Autumn has flown by—and winter is almost upon us! Here in Illinois, that means cooler temperatures and wrestling with winter outerwear.

But here’s the good news: Getting the children dressed for outdoor play is a great way to meet your early math standards. Outdoor play in the winter months includes snow or rain pants, boots, coats, hats and mittens. Getting my young group dressed for outdoor play used to be a challenge. But math—specifically sequencing—came to the rescue! 

By breaking this dressing activity down into smaller steps, you can boost your early learners’  self-confidence and place them on the path to independence as you lay the foundation for math concepts such as routine, pattern and sequence.

By learning to dress themselves, children also strengthen developing skills such as coordination, memory and body awareness.

I embrace this activity as an important part of our curriculum. This process takes time—and we have a lot more of that commodity than a working parent trying to make it to an early-morning meeting!

Here’s how I do it: First, I set up the following “winter outerwear dressing stations” leading from the children’s cubbies to the exit door. Allow plenty of room between each station. One teacher I know uses all four corners of her classroom.

• Bathroom break station
• Snow/rain pant station
• Boot station (It’s easier to deal with the boots BEFORE the coats go on. Hopefully your students will have slip-on boots or boots with Velcro fasteners.)
• Coat station
• Hat and scarf station
• Mitten station (Waterproof snow mittens are ideal for outdoor winter play. Fleece or wool mittens are good for car rides but—if the children are going to be sledding, building snowmen, eating icicles or just playing in the snow—snow mittens are the way to go. The best ones are long enough to cover the wrist or forearm up to the elbow and keep little arms warm and dry so that your little snow bunnies can play outside longer on cold winter days.)

If you have not been taught the “firefighter flip” method for putting on jackets, two-year-old Jonathan (below) will lead you through it:

           Toes to the tag.                        Hands slip into the armholes.              And…FLIP!

                 Over the head.                  Push the arms down into the sleeves.       And…ta da!

We love the firefighter flip and use it all year long. It takes a few practice sessions, but I guarantee that successful coat flipping is in your future if you are not already using this method.

At the exit door, I provide some last-minute assistance with hats, scarves, zippers and mittens.

For some reason, removing the cold-weather gear seems to go more quickly. I use laundry baskets as stations for removing the gear, which allows me to quickly and easily place the wet gear in the proper drying places.

Sequence. Routine. Pattern. It’s all there—and it’s all math! Regardless of the season, find a sequence in your everyday classroom activities and break it down into little steps. During these crisp, beautiful late autumn and early winter days, put on your own outerwear and join in the fun!

Today is one of those magical winter mornings when snow blankets the ground and clings to the trees around our center.  The sun is shining and the world looks so sparkly and irresistible that we head outside in spite of the freezing temperatures.

“Hey! Who has the smiling boot?” Jacoby calls out to the group. He scans the play space, which looks like a snowy white canvas dotted with boot prints.

“Do you have the smiling boot?” he asks Maria.  

Maria looks confused as she glances down at her boots. “No, my boots are pink.” 

“No, no…on the bottom!” Jacob points to her boots. “Does your boot have a smiling face on the bottom?” 

Even I am confused by Jacoby’s question—until he points to the clue in the snow. 

“Look!” he declares. “Somebody has a smiley face on the bottom of their boot.”

Ah-hah! Indeed, we do have a smiley face boot print staring up at us from the snow-covered ground. Well, this will warm us all up!  Let the STEM investigation begin!

After a fresh snowfall, it’s so much fun to find and follow animal tracks. But we’ve never really paid attention to the patterns on the soles of our boots until now.

One by one, Maria and Jacoby begin to check the bottom of each friend’s boot. This simple moment of exploring patterns leads us to measurement, reasoning and comparing attributes.

Young children instinctively seem to notice attributes. It may be the shape, size, color, length or some other characteristics of an object, such as today’s smiling boot face.

Children develop their understanding of matching and patterns through experience. Because it’s difficult to consider a lot of attributes at once, children often begin creating sets by finding exact matches.

When children create pairs of boots or find an exact match to the smiling boot face, they are creating sets of items that are exactly alike. Maria and Jacoby are using rudimentary math, science and engineering skills as they observe and ask questions—all while solving the smiling boot print mystery!

Suddenly, everyone is stomping their boots and comparing and analyzing the shapes and patterns that their boots are leaving in the snow.

“I have zigzags!” announces Liam.

Sure enough, as we all run over to look at Liam’s boot print in the snow, we see row after row of zigzags.

“They look like mountains!” laughs Rokia. “That’s so cool!”

 “I have rectangles!” announces Rachel. “If I turn around, it looks like a house with a roof. Look!  See, at the bottom of my boot print?”  

Our focus is now very intentional and the mood has shifted from playful curiosity to deep observation and concentration. 

This is what child-led learning looks like. For those of you who believe that “child-led learning” can only lead to chaos, I urge you to put on your winter wear, head outside and see how effective and wondrous it can truly be.

“I have diamonds!” shouts Julio, “Oh and triangles at the top and bottom. Wow! Look at my boot print, it has really cool patterns.”

We are working on spatial reasoning, direction and positional vocabulary. This is the deep learning that takes place when children have ample time to explore and investigate.

Every day, children learn something new.  Every day, they deepen their understanding of STEM principles and share their insights and theories with their fellow STEM explorers.

Time is the key to deep learning!

“I have snakes!”  Josie shouts.

“Snakes?” 

Everyone comes running to see the newly discovered boot-print pattern. And, yes indeed, Josie’s boot print really does look like snakes.

But Isaac sees it differently. “I think it looks like waves,” he counters. “You know, like when you throw a rock in the river and it makes those lines?”

Then five-year-old Maya reorients the group to the smiley-face boot prints that started the morning’s STEM investigation.

“Where did that smiley face boot come from?” she asks, putting an end to the snake-shape and wave-shape discussion.

“I don’t know!” retorts a frustrated Jacoby. “That’s what I am trying to figure out!” 

“No, I mean, where did the smiley face boot print start?” Maya clarifies, assuming the role of lead investigator. “Where did you find it? Did you follow it, like we followed the cat paw prints last winter?” 

Jacoby pauses and I can see the wheels turning as he considers Maya’s questions. This is a lightbulb moment when the children suddenly recall a forgotten game from winters past. We have plenty of wandering cats in our neighborhood. For years, we have engaged in follow-the-cat-print expeditions on snowy days, following the tracks and trying to figure out the exact route that the cat took and why. Today has ushered in a new season of snow—and now we are rediscovering the game all over again.

Five-year-old Maya has had a few more years of brain development and a few more years of winter play, so she has retained more memories of those snowy-day games than the younger children who started the smiling boot print investigation.

Suddenly we are tracking movement, direction and the changes in how the boot print is left. We don’t have paper and pencils to collect data outside today, but our friends are forming hypotheses and making deductions as they piece the clues together and abandon the ideas that don’t pan out.

Maya continues as the lead investigator. “Look at the size of this boot track. It’s much bigger than our boots. See? I think it’s an adult boot print. Look how far it is between the foot prints. It takes me three steps to their two steps.”

“Maybe it’s the mail carrier,” suggests Lois.  “She brought a package to the door yesterday.”

“It can’t be the mail carrier,” reasons Maya. “She doesn’t walk on this side of the center.”

“It must be a parent!” shouts Jacoby. “Who has a parent with a smiling boot?”

The question is met with dead silence. No one knows the answer.

Suddenly, Maya turns to me and asks, “Do you have a smiling boot? You are an adult.”

Much to my disappointment and the chagrin of my young friends, I am not the owner of the smiling boot. We are getting cold and our investigation has hit a dead end. We decide to go indoors and warm up with some hot cocoa and banana muffins.

At pickup time, the children check the boots of every parent for a smiling face, but no one has the matching boot. Many weeks later, we discover that the smiling boot belongs to a grandparent of one of the children at our center. By then the thrill of the hunt is over. But the learning has not been lost. A great morning of STEM investigation is tucked away safely in the developing brains of our early math explorers.

Ready to start your own Snowy Day STEM Investigation? Check out Show Me Your Shoe, an Early Math Counts lesson plan that can be adapted for your own boot-matching investigation!

“I think that wolf should go in this row, with the pigs,” protests five-year-old Harper. 

“What? Why? He’s a wolf, not a pig!” insists Harrison.

“And he’s not pink!” chimes in three-year-old Evelyn. 

“The wolf will go with the pigs in this row for ‘Stories,'” explains Harper. “You know, like in that book, The Three Little Pigs!”

I wander over to see what this deep discussion is all about. Wow! The older preschoolers are lining up and labeling groups of animals from the basket. This is child-led learning at its finest!

“Oh yeah! That makes sense!” Miguel agrees.

But Evelyn seems puzzled by their reasoning. Math skills such as sorting and patterning are developed in a sequential order—and Evelyn’s early math skills are not as developed as those of her older friends.

At all ages, children classify objects intuitively to make sense of the world. Two-week-old infants can already distinguish objects that they suck on from other objects.

By the age of two, toddlers can form sets of similar objects. By preschool, children can sort and categorize objects according to a given attribute.

When children engage in classification, they are sorting objects according to some established criteria. For Harper, it makes sense to classify the wolf with the pigs. It also makes sense to Miguel when Harper explains his reasoning. 

I look at the list that Harper has created. I chuckle at his phonetic spelling as I read the three categories that he has printed across the top of a sheet of green paper: “Jungle, Farm and Stories.”

When learning how to classify objects, children first learn how to identify and name the attributes that the items in a group will have in common. Then they move on to identifying the attributes that will exclude items from a group.

See Harper’s list in the bottom right corner?  It reads, “Not in a group.”

Wow! This is math! This is early literacy! All while playing and having fun!

Remember back in first grade when we were learning about sets and we had to circle the apples, but not the oranges, on our math worksheets? Our morning of animal sorting is a similar exercise, but the children are establishing the rules.

Hands-on play will beat a worksheet any day of the week. What sticks to the hands, sticks to the brain. 

When children sort objects in their environment, they are using their analytical thinking skills, which are the lifeblood of mathematics. When children engage in organizing activities, it helps them make sense of their world.

Sorting allows children to determine where they think an object belongs and why they think it belongs there. Often, objects will be reclassified from one day to the next. The wolf may be classified as a “Story Animal” today and as a “Forest Animal” tomorrow!

A 2015 research study showed that young children were more creative, more interactive and more verbal when they were playing with sets of animal figures than with other toys (Trawick–Smith et al. 2015). These findings were consistent regardless of gender or background.

The takeaway? Every classroom needs a basket of animal figures!

What’s so great about a basket full of plastic animals? It doesn’t come with a rule book!

When children play with toys such as small animals, people or vehicles, they create elaborate make-believe scenarios and engage in rich discussions about those scenarios. Perhaps best of all, they learn to play cooperatively with their friends. 

As educators, we know that children love to play with baskets of plastic animals. Now we have research to prove what we’ve known all along: that open-ended, imaginative play will naturally lead to sorting and classifying—and you’ll be checking off those early math learning standards in no time!

Looking for an Early Math Counts lesson plan that involves sorting and classifying?  Check out Cereal Sorting!

Our moment of silent concentration and focus is interrupted by Parker ecstatically showing off her geoboard.

“You made a house?” asks Linnea, looking a little wide-eyed and confused. “How did you do that?”

“I just added shapes and it worked!” Parker answers, equally amazed by her own creation.

“I want to try that!” shouts Rowen.

“Me too!” echoes a chorus of four-year-old voices. “Show us how you did that!”

Geometry has entered our world today—and what better way to learn about early math and science concepts than through play?

I have come to believe that geoboards are one of the ultimate learning tools for peer mentoring. I watch as the four-year-olds follow Parker’s example and create their own versions of her rubber-band house.

I am a huge fan of these little powerhouses known as geoboards. Hands-on activities with these simple learning tools get children’s brain synapses firing like crazy and stimulate the development of new neural connections.

The boards, with their colorful rubber bands and infinite possibilities, also make math and engineering fun!

Our geoboard play tends to occur in cycles. Today, the geoboards have resurfaced after long hiatus.

Because the children haven’t used the geoboards in a while, I notice how much their brains have developed since the last time the boards were in play. Seeing these leaps of brain development is one of the great joys of teaching.

Geoboards are always developmentally appropriate in the hands of the creator. Some children simply work on stretching the rubber bands onto the nails. My “artsy” early learners—who are happy designing anything and everything—can play with these boards for hours. And there’s a child in every class who insists on attaching every single rubber band in the bag to the geoboard, persisting long after the other children have moved on to new activities.

Geoboards enable even young children—and those who may have difficulty drawing shapes—to construct and investigate the properties of early geometry without a pencil in their hands.

I see geoboards as a chance to level the playing field for those who struggle with grasp, fine-motor or visual-motor skills.

Children begin to notice shapes before they have the language to name those shapes. Geoboard play acquaints children with simple shapes—as well as more advanced concepts such as symmetry, angles and fractions—as they engage in activities such as measuring, counting or investigating 2D shapes like Parker’s rubber-band house.

Look at those little fingers and hands going to work! With just one geoboard and a bagful of rubber bands, children can create and learn about shapes while developing their hand muscles, fine-motor skills, spatial skills and math skills. This is why geoboards have been a part of our classroom curriculum for more than 30 years.

Children can use their rubber bands to create squares, rectangles, triangles and other “sided” shapes. They can also explore number concepts as they try to stretch a single rubber band around a certain number of pegs. They may try to stretch it around three or four pegs—or maybe even all of the pegs. This early math exploration evolves quite naturally as the children engage in geoboard play with their friends. 

When I introduce geoboards to new students, I leave the lesson plans and benchmark checklists for later and let the children simply play with their boards. I want them to engage in geoboard play at their own level of development.

It’s important to give the children ample time to engage in this process. It can’t be rushed. For my young learners who love to make shapes, letters and designs, a longer play period gives them time to get their creative juices flowing. As their brain development continues, you will see their shapes and designs become more intentional.

Young children develop ideas and concepts about science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) naturally. They think about size, shape, quantity, order and speed throughout the day as they play and explore. As teachers of young children, we need to tap into their natural curiosity with intentional STEAM learning opportunities such as geoboard play.

Intentionality is acting with knowledge and purpose. It is the opposite of chance because it is planned and thoughtful. In order to become intentional about math teaching, we need to think about math the way we think about literacy.

By making shapes on their geoboards, the children are actually developing important pre-reading and pre-writing skills too.

Here’s how it works: When Linnea sees a shape on the geoboard and names it, she is preparing herself to identify letters and numbers and then naming and eventually writing them.

Simply by placing a basket full of geoboards near a table, we can encourage children to experiment with shapes, sizes and direction through hands-on play.

We can call this math, science, engineering, art or literacy because it’s laying the groundwork for the STEAM disciplines, as well as language development.

But in our hearts—as early childhood educators—we simply call it play.

“AUGGGHHHH!” I hear screams, a crash and giggles galore.

The joy of Magna-Tiles® has returned to our ever-popular window-stacking play. When these colorful magnetic tile mosaics come crashing down from the window frame, the children respond with laughter and joy. By contrast, the collapse of three-dimensional block formations often elicits groans and tears.

Something about the suspense of the build (and the challenge of stacking the magnetic tiles higher and higher without triggering a collapse) keeps the children coming back to this activity time and time again.

For anyone unfamiliar with Magna-Tiles, they are magnetized tiles of different shapes that can be used to build the most amazing creations. We have purchased other magnetic block sets, but the children had difficulty figuring out the polarization or were frustrated by the lack of versatility. Ultimately, those more expensive sets were abandoned to collect dust in a corner while the children spent endless hours playing and learning with the Magna-Tiles.

Is there a more perfect block than a Magna-Tile? If I were stranded on an island with a group of preschoolers, this would be on my top-ten list of must-have learning tools. Heck, it would be on my top-three list. These are, without a doubt, the favorite block in our program. What’s not to love? Magna-Tiles build confidence and fuel hours of creative play. Our only problem with Magna-Tiles is that we never seem to have enough!

I read somewhere that you know you have enough blocks when there are still blocks on the shelves. I’m still not sure I have enough Magna-Tiles on any given day, and I always find myself purchasing more. (Full disclosure: I often purchase PicassoTiles, which are less expensive, equally rugged and nearly identical to my original Magna-Tile set. So, if your program is on a budget, don’t hesitate to buy this less expensive set.)

Magnetic tiles are a STEM classroom delight. We have math opportunities with shapes and colors, counting, blending colors, angles and geometry galore! We have science and engineering as we explore different designs and building techniques. The magnetic feature opens doors to design and construction options that regular wooden blocks cannot provide.

“What color is your tree?” Harrison asks his best friend, Jack, as they use their magnetic tiles to change the colors of the scene outside our window.

The collaboration continues as the two boys follow their creative impulses and develop their ideas.

Then Jack proposes a new challenge. “What if we try a triangle this time?”

The boys determine that the results will be the same regardless of the shape. I am convinced that the children’s understanding of different shapes has been greatly enhanced by the use of these magnetic tiles. Magnetic tiles are the perfect educational tool for teaching all things geometric!

I also love to observe the children as they engage in problem-solving when they are confronted with a shortage of large square magnetic tiles. They quickly determine that they can create the same shape with four smaller magnetic tile squares.

Magnetic tiles also lay the foundation for an understanding of sets and quantities, as well as concepts such as location and ordinal positioning as the children expand their STEM knowledge and vocabulary.

“Jack, do you think we can add this square and it won’t fall down?” asks Jack’s twin sister, Eve, who is working through her predictions and collecting data on what works and what doesn’t.

I watch as Eve gingerly pries the corner of the bottom tile away from the window and triggers a structural collapse that brings all of the magnetic tiles tumbling down.

This investigation of “What happens if…?” is met with delight and infectious laughter from Eve’s peers as the building collaboration starts all over again.

“If we add this triangle to the top, the trees will turn green and look different from the red trees down here.”

Jack and Eve continue to pursue different avenues of learning with the tiles. One minute they are investigating colors and the next they are observing patterns or determining which shape should be added to the mosaic.

I’ve noticed yet another benefit of our window-frame magnetic-tile mosaics: The activity often brings children together who don’t naturally play side-by-side.

In other words, this group endeavor builds community. I am not sure if it’s a team effort of US versus the WINDOW BLOCKS or if it’s simply the contagious joy of the activity that makes everyone want to join in the fun.

When the temperatures drop below zero for days on end, I know that I can count on our magnetic tiles to lighten the mood and enrich our learning through play.

One more note: I have been known to remove the magnetic tiles from our play on occasion.

Why? Because I believe that magnetic tiles are so easy to use that they create “lazy builders.” This is just a personal theory of mine, but I’ve seen it play out over and over again. Sometimes the children in my program need to be pushed out of their comfort zone.

I do this by pulling out my wooden unit blocks, which require the children to perfect the balance and symmetry skills needed to build a stable block tower.

When those wood towers fall, I remind my wee ones that they are great builders and then I help them start building again from the foundation up.

When I rotate the magnetic tiles back into our play after a period of going “back to basics” with the wooden blocks, I nearly always notice that the children’s building skills have improved.

Try it and let me know your results. Happy building!

“I see the daddy cardinal, do you know where the mama bird is?” Four-year-old Noah, binoculars in hand, is busy counting birds in our outdoor classroom.

Are you aware that the annual Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up later this week? This is a great opportunity to create a bird-watching station and knock out some STEM and early learning standards while encouraging family involvement.

Mark your calendars for Feb 12-15 and join us for this fun and educational week!

February and March are good months for bird watching and bird counting in our program. This is a great way to accelerate STEM learning on days when below-zero wind chills make outdoor play impossible.

We have bird feeders set up right outside of our windows so that we can set up indoor bird-watching stations to give the children close-up views of their feathered friends.

We provide clipboards, books, binoculars and our abacus to help with the bird count. We also use this opportunity to teach our students how to tally on a tally chart. We reference the eBird website, which shares local sightings of different bird species.

I take the top ten birds sighted in our area on the eBird website and add pictures of those birds to our abacus. To do the same thing, just add your location to the eBird website and you’ll see which birds are sighted most often in your area. It’s quite fabulous!

We also like The Cornell Lab and the Audubon Society. I have the Cornell Lab Merlin Bird ID app on my phone to help us identify birds by their songs.

Your local U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may also be able to provide free materials for bird identification. There is a big difference between bird identification books for children and those that were written for mature bird watchers. I would check some out at your local library or bookstore before purchasing.

This is a great opportunity to practice not only counting, but grouping by attributes or close observation of the differences between a downy woodpecker and a red-bellied woodpecker.

We try to keep a ruler nearby for our older children to use to determine whether they have spotted a six-inch downy woodpecker or a nine-inch hairy woodpecker. This offers the children an opportunity to use estimation and practice using real tools for observation.

This is also a great time to introduce Venn diagrams for clarification and documentation.

By creating a comfortable and inviting place for the children to birdwatch—complete with pillows, chairs and tables with baskets of binoculars—you can encourage them to slow down and observe more often.

By planting native plants in your outdoor classroom, you will also attract more birds to your bird-watching stations.

We remind our kids that outdoor birds are hard to spot but easy to hear. We ask them to close their eyes and point to where the song is coming from. I like to teach common mnemonics like the American Robin’s cheery up, cheerio, which can be picked up on almost any bird walk in the United States. Learn some mnemonics for common birdsongs here.

We have tried the inexpensive plastic binoculars from school-supply stores and toy aisles. They really didn’t work well and broke the same day that we brought them out. Smaller, child-sized binoculars are much easier for little hands to manage. Children enjoy using “real” tools and will treat them with much more respect than a pair of cheap plastic ones. I often teach them how to focus the binoculars to get a clear image. I place these binoculars in a basket, along with the identification books. We also stock our bookshelves with a wonderful collection of books about birds, nests and hatchlings.

We talk so much about STEM these days. This is one of the easiest and most magical ways to create a learning hub that can inspire young learners to engage in STEM exploration and discovery.

By participating in these learning adventures, you can learn right along with the children as you observe, ask questions, draw conclusions and discuss your findings with your early learners.

When we observe birds from our indoor birdwatching stations and then take those same observational skills outdoors, we have a deeper understanding of the birds we see and the birdsong we hear.

By adding the technology from the websites mentioned above and building bird feeders from oranges or peanut butter and seeds, we can include engineering in our learning adventures. We can include math as we count the number of birds arriving at the feeder and then subtract the birds that fly away. By grouping, measuring and comparing the birds, we can meet our early learning standards and benchmarks.

I hope you will join us in our Great Backyard Bird Count this year. Birds of a feather flock together. Come join the fun!

Math really is fun.  It can be misery trying to teach it, but magic when you integrate it into your child’s everyday life.  

It’s a mystery to me why some children have a natural affinity for numbers while others show no interest or may even resist them.  It may be no different than why I chose to participate in gymnastics as a child while my best friend’s sport of choice was soccer.  We veer toward subjects and activities that come easily and steer away from those that are confusing or tricky.  As a parent of four young children and a learning specialist, I know how difficult it can be to get a child to participate in something they think is hard or boring. Pushing concepts on young children will prove arduous to both the adult and child, so what are some fun ways parents and educators can engage young children with math?

Too often we turn to the computer for answers, .  Or the apps on a smartphone.  While some of these are fun, my children already spend enough time in front of screens.  There are many workbooks that reinforce math concepts, but if your children are like mine, they aren’t going to be motivated by more ditto sheets.  Instead, I propose thinking more organically about numbers and mathematical concepts; they are hiding within so much of what we do everyday.  Very often, we can explore mathematical language and concepts without it ever seeming to our children that we are “working on math”.  If there are two words that don’t go over well with children, the top two might be “work” and “math”.

Some examples of how to bring math into everyday life:

*Put a timer on the microwave. Tell your child how much time you’ve put on the timer. Challenge them to pick up their toys or clean their room before the timer beeps. If they finish early, do a countdown with them while watching the numbers on the clock. You could even hold up fingers for the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 countdown.  If it was not enough time, talk about how much MORE time could have been added to the timer.  If it was too much time, how much LESS could have been used.

*Have your child study their cereal box in the morning.  Any aged child loves to look at the colors, the characters, and the games or stories on the back of the box.  But cereal offers many other rich math opportunities:

-Talk about the numbers they see in the ingredients. Discuss which character on the box is “bigger” than another. Take the cereal box apart, cut the pieces and measure them with a ruler or just lay them next to one another and decide which is taller and which is shorter.

-Pull a handful of cereal out and count.  How many “marshmallows” are in the cereal  (if you like the junk cereal variety)? Separate by color. Sort piles of like shapes. The amount of opportunities to get the math brain curious is limitless.

*Near your child’s bed, create a Mathematical bulletin board. My youngest son sleeps on the bottom bunk in a bunk bed. I created a beautiful (not too visual so as to keep him awake) collage of mathematical concepts for him to peek at before he closed his eyes at night.

After we read, I count with him. We find numbers. We look to see which number is “bigger”. We play riddle games. “I’m thinking of a number”. When he is tired, I never force it. When things get old, I switch it up. It is fun because he never knows what is going to be on the board next.

*Is your child physical? Make movement mathematical. How many times can you throw the ball back and forth or roll it if catch proves difficult. Create a dart board (out of plain paper) with numbers on it. Make paper airplanes and see what numbers you can both hit.

Get a jump rope and sing a number song or count. Kick a soccer ball and keep tally marks on a sheet of paper to track how many goals are made by each player.

*Cook and bake with your child. Both offer very rich opportunities to sneak numbers in. There are fraction opportunities but also looking at temperature on an oven. Talking about how long the item needs to cook. How many minutes does the batter need to be mixed? Etc.

*Play games. Dice games, card games, matching games. There are a plethora of board games that include mathematical concepts.

-Sleeping Queens (A family favorite- enjoyed from my 5 year old up through both parents!)

-War: an easy way to compare numbers. You can add and have each player turn over two cards. The bigger number after you’ve added keeps all 4 cards.

-Rat a Tat Cat (Another family favorite that involves your wanting to keep the “low” numbers and get rid of the “high” ones)

-Shut the Box: Roll the dice and close the doors on the numbers you roll. Try to “shut all of the numbers” to end with the lowest number.

-Memory: Who could forget Memory? What a wonderful game. The cards can have shapes on them or numbers. While playing and matching, talk about the shapes they see, count the images on the card together before making matches.  

These ideas are not new and this list is far from complete- there are so many more hidden opportunities to learn math. They are things that many parents are already doing with their children everyday. However, when it is not obvious that Math is being taught, it can be easy to overlook the Math hidden right in front of you. Before you turn on a computer or buy a workbook, try to find the hidden math in your everyday life. To insert mathematical language, concepts and games into their life can make all of the difference. After working in a few more of these ideas, I think you’ll see your child building a math brain from everyday life.

People to People is a gross motor game that is fun and engaging and children love it.  It is noncompetitive and is played for as long a time or as short a time as interest dictates.  It requires no materials, just a leader and (ideally) a large space.

Gather the children together and explain the rules.  The rules are simple:

1.  There is a leader.

2.  Everyone else is a player or an observer (children can choose to opt out and watch).

3.  Players have to find partners while they play.

4.  Players should find a new partner every time the leader calls out, “People to people.” Players should never pick the same partner again.

The leader calls out two body parts and the children find a partner and connect the body parts.  For example, the leader says, “Elbow to elbow,” and the children find a partner and put their elbows together.  The leader then calls out another set of body parts, i.e., head to head, or foot to foot.  This continues until the leader calls out, “People to people,” and the children have to find a new partner and it begins again.  With very young children keeping it simple is best.  Choose body parts that they know and are easy for them to identify on themselves and on others.  As the children get older, you can mix it up and get tricky, with body parts like, hips, calves, shins, and pinkies.  You can also make it even trickier by having the children connect two parts that are not the same, i.e., finger to foot, or head to belly.  The children not only have to identify each body part but they also have to negotiate who is the head and who is the belly.  This requires a lot of social navigation.

People to People supports matching skills and asks that the children sort and resort themselves out while finding partners.  They have to find new partners and use the concept of “elimination” so they don’t choose the same partner more than once.  Not only are they practicing following directions, this game focuses on prosocial behaviors that encourage turn-taking, compromise, and social generosity.

Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Most of the exhibits are very sophisticated and designed for a mature audience.  However, the entire place was thoughtfully planned with people of all ages in mind. Most, if not all, of the exhibits have a hands-on component that even very young children can enjoy. 

Here, you can see that there are oddly shaped solids that when rolled across the table follow or create a path. The goal of the activity is to determine which shape matches the path is creates.  Both my son and I thought it looked easy but once we began trying, we found that it was much harder than we thought.  Trying to get the shapes to roll on their path was very tricky.

The Activity

I think a version of this would be quite easy to create and could be a really interesting activity for young children. Using the lid of a large box, draw a thick straight line down the inside of the lid  then a curvy line down the middle.  On the far side, draw a more complicated path from one end to the other.  Using a simple ball, encourage children to move the ball down the 3 paths.  This can be done alone or as a cooperative activity between 2 children as they hold onto the box lid and move the balls along the lines.

Give it a try and let us know how it turns out.

Finding similarities and differences can happen throughout the day both during free play and during more structured activities.  Make sure you have a couple of Memory Games around that vary in skill level as well as many sorting materials that encourage children to look for like and unlike attributes.

Even toddlers can begin identifying like objects if you keep it clear and simple.  Provide really easy clues and help guide them by describing the attributes as they go.

How many of you remember this?