Attention! Attention! Early Math Counts Readers! I am pleased to tell you that our blog is changing course a bit. Over the past 4 years I have been blogging for Early Math Counts and have enjoyed (almost) every minute of it. After over 700 posts we all thought it might be nice for a change. […]
Did you know that infants as young as 6 months old, have a rudimentary understanding of number? When babies hear two voices they will look for two people and when they hear three voices they will look for three people. This was discovered in a study that presented infants with pictures of two and three […]
Did you know that babies respond more to the “rhythm” of speech than the words themselves? It is a natural impulse to speak to babies with a higher-pitched-than-normal voice, a sing-song lilting quality to the words, and a repetition that is particular to these interactions. Throughout my career, I have had students and new parents […]
When our first child was born, my husband was studying special education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He became very interested in using sign language to communicate with non-verbal students so he began studying it. When Noah came along, Larry was convinced that we could communicate better with him if we gave him “language” before […]
Monday is the anniversary of the birthday of our country. Do you have big plans? Are you going to finally get some much-deserved rest? I will spend the day with every television we own on, at full volume, to help drown out the noise of the fireworks in our neighborhood. They scare my dogs to pieces. […]
In addition to thinking about spatial reasoning, we also want children to learn basic spatial terms. This is also true of mathematical terms in general, but the use of spatial terms throughout the day can help reinforce concepts of spatial reasoning without expressly doing so. Throughout the day you probably do this without even thinking […]
Simple maps be one of the best ways we can introduce children to and reinforce basic concepts of spatial thinking. Imagine drawing a simple map of your sand table. On it, you indicate where certain small toys can be found (you have buried them there, previously). Children (I would suggest one at a time) can […]
How many of you have libraries in your centers that allow families to check out books? Often, centers (sometimes classroom teachers) offer both children’s books and adult books focused on child rearing and education, to families for borrowing. Wouldn’t it be great to create a lending library filled with math games as well? You could […]
Geometry is so much more than learning the names of shapes for young children. When we think of Geometry, we might harken back to that high school class where we had to memorize loads of formulas to determine circumference, area, diameters, and volume. This is NOT what we do with young children. For young children, […]
Most parents who have infants in child care are hoping that they will be loved and nurtured, held and rocked, sung to and responded to. I would imagine that parents of children this age are not really thinking about math yet even thought they are definitely thinking about language. I have frequently written about consistency as […]