Learning math through the world around us

Babies and Toddlers

A nurtured baby with predictable daily routines will develop the thinking skills that lead to mathematical thinking. Your loving care makes life feel orderly and logical — important feelings that help the baby understand what she sees and hears.

Games in which we count baby's toes, touch her nose, and clap hands, help her develop an awareness of her body — the necessary groundwork for all spatial relationships.

 

• Recite predictable number and counting rhymes to help her understand visual patterns and auditory counting patterns. Infants and toddlers are attracted to the rhythmic word patterns found in finger plays and nursery rhymes.
• Provide simple puzzles, nesting blocks and shape sorters with two or three shapes. These toys don't work for the child, therefore, learning is occuring when the child is working the toy. She is learning problem solving skills, predication (probability and statistics) and critical thinking skills through these activities.
• Offer lots of water and sand play. These activities help children grasp abstract concepts like weight and mass. Provide plenty of sponges, measuring cups, shovels, cups, bowls, small strainers and funnels for fun exploration.

Three to five year olds

Preschoolers are mastering one-to-one correspondence and the concept of numbers. But they're still in the pre-operational phase and are more concrete than logical. Threes and fours tend to base their judgments on how things look — they're sure that the tall pile of blocks is bigger than the short one even if both have six blocks. And if objects aren't side by side or in a line, it's far more difficult for preschoolers to perform the mental actions of comparing or counting.

 

Explore math through everyday experiences. Children can classify groceries by size or shape, count out napkins, silverware or plates at snack time, and sort the trucks by how far they roll. Reinforce one-to-one correspondence by asking children to match shoes, socks, and crayon colors to those on a picture.

 

Offer interesting materials for children to sort and classify. There are lots of attractive everyday items children can use to classify and place in a series — blocks, plastic containers, silverware, laundry and so on.

 

Record data of activities and real-life experiences and places. After baking cookies, create a bar graph noting how many of each flavor you cooked. Or take a photo when you visit an airport, and sort and count the airplanes from the photos.

 

Make counting meaningful. Instead of providing inappropriate number ditto sheets and flash-card activities, offer her blank paper, markers, and items such as toy trucks or baby dolls to count. Give your child index cards and markers so she can create their own number cards (even if she scribbles in the beginning).