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It’s another 90-degree morning, and we’re going deep into water play to keep our budding mathematicians as cool and happy as possible on this humid, sultry day.

I glance over just in time to catch three-year-old Tahin playing with one of the small watering cans. It’s obvious that no one has mentored him on the fine art of submerging his watering can to fill it up with water. I observe him closely as he problem-solves.

First, he reaches for a small yellow cup, fills it up with water and tries to pour it into the small opening of his watering can. Most of the water runs down the side of the watering can, but he keeps trying, oblivious to his surroundings as he repeats the process over and over with the same disappointing results.

But this little guy is resilient. He doesn’t get frustrated or angry, he doesn’t give up and he doesn’t ask for help. He persists!

Tahin, like most children, can spend countless hours playing with water, pouring it back and forth, watching it spill over the edge of the cup, splashing gently and pouring some more.

My love of water play has been well documented on this blog, and it’s one of our favorite summer learning adventures.

Math might not be the first thing you think of when you think about water play, but water presents many opportunities to explore one of the main areas of mathematics, which is measurement!

If you’ve been using your water table as a “sensory table” filled with something other than water during the winter months, now is a great time to move it outdoors for some long periods of math play.

Children are naturally drawn to water and this naturally occurring (read “free”) element fosters curiosity, imagination, investigation and experimentation. What more could one ask of a learning tool?

I watch as Tahin abandons his first idea and tries a different approach, using the yellow cup to fill a larger yellow bowl, which he then uses to pour the water into his watering can.

When Tahin empties the smaller yellow cup into the larger yellow bowl, he also begins to learn which container holds more and which container holds less.

He also has the opportunity to use the cup as a unit of measurement and see how many cups it takes to fill the larger bowl.

Tahin carefully lifts the larger bowl, moves it close to his plastic watering can and tips it to pour the water into the can. The bowl’s wider rim and the greater volume of water are a winning combination.

Tahin’s second method proves to be successful, and the watering can is soon filled to the brim. This is persistence and problem-solving at its finest!

Water play is always developmentally appropriate, regardless of a child’s physical condition, age, language, gender or culture.

When children are engaged in water play, they tend to lose themselves in the activity and can spend long periods of time experimenting and playing. This encourages children to focus.

Any activity that requires sustained focus will increase a child’s attention span, sharpen problem-solving skills and enable the child to solve more complex problems later in life.

Open-ended water play also presents opportunities for children to use both sides of the brain as they problem-solve.

Children can explore and problem-solve in any manner that they choose, which forces them to be creative as they try out new ideas.

This is an example of executive functioning at work! Executive function skills help us make a plan and troubleshoot when the plan is underway.

Eve (pictured below) is developing and practicing her executive function skills through play!

We like to stimulate the imaginations of our early learners by changing our water-play tools frequently.

Here are just a few of the tools that we add to the mix on different days:

• Throw some ice cubes into the water and give the children slotted spoons to fish them out.
• Scatter sponges around the water play area. This often leads to activities such as washing the bikes or the plastic animals that we keep in the sand play area.
• Styrofoam meat trays and toy boats can be used to transport those plastic animals in water as well.
• Funnels, soup ladies and turkey basters are also big hits.
• Condiment squeeze bottles are great for building grip strength and strengthening the muscles of little hands.

Whenever children play with water, they are exploring mathematical concepts such as volume, capacity, size and shape.

There are many good reasons to bring water play into your outdoor play space. It’s a fun, refreshing pastime that will chase away the children’s lethargy on muggy summer afternoons—and it’s chock full of learning and skill-building opportunities.

What better way to knock out those early learning standards when the temperature and humidity soar?

This was a great exploration activity for me regarding early counting skills. We would count the number of holes. Then go out to the flower beds to find that number of different types of flowers to cut and bring inside. As I placed the flower stems into the holes I  my understanding of numbers and one-to-one correspondence developed in a positive way. There were not red marks on a paper if I had the wrong amount, simply extra flowers that would need a different vase. Sometime there would be too few and together we would figure out how many more were needed. This type of self correction made it easy for me to understand the one-to-one relationships between the number of holes and the number of flowers

I spent many hours arranging and then re-arranging flowers in the frog. The number of flowers always remained the same when I filled up all of the holes.  As a young child this surprised me because young children are starting to learn that the number of items remain the same even when you rearrange item in several different ways.

From the time I opened my child care until it closed, there were at least 2 flower pots with flower plants in the outside play area. This allowed for a wide variety of exploration and discussion. Some of the favorite activities that the children completed were:

• Counting seeds, creating a hole in the dirt, placing a seed, then covering it up.
• Measuring out the water that would be given to the plant in a plastic measuring cup.
• Marking on the calendar the days that we watered the flowers and the days where the soil was moist so we did not need to.
• Placing a ruler next to the plant and noticing how much it grew over the days.
• Counting the number of flowers and buds.
• Comparing the number of petals or size of the different flowers.

Another benefit for this type of learning about math is that flower pots helps children to connect with nature in a meaningful way. They begin to understand the cycle of living things and what plants need in order to thrive. Children have the ability to explore in an environment that supports their growing minds. Plus there is the added benefit of being able to bring some beautiful colors and smells into the home.

Flower gardens are easy to grow in almost any climate. I live in what is call a High Desert where there is limited rain, an average of 300 days of sunshine, surrounded by mountains, with temperatures that can fluctuate over 20 degrees from the hottest to coldest part of the day, and the town sits at 4,500 feet above sea level. The key to success is to talk with your local Extension Office or Garden Center to see what grows best in your area. Note: It is important to consider the spread of the plant as some can quickly spread when planted in the ground. I had mint one year that spread into the lawn and roses…… but oh it smelled amazing.

One of the first mathematical concepts that infants begin exploring is the concept of “more.”  That was the first sign language Noah learned.  He learned how to say “more,” ask for “more,” and respond to “more.”  This simple sign became his first way of communicating with us, confidently expressing his needs.  This concept of “more”is one of the basic foundations of quantity.

Simply bring your thumbs up to the other four fingers and tap both hands together while saying or asking, “more.”  You will be amazed how quickly an infant will learn to mimic the movements (if not exactly, fairly close) and then use the language appropriately.

That said, all of these fun winter clothes are a great resource for sorting and graphing as a large group.

This picture shows a large graphing floor mat that is so perfect for preschool children.  They can put their own hats or mittens in the squares (rather than having a teacher do so on a piece of tag board).  This simple physical involvement will make the activity so much more interesting for the children.  Once they have put their items in the separate squares, they are easy to count and provide appropriate visual cues so the children can “see” which has “more” and which has “less”.

I would start with Mittens vs. Gloves and see where it goes!

The most obvious place to use sign language with infants and older babies is at feeding time.  Even the breastfed baby can begin to learn signs that indicate “more,” “all done,” and “hungry.”

When an infant begins to look or act like she is ready for a feeding, you can ask her if she is “hungry.”  You do this by cupping one hand so it forms a “C” shape and then moving that shape from the bottom of your neck down toward your chest.

When she shows signs that she is finished eating, you can ask her if she is “all done?”

“All done” and “finished” are the same sign and mean the same thing.  However, “all gone” is different and has a different meaning.  For the child, “all done” is that way she feels – she doesn’t want anymore.  But “all gone” means the food is finished even though she might not be “all done.”

How are these simple ideas mathematical?  For our purposes, we can think about hunger as “emptiness” just as full (or all done) as “fullness.”  These are simple notions of quantity as is “more.”  Because the hunger signal is so strong and a means of self-preservation for the child, we can capitalize on it and use it as a springboard for other signs.   Signing is a way to give language to children so they can express themselves before they speak.  It eases frustration both on the part of the child as well as on the part of the caregiver.