Instead, young children are ready to learn one-to-one correspondence, sorting, sequencing, number, counting, and shapes. Much simpler, right? However, these skills can still seem challenging for parents to support in their child’s development. Are workbooks, worksheets, computer programs or apps the best to practice these skills? How can we know that our children are “ready for school” when it comes to math?

Math skills can be practiced each and every day at home or at school. First, include your child in everyday tasks, even those you would not think they can do well.  Tasks such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, maintenance, shopping and caring for pets can be turned into math practice! Here are some suggestions for including your child in every day math practice.

• Laundry: Sorting laundry by type, family member and size. Match and count the pairs of socks. Fold clothing in half and half again. Measure detergent with child sized cups.
• Cleaning: Using child sized spray bottles, clean the table by counting squirts before wiping it down. Sweep the floor in a circle or square shape. Use sponges cut into different shapes to clean different items.  Categorize dishes and wash by category, such as round plates, square plates, round bowls and mugs, etc.  Create a pattern by washing first a plate, then a cup then a bowl and repeating until dishes are clean.
• Cooking: Whenever possible, include children in the cooking and food preparation. Use plastic measuring cups to measure ingredients and a wooden spoon to stir. Use a butter knife to cut vegetables into small or large chunks. Estimate how long it will take to cook or bake and then discuss the reality versus guess.
• Grocery Shopping: Create a list children can check off to practice one-to-one correspondence. Sort the cart by type of items, such as those in boxes or not, cold or room temperature, etc. Count items in the cart. Pack unbreakable groceries in paper bags trying to fit them in safely without crushing them. Weigh bulk foods, adding and subtracting amounts to get to one pound.
• Routines: For the morning routine, use a picture chart to put the steps to getting ready in order for children to follow. For bedtime routine, use a timer or a picture clock to show the amount of time rather than the actual time. Read books including numbers, counting, sorting and classifying. Use a picture schedule showing a picture of each main activity during a stay at home day so children can follow the schedule and manipulate when things change.

Remembering that math skills for little ones is more than just algebra will make a big difference in how you perceive math as a parent. Have fun with mathematics and go beyond just helping children memorize numbers in order. Look to everyday tasks you may find tedious for opportunities to include learning moments.  It is easier than you may think and way more fun!

This week I thought we could think about ways to encourage families to support  early math concepts at home with some simple ideas that anyone can do.

Everyday chores may be horribly boring to the adults who do them (ME!) but children can find joy in the same tasks if they are approached as fun, participatory games.  Take laundry.  For me, this is the worst of the worst.  The never-ending piles of dirty clothes, followed by the never-ending piles of clean clothes that need to be put away followed by the never-ending pile of dirty clothes.  It is a cycle that never ends.  Even when all of the baskets are empty and everything is put away, it only lasts a moment – not even long enough to appreciate it.

The following ideas can be incorporated into a parent newsletter.  Be sure to let them know that encouraging early math skills at home is easier than they think.

There is so much math in laundry, you just have to find it.  

From the dirty clothes pile, have your children find all of the white clothes and pile them together.  Then ask them to find all of the jeans, and make another pile.  This act of sorting can be made more fun if you hide three baskets around the room, with one example of each kind of clothing at the bottom (jeans, whites, and everything else) so they have to find the place each kind of clothing belongs.  This might be very hard, since you are asking them to think of more than one attribute at a time. For younger children, just divide the clothes into two categories.

Once the clothes are clean, have the children find the matching socks and show them how to roll them together.  Then have them practice their aim, by tossing them back into the basket.  This simple activity encourages matching skills, aiming skills, spatial knowledge,  attribute definition, and sorting.  This also means that you don’t have to find the matching socks.  See, it makes your life easier.

Putting away laundry can also be fun.  Set the basket with all of the clean clothes near the bedrooms.  Make sure that the children know and can identify everyone’s beds.  Then, give each child an item of clothing and have them determine who it belongs to.  Once they have it figured out, time them as they run to the owner’s bed to deposit the item of clothing there.  Do this activity before you fold anything, since everything will come unfolded during the game.  Once the clothes are distributed on each bed, have the children determine who has the most clothes, who has the least, who has the biggest, and who has the smallest.  If they aren’t sure about sizes, have them bring items from two beds back and compare them so they can see definitively which items are bigger or smaller.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to describe other simple daily tasks that can encourage early math skills.  What I like about many of these is that the home provider can also try many of these ideas out.  Let us know if you do.