"From beginning to end, the rituals of our lives shape each hour, day and year...
Rituals are repeated patterns of meaningful acts.
If you are mindful of your actions, you will see the ritual patterns.
If you see the patterns, you may understand them.
If you understand them, you may enrich them..." —Robert Fulghum

Are you looking to add math to your daily routines? Why not create some family rituals that include math?

"Weatherman"

Designate someone as the weatherman for the week. Everyone tries estimating the temperature, barometric pressure and humidity. The Weatherman looks it up and charts it. If you want, make it a game — the closest estimate gets a point. Find a special hat.

Baking with Fractions

Never follow the recipe exactly! Double it; half it; make 7/8's of the recipe. Make it your kitchen rule.

Growth Chart

Set up an area to keep track of everyone's weekly weight, height. Whose hair and nails grow the quickest? Make outlines of your hands and feet. Include your cousins and family friends! Years later it is wonderful to look back on.

Grade Averaging

Keep track of your marks as you bring assignments and test home and figure out your average grade. This can also be used as a goal setting tool.

Neighborhood Math

Estimate, measure and compare distances to locations your walk and drive to frequently — your school, the library, the park, the store. This is another activity that can be turned into a game to see how close you can get.

Big Telephone Numbers

Memorize all your friends telephone numbers and add up (or multiply) the digits. Who has the highest number?

Math Challenges

Get into teams to have math fact races. Have everyone challenge Dad! Look up mental math tricks and try some tougher challenges. Who can skip count backwards by 12s? Listen to Googol Power's new song, Friends at the Fiesta from The Skip Counting Zone album to practice.

Or what about trying to double numbers up to 1,048,576!

Or listen to this doubling segment from The Skip Counting Zone.

Math Games

There are many math games you can play while folding laundry, traveling in the car and doing chores. One of our favorite games is "What number am I?" — a game very similar to 20 questions. Traditionally, you play by guessing a number between 1 and 1000 (or any rational integer). Children eventually learn to half each guess to zone in on the number. You can also get creative with your questions and provide clues. I am a factor of 36; what number(s) am I?

We routinely play games with cards and dice. In fact I always carry dice and cards in my purse. They come in handy. One way to include more math in your card games is to try to estimate and pick up the exact number of cards from the pile before you deal out the hands. This challenge forces the dealer to multiply the number of cards by the number of players.

Another option is to make up your own word problems for everyone to try to answer. The book, Math By Kids, has examples of great problems written by children of varying ages that can get your family started.

We routinely play games with cards and dice. In fact I always carry dice and cards in my purse. They come in handy. One way to include more math into your card games is to try to estimate and pick up the exact number of cards from the pile before you deal out the hands. This challenge forces the dealer to multiply the number of cards by the number of players. There are many ways to add math into your games.

Music Practice

We have added into our music lessons a short time to put math patterns to music. This started after we played Pi on the recorder for the Crazy CD. Of course you can also try singing pi too! Now the kids play different irrational patterns and sequences.

Craft Time

Do you have a certain time when you do crafts? Add math into your crafts — create 3 dimensional geometrical shapes out of cardboard or toothpicks, make a fraction pizza, build a sundial, create a collage of geometric patterns, design a tessellation, play with tangrams, make your own flash cards, craft your own math game... it's endless.

Out and About

Get in the habit of checking your mileage. Keep a logbook in the car for the kids to record the information. Routinely take turns being “the estimator” as you add up the groceries in the cart. See how close you can get to the final amount. The playground has many great geometric shapes used to build playing structures. Which ones are the strongest?

Math Around Your Home

Younger kids will love keeping a chart of the math they find around the house. Look for things to count, arrays, shapes, angles, things to measure (height, weight, volume), measurements on labels. Sort cereal, socks, Lego®, anything! Watch how quickly they become Crazy 4 Math if you have a treat at the end. Create a math log—a special book outlining the math they have learned, that they can show relatives and look back at in years to come.

Math in Nature

Even a cockroach has symmetry

Look for math when you are enjoying nature—plan for regular math walks. Kids love searching for examples of symmetry and Phi in flower petals, pinecones and leaves. Plant a tree and track its growth. Start a log book or diary of your math observations.

Write down all those questions the kids ask and try to find the answers together. Carry around a little book of questions. Share your findings with your family friends. What's the probability of all the flower seeds growing that you plant? What factors lead to them growing successfully? How many seeds are on a dandelion flower? Is a snowflake symmetrical? How many snowflakes can you catch?

Start a rock collection. Press leaves. Build your own birdhouse for the yard. Make steeping stones for the garden. Count and sort stones. Measure a tree. Measure your shadow. Build a sundial. Count the stars. Check out ECO-Math.

The math is endless and the memories are priceless.

Make each moment special. Tools such as log books, math journals, charts, scrapbooks and collections provide routine structure to maintain your math rituals.