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MATH is incredibly important. Therefore it is equally important to instill in your child a love and appreciation for math skills. Math is not a boring thing that we just “need to know”. Math is an adventure! It helps us know how our world works, helps us to make sense of information and it gives us the understanding to do limitless things.

Some examples of preschool math activities are graphing, estimation, simple addition, the use of various diagrams, serration, sorting, classifying, measuring, recipe charts and number charts. The preparation tools needed for these math activities are:

·         Large chart paper (flip charts work well)

·         Colored markers (eight basic colors)

·         Set of crayons

·         Black permanent markers

·         One set of duplo blocks (or other similar manipulative)

·         One set of lego blocks (or similar)

·         At least one variety of counters for many types of activities (such as counting bears, large dried beans work well as do small smooth decorative stones such as the ones bought in pet supply stores for fish aquariums)

·         Materials from outdoors are often incorporated as are simple items from the kitchen such as measuring spoons and small plastic cups

One major key to the success of the following activities is for you to be ready to “go with the flow”. While your child is free to be spontaneous with what he/she is learning, you are to be ready to quickly draw a basic chart as described in the lesson. It is NOT difficult. You only need to draw a few lines and/or circles and fill in the information as the child gives it to you! You won’t believe how simple, quick and easy it is to have a productive math experience with your child.

First, choose a subject that you feel you would like to introduce to your child, and then allow your child to choose a topic such as reptiles, rocks, or rainbows. Then together choose one of the following math examples or feel free to pick another math skill. Trust me….easy as can be!

Whatever observations your child sites…. please go with their flow. If there seems to be a more teachable moment in patterning than number sequence, that’s perfectly okay. Don’t feel “Married” to a concept once it has been selected. Follow the enthusiasm trail! As much as possible allow your child to take the lead and use the examples as guides….a framework, if you will, that is so flexible that your child can bend it into any shape he/she chooses. Math isn’t just informational…it’s creative! Have a great time.

The following are example lessons of graphing, estimation and simple addition. These are lessons I’ve used many times with groups of children and with individual children to develop math concepts. You’ll get the gist of them and can then apply the process to many topics. The lessons are scripted as if speaking directly to the child or children. Use them as is or ad-lib freely.

Graphing

Eye Color Graph

Eyes are fascinating things aren’t they! Take a look in a mirror at your eyes. Look really close. What color are your eyes? My eyes are blue. There are blue, brown, green, gray and hazel eyes. Hazel eyes are a mixture of two colors like brown and green or green and blue or gray. All eyes are beautiful and expressive. When you look in someone’s eyes you can feel like you know them very well because what they are feeling you can often see there.

For your ‘All About Me” math activity, ask your grown person to make a graph. On the graph at the bottom there needs to be the words blue, green, brown, gray and hazel. Your (Mom, Dad, other Adult) can write those there. The graph will look something like this:

One at a time you need to go to the graph and write your name with the color crayon that your eye color is. Write your name in the column that is the color of your eyes. If your eyes are hazel you can use different crayons or pick one of the colors in your hazel colored eyes. I’ll show you how I write my name on the graph by typing it below. Since I am by myself, I will type the names of people in my family and their eye color too. If you are not in a class with other children you can do the same thing with the help of your grown person using your family member eye colors. 

You can see by looking at my graph that there are three people in my family with blue eyes. When you look over to the left, the blue column comes up to number 3. There is one person in my family with brown eyes. When you look to the left the brown column comes up to number 1. There is one person in my family with hazel eyes. When you look to the left the hazel column comes up to the number 1.

Take your time and enjoy making your eye color graph. Hang it up on a wall with tape when you are finished and practice reading the words with the help of your (Mom, Dad, other Adult) all through the day.

Estimation

Grass Estimation

Estimate is a fancy way to say, “Guess”. Okay, there’s a little bit more to it than that! It is really an “educated” guess or a hypothesis (which is ANOTHER fancy word for educated guess). In this case it means that you are going to look at the size of the container some grass is going to be put in; look at the size of the grass and THEN guess how many blades of grass will be inside the container. What your guess is (after seeing those two things) is your estimation.

First, have your grown person use the smallest container available. A plastic cup if it’s really small, or a stacking toy, or some other VERY small container. Have them put as much grass as will fit without packing it down or stuffing it in. Then just sit and look at the container for a minute. How big is the container? How big is the grass that was put in? Then take a guess (an educated guess or a hypothesis or an estimate) of how many blades of grass are inside. Then, along with your grown person, count exactly how many blades of grass are in the container. You definitely won’t have the EXACT number! And that’s okay! This kind of project is about getting closer and closer with each educated guess!

Next have your grown person get a little bit BIGGER containers. Not huge but just a LITTLE bit bigger. Then do the estimation again! See how close you can get with several tries! The more you practice the better your estimation skills become!

 Simple Addition

Little Bo Peep Addition

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep

and can’t tell where to find them

Leave them alone and they’ll come home

wagging their tales behind them.

Bo Peep’s sheep are in need of a little help getting home! You can help them (in your imagination) through this addition activity! You need to have about 10 cotton balls for this activity! The cotton balls are going to be our pretend sheep! If you would like you can take a black marker and add eyes, nose, mouth and even a little dot for a tail. On a piece of plain paper draw a big brown circle with your crayon that is about as big as your paper. The brown circle is going to be the “Pen” or the home for the sheep as you add them! Ready? Okay. (Legos or Duplos can always be substituted to good effect in any one to one correspondence type activity)

Look at your empty brown circle home for the sheep. I am going to give you some number sentences to help the ten sheep come home. Here is the first one:

0+2=

The number sentence reads “zero plus two equals…..”

You start out with no or zero sheep at home. The number sentence says you are going to add (plus means to add more) how many more? Right. Plus two means you are going to add two. So bring two of your cotton ball sheep into the circle. Now how many sheep are home? Yes! Two. So your number sentence becomes 0+2=2. Let’s do some more addition.

2+4=

The number sentence says, “two plus four equals….” You start out with two sheep at home. The number sentence says you are going to add how many more? Yes, four! So bring four more of your cotton ball sheep back home. Now let’s see what the answer is to our number sentence by counting how many you have all together! Ready? “One, two, three, four, five six.” So what is the answer to our number sentence? Six! The sentence reads, “two plus four equals six.” Think of some more addition sentences to use with your little sheep! Ask your grown person for a little help with writing the sentences and have a great time doing this math project.