What is Bedtime Math? A message from Laura: Bedtime Math is a pretty simple idea: We all know we should read to our kids at night, but what about math? My husband and I have done fun, mischief-loaded math problems with our kids at night for years, and when at age 2 our third child started hollering for his own math problem, we realized we were onto something: In a world where so many people say, "Ewww, math!" we had created a household culture where kids don't just tolerate math, they actually seek it out. Now, every week, we'll be posting a new problem right here on Scholastic Parents!
November 7th was an exciting milestone: it was the 1,000th day of Bedtime Math! Our first nightly math post went out on February 12, 2012, so this one that you're reading is the 1,000th one. A big thank-you to our thousands of fans who have been doing the math with us all this time, especially those who joined us the very first day!
It's amazing how when you do something every day, the numbers really add up. Think of something you do once a day every day…tying your shoes, walking your dog, eating your favorite snack. Over 3 months you'll do it almost 100 times. Over 3 years, that comes to more than 1,000 times. If you do it more than once a day, then you need to multiply by that factor, too. And when you start thinking about how many days you've been around, you see that the zeroes rack up fast!
Now try challenging your kids to come up with the answers to these math problems:
Wee ones: If you sneeze once a day every day, how many times do you sneeze in 1 week?
Little kids: If you walk your new puppy twice a day, how many times do you do that over 100 days? Bonus: It turns out that 1 million minutes is about 2 years! About how many millions of minutes have you lived?
Big kids: If you do 5 jumping jacks every day for exercise, how many do you do in a 30-day month? Bonus: If today is your 100th day of knowing how to skateboard, what was the first day you knew how? (Assume you're solving this on November 7, 2014.)
The sky's the limit: How many days have you lived?
Wee ones: 7 times.
Little kids: 200 times. Bonus: Different for everyone…divide your age by 2 to get a rough idea!
Big kids: 150 jumping jacks. Bonus: July 31. Today is the 7th day of November, plus the 31 days in October, 30 in September, and 31 in August, which gives us 99 in total. July 31 adds 1 more day to make 100.
The sky's the limit: Different for everyone…Take all the full calendar years you've lived times 365, adding in leap days as needed; then add in the full months of the partial year you've lived at each end, and then the days depending on your birthday. As a reality check on your answer, every 3 years should give you about 1,000 days.