| My children are like me in many ways, one of which is | | | | Every time he played a scoring shot I would then ask |
| their love of sports. I have utilised this love of sport as | | | | him how many runs he now had, for example eight |
| a way of helping them to improve their maths and will | | | | plus two. Obviously at the start he made quite a few |
| explain how I do this in this article. Playing the sports | | | | mistakes when adding up the scores but he soon |
| themselves is also very good for them as a way of | | | | picked up how to add either two, four or six to any |
| keeping them fit and away from the television, which | | | | given number. |
| most children watch far too much of in my opinion. | | | | I then thought about which other sports that I could |
| I will use my five year old son as an example of how I | | | | also use to help him with his maths. I am sure there are |
| use different sports to help him with his maths. I will | | | | many sports out there which would have been suitable |
| never forget the first time I thought about including | | | | but the other two we used were snooker and rugby. |
| maths in a sport. I basically did it just by chance, for | | | | Snooker is actually the perfect sport to use as the |
| example it was not exactly planned. My son loves | | | | different colours are worth different points and this |
| playing cricket and originally we would take a bat and | | | | gives many more options than just two, four and six. |
| ball to a local park and use the dustbin as a wicket. | | | | These are the values of the different balls in snooker, |
| When he was about four I decided to introduce the | | | | the red is worth one point, the yellow two, the green |
| concept of runs into the game for the first time. If he | | | | three, the brown four, the blue five, the pin six and the |
| reached the tree with one of his shots he would score | | | | black seven. |
| two runs, if he reached the fence he would score four | | | | I am sure that many other parents could use these |
| runs and if he reached the fence without the ball hitting | | | | same ideas to help their own children to develop their |
| the ground he would score six runs. | | | | adding up skills in maths. |