Copy and Paste Parent Tips

Do we like Math? Yes we do!

Developing early number skills now will help your child enjoy, and succeed, in math class later. Young children need to experience a lot of 'doing' and 'saying' before written numerals will make sense to them. Here are some tips for helping your young person build a strong early numeracy base.

Measuring
Children enjoy telling us that they are "bigger" than their sister or brother or "taller" than the lamp or that they are "higher" than the dog. But, young children will also think that they have "more" in their cup simply because their cup is taller.

The bathtub is a great place to ask "Which holds more?" Using a variety of plastic cups and containers your child can experiment by pouring water from one container to another. The taller container doesn't always hold more.

Classification
Classification is just another word for sorting, and young children need a lot of experience with objects before they enter school and are asked to transfer their skills to paper and pencil tasks.

Use blocks to create patterns for your child to duplicate-blue, red, yellow, blue, red, yellow, etc. When you don't have toys handy you can ask your child to help you think of everything that you can ride on, that swims, or flies.

Matching
As early as 2 years of age, many children will parrot the words "one," "two," "three," "four," "five" etc. However, rarely do they understand that a number refers to an item or a set of items. At this stage, children need to do a lot of experimenting, with you there to help with the words to describe what's happening.

Children need to "match sets" before they will understand that counting is actually referring to numbers of things. Start with piles of the same number of objects, then take turns with your child taking one object at a time. Soon she will discover that two of dad's great big boots might be bigger than hers, but there are still two boots to go on two feet.

More Pre-Number Activities
Draw a number of circles (faces) and put down a number of buttons for eyes. Ask your child if there are enough eyes for the faces and how he can find out. Repeat this activity for mouths and noses. Use phrases like "more than" and "less than" or "as many as". Ask "How can we find out?"

Arrange everyday items like a toothbrush, spoon, a toy and an apple on a cookie sheet. Ask your child to look away, rearrange the items to see if she realizes the number of items is still the same or if she thinks it's different.

Long before children can count to 100, they are learning the skills that underlie the important mathematical concepts that they'll use in school and beyond. Whether you really enjoy Math, or have to pretend a bit, introducing number skills with the activities above can be fun for both you and your child.