5 activities to spark your high schooler’s interest in math

Building your own kite requires several geometry skills. You can suggest that your teen start by sketching a frame. For an added challenge, ask them to include all of the following shapes and lines in their design:

• 1 convex quadrilateral
• 2 isosceles triangles
• 1 axis of symmetry
• 2 perpendicular diagonals
• Etc.

Once they’ve drawn the frame, your teen can start building their kite. All they’ll need are the following materials:

• Chopsticks
• Fabric or tissue paper
• String
• Glue
• Etc.

Math is everywhere—even in video games! Does your teen enjoy online games and hope to become a programmer one day? Learning to code will not only bring them one step closer to their dream job, but also help them master the following math concepts:

• Variables
• Periodic functions
• Geometry
• Cartesian planes
• Etc.

To help them get started, encourage your child to visit one of several websites that teach the basics of programming:

• Scratch,
• Algoblocs,
• Etc.

To come up with a statistic, you need to collect and analyze data and advance a hypothesis. If your teen loves observing their surroundings and making predictions, you can suggest that they compile statistics on the following:

• The number of cars that pass by your house in a day
• The types of vehicles that pass by your house
• The number of red cars compared to the number of black cars
• Etc.

Then, ask your teen to present the data in a statistical chart or table. Lastly, encourage them to draw their own conclusions.

• At this rate, how many cars pass by the house annually?
• Do red cars seem to be more popular than black cars?
• What percentage of cars are small?
• Etc.

To spark dinner conversations or liven up family night, you can ask your teen to make a math trivia game. Using the math concepts they’ve learned in school, your child can create a host of questions and answers like the following:

• Question: How do you define the circumference of a circle?
• Answer: The circumference of a circle is the measurement of its outline, or perimeter.

• Question: The three interior angles of any triangle always add up to 180∘. True or false?
• Answer: True.

Teaching your teen to budget is a great way to prepare them for the future. To help your teen get used to managing their money, you can encourage them to set a budget based on a financial goal they’d like to achieve in the next two months. For instance, they might want to save up for a book or musical instrument. First, suggest that they calculate the following:

• How much they have in the bank
• How much they earn in a week
• How much they need to keep for personal expenses
• Etc.

To take it one step further, ask your teen to calculate the following:

• How much they need to save every week to reach their goal
• The conditional probability that they will reach their goal
• The odds in favour and the odds against them reaching their goal
• Etc.