The Mathroom, I mean bathroom.

“That’s right”, I tell my students, “math is EVERYWHERE”! I look at them and wait for the challenges to begin.  They ask me to “prove” that math really is everywhere.  Which it is.  Case in point:  You can do Measurement, Estimation and Multiplication right in the comfort of your own bathroom.  (Cheers of “yay!” are heard in the background.  ”School is unnecessary, we’ll just hang out in the bathroom!”, yell the kiddies.)  Though it doesn’t preclude exploring math at school, the truth is Math really is everywhere.  Here are a few ways to make the most of your cramped, humid environment:

1)  Younger kids do math all on their own while taking baths.  Supply them with containers of various sizes (usually in the form of stacking cups), and they’re on their way towards working on capacity concepts.  Already do this?  Give yourself a pat on the back.

Without intervening, just watch how those wee hands attempt to pour water from a smaller container into a bigger one.  You can add cups of various lengths and sizes to make it more challenging, or ask them how much water from one container  might fit into another, then have them test out their theories.  (Yes, they really are theorizing and using reasoning skills here.)

2) They can also order containers according to capacity.  Here you’ll need some empty bottles (clean please, no glass either), from the kitchen, that they can place on the tub.  Extra points for parents who tape or hide the capacity measurements that are pre-written on them.  You can introduce vocabulary like, litres, millilitres, and capacity incidently, so they don’t catch onto your sneaky educational ways with them.

3)  Little ones can measure the length, height and width of the tub they’re leaving soap scum in, by using non-standard units.  A non-standard unit can be any object that you have on hand that can be used to do linear measurements.  A hand or foot can be used (hello, get it, a “foot”?).  A bottle of shampoo or a water toy works just as well.  Using non-standard units is a pre-cursor to using standard units like centimetres or metres, so this is really only good for the little ones.

4)  For the older child, say of grade 2 or 3 age, try to have them do multiplication using a tiled wall that is rectangular.  They can count the top line (ignoring half tiles), and may notice that the same number will repeat itself going down.  So it might be 6 groups of eleven, as in the below picture, or 6×11.  They can count it as six, plus six, plus six, etc., which is repeated addition (which btw is all the multiplication really is).

4) Children can take it a step further by doing one-digit by two-digit multilication using arrays (well, if you are lucky enough to have a large bathroom, or tiny tiles), as seen below for 6 x 18.  Here they break down the tiles into easier-to-use numbers.  Kids should be familiar with arrays using Base 10 materials by this age, so hopefully seeing multiplication this way is not new to them.

 5) You can drive them crazy with this one: can they estimate how many bristles are in a toothbrush?  If so,  they can extrapolate how many would be in say, three toothbrushes.  This one may not sound like fun so only try it with the really detail-oriented of your bunch.

This is just the tip of the ice-berg.  When I’m done with you, you’ll see, math really is everywhere.

Daniela