The World is Spinning with Statistics
Every April, the world celebrates Math Awareness Month and this year’s theme is “Mathematics and Statistics keep the World Spinning”. To bring the theme to life, I decided to focus on the statistics aspect and share some fun facts (stats) and activities for you to do with your kids.
The last couple of years have truly brought about the importance of statistics and how often we see them in our daily lives. Statistics is the mathematical discipline of collecting, analyzing, interpreting and reporting data. There are more serious statistics like Covid-19 related hospitalizations and death, gun violence, people below the poverty line, and the costs of inflation.
However, this year there was a fun sports campaign during the football season by AWS called #StatThat. This entire marketing campaign was about fun sports statistics and the data being tracked to keep players safer or the probability of a successful play. Reading more about the goals of the program, it gives real time data using Machine Learning for broadcasters and to engage fans during the game. Plus, the data collected is used for improving performance and safety for players. The future is now and statistics have a front seat. Learn more by clicking here.
Here are some fun activities to do with your kids:
- Winter Olympic Success
The Winter Olympics were an exhilarating show of sportsmanship and success. In some sports, just hundredths of a second separate the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners. With your kids, pick an event or two and find out the winning scores to see how close they were. In addition, look up the medal count to see which country received the most medals, most gold medals and more. You can even compare medal counts from one Olympic games to the previous. These are fun statistics to analyze during the games and even afterward as an opportunity to bring stats to life.
Free Throw Family Game
Basketball free throw stats are always fun to analyze and try at home. Using two stuffed animals and a laundry basket, you can create your own free throw game for the entire family. Collect the data of how many free throws each family member makes during each two-throw attempt. Did you get both baskets, just one or none? To create a large statistical sample, I would have each family member try at least 5 or more attempts. You can analyze the results, chart the data, and give out a fun prize to the winner.
- Fun Fact Scavenger Hunt
What topics are your children fascinated with that gets them super excited? Together, you can find fun facts (stats) about that topic. On a specific day over dinner, have your family share a fun fact about what their passionate about.
One of our students loves volcanoes and he is always sharing fun facts about the tallest volcano, latest and past eruptions, countries with volcanoes and more.
Does your child have a favorite sports player? You can learn all of the fun stats about that specific player, the team, and the sport.
Personally, I love butterflies and have a butterfly garden in my yard. I enjoy learning about butterflies, nectar & host plants, and fun information that will help my garden be even better each year. I love counting the caterpillars and watching for rarer butterflies in the garden.
Math Party
Time to celebrate math! Plan a fun math & stats party for your family and friends. Bake a cake and decorate with a fun math theme or make number and shape cookies.
Play fun party games and keep track of the stats to determine the winners. Here are a few fun ideas:
- Pin the circle on the Pi – create a Pi symbol poster and cut out small circles. Put double-sided tape of the back of the circles and see who can pin them on the Pi poster while blindfolded. Keep track of success stats to crown the Pi winner.
- Balloon bounce – count how many times each person can tap a balloon to keep it in the air before it touches the ground. The person with the most taps wins. With lots of repetitions, this is a fun game to create a chart or graph too.
- Shape Scavenger Hunt – find fun shapes around the house. Who found the most triangles, squares, spheres and more. Try to find even more challenging shapes like trapezoids or pyramids.
Mathematics & Statistics Awareness Month is a fun reminder that everything we do involves math in some way. We are always counting, comparing, measuring, analyzing, timing, spending, or problem solving in our daily lives. Fun Wise® Math is passionate about awareness and created the Math Mindfulness® program to show students how we use math each day by asking Math Mindfulness® Questions. Here is a fun blog about Math Mindfulness® and more activities to share with your kids.
Celebrate math with your family this month and stay connected with Fun Wise® Math on social media for fun ideas to get your kids excited about math and statistics!