Numeracy -- Supporting Early Math Skills
Ranked #6,476 in Parenting & Kids, #219,231 overall
Fluency with Numbers
Numbers are important in many aspects of our lives. From early on children start to put order into their worlds by counting. Of course, some of this early counting is to please you, the one your child loves so much! Your delight at hearing your child count eggs him on to want to count more.
Long before you bring out the flash cards and try to teach your child math facts, it is important that your child has many experiences with organizing and manipulating objects in the context of number. A child needs to play with number ideas in order to develop a sense of one-to-one correspondence -- that is, that the number 1 means just one object and the number 2 means two objects, and so on. He does this by counting and touching each item as he counts. He also needs to understand that even if he mixes up the objects or rearranges them in different rows, they will still represent the same number. This is called number permanence.
This lens will let you know some activities you can do with your child to help her feel comfortable with numbers. Just as learning to read requires many literacy experiences before the child actually learns to read individual words, learning math requires a certain level of familiarity with number ideas and experiences before mathematics can make sense. Without these play experiences, your child will struggle with understanding what is meant by adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. If you use flash cards before your child has constructed this type of knowledge for herself, she may be able to memorize the correct answers, but she will not understand their underlying meaning and so will find it difficult to use the information in any meaningful way.
Photo credit: copyright Aaron Murray-Nellis All rights reserved.
Contents at a Glance
Numbers in Everyday Life
Play with Math as You Go Through Your Day
Once your child is speaking, you can help him notice the signs of numbers around him: there are numbers on the clock; there are numbers on the thermometer. When you are in the grocery store, you can point out numbers on the displays at the vegetable counter or stuck into the filets of fish. When you pass the bank, there may be a sign outside telling you what the air temperature is. You can see numbers in newspapers and flyers, on billboards, on the pages of books.
As your toddler becomes a preschooler, she can help you set the table, putting one spoon down for each member of the family. This helps her develop one-to-one correspondence in a meaningful way. When she divies out the cookies, she is practicing the same skill. Later on she will build on these experiences for adding and dividing.
Jump into Math
Using Movement to Teach Kids about Number
Jump into Math: Active Learning for Preschool Children (Learning in Leaps and Bounds)
Amazon Price: $8.72 (as of 06/02/2012)
Preschoolers need to move. They learn with their whole bodies. This book gives lots of ideas for using movement as a way to teach preschool children math skills. The series also includes books for older primary grades.
Patterns
Beads, Baubles, Animals
Buy at AllPosters.com
Your child can learn a lot by lining up her toys in long trains. You may notice her doing this quite spontaneously with blocks or animals or little cars. She may put all the red cars in one line and the blue ones in another line. Hooray! She is making patterns, noticing colors, and organizing her stuff.
You can help bring her to the next step by making a chain of one red car, two blue cars, one red car, two blue cars and ask her if she can repeat the pattern. Of course, instead of cars, you can use blocks or jelly beans, or beads. Accept whatever she produces without correction but with great cheers if she is able to reproduce what you have done. After all, this is play and you don't want it to be too pressured. Keep trying again now and then and eventually she will "get" it and make patterns over and over again. If she makes a pattern, repeat it and point out to her how you made yours the same as hers!
You can make patterns with colored pasta.
You need:
uncooked pasta (any kind with a hole in the middle that you can string)
food coloring
a bowl for each color
long shoelaces
Put equal amount of pasta into each bowl. Squirt food coloring over each bowlful of pasta and mix with a spoon. Let dry. Use a shoelace to string a pattern of colors. Take turns being the leader and the follower.
One Hundred Hungry Ants
Great Book for Teaching Math Skills
One Hundred Hungry Ants
Amazon Price: $2.85 (as of 06/02/2012)
How many ways can you make a hundred? The ants arrange themselves in different combinations, but always remain the same number.
Playing with Blocks
Children Learn Math by Playing with Blocks
Playing with blocks is classic for many reasons. Children love to knock over (first) and then to stack blocks from an early age. Blocks offer open ended play experiences, something all early childhood educators claim is essential for your child's rapidly developing brain. There is no "right way" or "wrong way" to play with blocks (with the exception of using them as weapons!) so your child feels free to manipulate them in whatever way she needs at the moment.Blocks can be used to help understand concepts about space, about shapes, about cause and effect, about gravity, and about balance. They can be used to build structures for imaginative play.
Of course, you can buy blocks. Maybe you have already received them as a baby gift. Lucky you! But you can make your own if you find them too expensive at the store.
Wooden blocks: Odds and ends from building projects can be sandpapered smooth and used as your child's building blocks. Be sure to cut some in different shapes so your child has variety to choose from.
Cardboard blocks: You can make a wonderful set of blocks using empty milk or juice cartons. Check my lens with directions for making them -- http://www.squidoo.com/recycledmilkcartons.
You can also take any shipping/packing boxes and decorate them to use as blocks. Make it an extended project by having your kids paint them first with water-based paints. Cereal boxes, tea boxes, etc. can all be used this way to give you a variety of shapes.
Empty yogurt or other plastic containers with lids can have a new life as additions to your child's building supplies.
Every Child Needs Blocks!
Sets of Blocks
Playing in Sand
Volume, Shapes, Fractions
Do you live where you cannot play outside in the sand? Maybe it's too cold, or maybe you are in an apartment or have no yard. Try making a "sandbox" in the house where you and your child can play.
Spread a flat sheet on the floor to catch any spills. (You can roll it up and dump out the mess later.) Then in a shallow plastic container with a tight-fitting lid, the type you can purchase as a storage container in a hardware store or any department store, pour one of the following: bird seed, rice, cornmeal, rolled oats.
Choose something cheap that you can buy in bulk. Except for the bird seed, which you could set out for the birds later, you won't want to eat what you are playing with, especially if you play with it over and over again. Of course, if you live near a beach, you could use real sand, but be sure there are no bugs in it that could get into your house.
Your child can sit by the container in the middle of the sheet and play with measuring cups and measuring spoons, cookie cutters, funnels, bowls, and anything else you can pull out of your kitchen supplies. This is a great activity to play together or your child can play beside you while you are making dinner.
When you are finished, put the lid on the container and store out of reach.
Water Play
Measuring and Volume with a Whole Lot of Fun
Let your child have a few extra minutes to play at the end of bath time. You don't need to direct this play too much as long as you give your child access to unbreakable cups, preferably measuring cups, and spoons. You'd be surprised how much preparation for more formal learning happens just by "messing about," as the frog in Wind in the Willows once said.
But, of course, NEVER LEAVE YOUR CHILD ALONE NEAR WATER! Even a little bit of water can be enough for a child to drown in.
What Ways Do You Play with Math with Your Children?
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways . . .
There are endless possibilities of how to use numbers and math play with young children. Your idea could help another parent explore some math fun!
-
-
poutine
Feb 12, 2011 @ 12:09 pm | delete
- Very well presented lens.
-
-
-
ClamChowda
Oct 3, 2010 @ 1:36 pm | delete
- Great photos!
-
-
-
JaguarJulie Sep 25, 2010 @ 8:04 am | delete
- OMG! Yes indeed ... for this was what my father did with me when I was a wee little one. This and the slide rule and square roots and long division and a host of other mathematical thingies which gave me such a solid foundation.
-
Here Are Some Counting Videos
Counting Games and Songs
Board Games Are Good for Counting Practice and Taking Turns
Playing Chinese Checkers with Friends
Counting Practice -- One Benefit of Playing Board Games with Your Child
Chess Teaches Problem Solving Strategies
More of My Lenses About Children and Learning
Visit These Lenses
Index for Number Fun
Numeracy - Supporting Early Math Skills
by sheilamarie
Numbers can be a lot of fun! When my kids were small, we counted stairs, counted steps, counted everything we could think of!
I have worked as a pare...
more »
- 123 featured lenses
- Winner of 25 trophies!
- Top lens » Jump Rope Songs, Rhymes, and Chants
Explore related pages
- Help Your Child Become a Reader Help Your Child Become a Reader
- Preschool Science Activity: Science Fun for Kids Preschool Science Activity: Science Fun for Kids
- 10 Favorite Melissa and Doug Toys 10 Favorite Melissa and Doug Toys
- Ants Go Marching: Gel Ant Farms, Classroom Science and Math Activities for Elementary Ages Ants Go Marching: Gel Ant Farms, Classroom Science and Math Activities for Elementary Ages
- Animal Finger Puppets Animal Finger Puppets
- Jump Rope Songs, Rhymes, and Chants Jump Rope Songs, Rhymes, and Chants
Tub of Math Manipulatives
Hands on Math Fun
Flip Over MathTM Tub of Manipulatives
Amazon Price: (as of 06/03/2012)
Jungle Animal Counters
Counting Fun
Learning Resources Jungle Animal Counters, Set of 60
Amazon Price: $21.99 (as of 06/03/2012)
Three Bear Family Rainbow Counters
Can Be Used to Act Out the Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Too!
Learning Resources Three Bear Family Rainbow Counters, 96 (LER0744)
Amazon Price: $14.81 (as of 06/02/2012)
