't go down well with kids of most ages, especially as they get older. This is why I'm a fan of getting them involved in games or activities that are both educational and very enjoyable at a younger age, getting a strong grounding in the basics at a young age will only make it easier for them in later years.
The author of this article is an expert in pretty much all things kids related and works in the child service area. Their website provides many resources for kids activities, entertainment and education from Cool Maths Games to Kids Party Supplies.