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The Wide World of Math


Briana has decided that math is her favorite subject. All day long she wants me to give her a multiplication problem to solve. Like today she got 4 x 7 when she asked. So then she responds with “4 times 7 is the same as 7 times 4. I think I want more numbers to add this time so I’m going to solve it as 4 times 7.” Then she starts. 

“Well 4 times 1 is 4. If I add four to that I have 4 times 2.” Then she adds them and says, “That’s 8. Four times two is eight. So if I add 4 more that would be 4 times three.” And she stops to add 8 + 4 before announcing that 4 x 3 is the same as 4 + 4 + 4 or 8 + 4, which is 12. And so on until she gets to 4 x 7 = 28. 

This tickles me because I always saw math as a series of fun puzzles and not an exercise in memorization too. While I know from experience that doing math this way will lead to running out of time on many a test, I also know from experience that it will lead to a better understanding of what the numbers mean long term.

Over the summer I tried to make the math more relevant than just puzzle solving too, so we worked on money counting and time telling. Today though there was a dispute in the ranks. Abby wanted to play Risk and Briana wanted to do math. What to do? Math on the globe of course.

I decided to compromise by getting out our Oregon Scientific Smartglobe which all of us love. Yes, even my husband and I have fun trying to beat the timer and “find and touch” all of the countries or capitals as fast as the globe can say them. I told the kids to draw all of the continents on a piece of paper.


When the continents are roughly sketched, we query the globe to tell us the population of each continent. The kids are fascinated to find out that the most people in the world don’t in fact live here in our state, or our country, or even North America. 

“How did we get so powerful without the most people?” Abby wants to know. “Well we have cheerleaders,” Briana replies. “If we have people who can carry people that are close to their own size then we must be really strong people in North America.” Not sure cheerleaders are really the answer, kiddies. We talk about how, just like in Risk, each country has armies and sometimes they try to take over other countries. Neither kid thinks that is nice or fair.

Then I tell the kids to write the population on each continent so we can look at the numbers. It is quite challenging, but fun, to figure out how many zeroes are in millions and billions.


With the numbers in front of them, more questions arise. We discover, with a little math problem solving, that Asia has more than half of the world's population. We discover how small “poor little Australia” is. We add up populations to see what combinations of countries can beat others. We play with the numbers.

Armed with more information and some math fun, we’re ready to take over the world. “But just for pretend,” Briana adds. So we get out the Risk board, and have fun strategizing for days.


Math gets a bad rep but if you find something the kids are interested in, it comes alive. A lesson on how to write tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, and billions can be dry, but a lesson on the world around them never is. There’s a wide world of math out there to discover!

<3 Pedigreed Housewife




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