If you enjoyed maths at school - or since leaving school - you will probably already use mathematical language comfortably with your children and find that they understand basic concepts such as the counting numbers and simple fractions at a young age. Unfortunately, a large section of the population found school maths so confusing - or even distressing - that they avoid anything remotely mathematical.
Fear of maths can put parents off the whole idea of home education. Yet parents who know little about history or geography don't find this off-putting, as they usually expect to learn from books as they go along. Parents who are unmusical, or don't know any foreign languages have few worries about educating their children themselves. But fear of maths is somehow over-riding, and becomes almost irrational.
If this describes you, your fear may be passed on to your children even if they are in school. If they see you looking in horror at their maths homework, they're unlikely to be inspired and confident! So whether or not you're considering home education for your children, it's worth re-thinking your whole attitude to maths.
What is maths anyway?
What is maths? It's the underlying structure of the world, which we see in patterns, shapes, quantites and intelligent guesses. Why do we need it? We need to understand the concepts of numbers and quantities when we bake cakes, or decorate a room. We see patterns in art and music. Businesses need to make intelligent guesses (or 'estimates') of how much something is going to cost, how many people need their products, how fast it is going to sell. We need to keep track of our bank accounts, and ensure we do not spend more than our income.
Do we need things like calculus and higher algebra and trigonmetry - and even complex arithmetic such as long division? Probably not. Unless you're going to study higher maths (in which case you presumably understand and enjoy it) you have no need to know any of these things. Nor does your child! So even if you failed in maths years ago and have forgotten everything you learned at school, you don't need to worry. You can teach your child the maths that you DO use - which is going to be the most use anyway.
There are a huge number of books and workbooks available for school and home use: if you lack confidence, you can always use one of those. There are people who will undertake private maths coaching if your child wants to know more than you can cope with, and there are Internet resources and CD-Roms that do direct teaching. So don't let fear of maths put you off home educating.
How to introduce maths concepts to younger children
For toddlers, try to use correct mathematical language and talk about what you are doing any time you're involved in something arithmetical. Count out your apples, or stairs, or books from the library and talk about numbers as you might talk about animals or colours. When your child is reasonably familiar with the lower numbers - there is no need to teach him to recite them by rote - show that when you have one apple, and another apple, you have two apples. If you have two apples and then you eat one you have one left. Show that this happens also with bananas, or cakes, or bags of crisps. But one apple plus one bag of crisps is... one apple plus one bag of crisps!
Don't think the 'schoolish' thought that subtraction is harder than addition, and multiplication harder still. They are all basic concepts and all inter-related. If you have three people and each has two cakes, you can count the cakes to find there are six. They are shared between three people and each person has two. If you want to share out six biscuits between three people, they each get two biscuits as well.
There's no need to do more than talk about this - and answer any questions your child might have - because these practical situations are helping arithmetic concepts to settle in her mind. She doesn't need to see the symbols for 2 and 3 until she fully understand what 'two-ness' and 'three-ness' mean: that two apples may be totally unlike two elephants, but still share a common property, that of being 'two'. This concept is the foundation of basic algebra and essential to grasp whether or not your child goes on to study algebra using x and y rather than apples and crisps. For more detail on helping young children learn maths without fear, see my articles Maths for toddlers, Fractions for four-year-olds and Algebra for six-year-olds.
Number symbols
At some point your child may ask about the number symbols: perhaps she spots them in a book, or you see them on houses. Talk about why we use numbers and what they mean, but make sure you explain that the numbers are just shorthand for the concept, not anything mystical in themselves. If you introduce the arithmetic symbols, explain that '2+2=4' is simply an easier way of writing 'If we have two elephants and then another two elephants arrive to join them, there will be four elephants altogether'.
Some children like to invent their own arithmetic symbols - encourage this. If your child wants to draw a little picture to represent the apples or elephants after each number, this is fine. This is actually algebra, which needs to be understood at a basic level before pure arithmetic can make sense. Too many teachers - particularly in previous years - introduce the counting numbers and their symbols before most of the children have begun to grasp the algebraic concepts behind numbers and the reasons we use them.
Your child may or may not find workbooks helpful
If your child likes writing things down and frequently asks for more questions about numbers, you might want to see if any workbooks appeal. In the UK large newsagents such as WH Smiths have a good and colourful selection. In the USA there are several homeschool curriculum providers which have maths workbooks - and sometimes teaching books to go with them - that you can use. But don't make a big deal of this. Workbooks are not required for mathematical understanding, and 'drill' is nearly always a bad idea.
Encourage your child to miss out any parts which are boring and routine, and ensure that he understands and enjoys what he is doing rather than simply filling in answers to get the book finished. If you're already using workbooks and your child is NOT enjoying them, abandon them, at least for a while. Read my article What do you do if your child hates maths? for some more ideas and reassurance.
Sometimes parents feel confident with maths for their primary age children but sure they could never teach it at 'secondary' (US: High School) level. Remember that your child does not NEED more than basic numeracy to get along in the world, and - if he is interested - there are many resources available.
We found the 'Letts' classbook series useful in outlining all the National Curriculum maths and giving helpful examples and reviews, but it was too easy to progress much too fast and then reach a level where the child was unable to understand. There's no hurry: learning maths should be a lifelong enjoyable activity, not a race. If you use a text book, intersperse it with maths games, practical maths such as baking or building, or one of the many books of maths investigations or 'diversions' (see appendix).
CD-Roms may enrich your child's maths experience and there are web sites with tutorials for higher and more complex topics, if your child is interested.
For further ideas for older children, see Maths and the home educated teen.
To show how you can teach some basic maths at home, see:
Number
bonds - beginning addition
Beginning multiplication
Fractions for
four-year-olds
Algebra
for
six-year-olds
If you have older children, and are concerned about teaching them maths, see: