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 […]
Someone posted this the other day on my Facebook page and I couldn’t wait to share it. Some of these ideas are clearly for older children, but the intent is awesome. The only thing I would change […]
This article, from KQED News, written by Deborah Farmer Kris reiterates what we have been talking about at Early Math Counts for years; Spatial Reasoning is an extremely important competency that can be taught and supported very early in life. She provides ideas for activities that encourage spatial thinking and describes why using spatial vocabulary […]
I’ll never forget the time when my three-year-old was sitting in the back of the car looking out the window and contemplating the world. I arrived at a stop sign just before another car arrived at the adjacent stop sign. The other car sped forward to get in front of me and I threw my […]