It’s important that students maintain and hone their math skills over the summer.  An easy way to do this is to highlight the math happenings in everyday experiences. Cooking, counting money, sorting, playing board games such as Monopoly…all of these activities involve important math concepts.  Just as we want students reading daily, we also want students to practice math daily. Our younger students should be counting objects regularly and practicing counting in general. Upper grade students can also practice counting, but obviously with larger numbers, fractions, or decimals. Try having your older student calculate the tip at a restaurant! Make math a part of family discussions. Problem-solve together!  Show that math is a part of our everyday lives.  Spencer Jamison, FCPS Math Specialist, says: “The biggest thing is that students need to talk about math.  If you always give [students] a workbook or computer game… that is what [they] think math is “other people’s problems to solve.” We want students to read for fun and we want people to use math for fun too."