While 3 is a constant, the number of apples in the basket apparently was not! This can happen because the number of apples in the basket is actually a variable. The number of apples in the basket is 3.īut what happens if we add a 4th apple to the basket? The number of apples in the basket is no longer 3. If you say there are 3 apples in a basket, everyone knows exactly how many apples they should expect to see. The easiest way to explain variables to kids is with real-world examples. How does the usage of variables in coding relate to their usage in math?.The goal of this article is to provide answers to the following questions, giving you the basic information that you need to introduce variables to your student. Because coding offers an immediate and often visual result when kids play with the values of variables, it offers an easier way for them to understand how variables are working, paving the path for them to understand the mathematics of variables. Understanding how to connect our implicit use of variables with the way that we learn variables in math classes can be difficult. This is a necessity for kids to evolve their basic arithmetic skills into important life skills such as setting up a budget. As kids learn more advanced mathematics, they gain a deeper understanding of variables - learning to recognize the ways that they have already been using variables and how to refine their usage for more complicated tasks like what-if scenarios.

This implicit ability to use variables is already very powerful.

Variables enable them to double the size of a baking recipe or track how many pages they have left in a book. Kids see examples of variables in, for instance, sports - the score is 3 now but it could change to 4 or 6 later. As with many coding basics, variables are all around us in the world, but we rarely refer to them by name.

Scientific experiments variables