This post is written by a guest, Ashley Halsey, a professional writer at Nursing Assignments and Gumessays.com.
Every parent wants to set their child up for success, and that means teaching them basic skills before they start school. Math helps promote memory, improved attention and basic cognitive skills in preschool children. Want to help your little ones get ahead? Here are some fun ways to teach them some basic concepts.
1. Color Matching Art Projects
Being able to sort items into different groups is important when teaching early math skills. You can show your preschooler this by creating a simple color matching activity. You can find plenty of printables that have the same shapes in different colors. Print these out, and give your child a set of cotton balls in different colors. Working with them, you can sort the balls onto the correct colored shapes, and then stick them on. Once it’s done, you can hang it up on the fridge.
2. Number Songs
If there’s anything you know about your kids, it’s that they love songs. They’re always fun, and you hear them singing along to their favorite tunes all the time. “You can use that to your advantage. Find some number songs on the YouTube Kids app, and show them to your preschooler. They’ll love the song, and when they keep singing it they’ll be reinforcing the lesson from the video to themselves,” says Adam Williams, a tutor at Writinity and Last Minute Writing.
3. Count Every Day Objects
If you want to start introducing numbers to your preschooler, then a great way to start is to start counting every day objects. For example, you can count how many items go into the bag at the supermarket, how many buttons are on their shirt, or how many dinosaur toys they have. Make sure to just go up to five at first, and start increasing the numbers as your child gets more confident.
4. Make Maps Of Their Bedroom
A great way to help a preschooler understand spatial awareness is to make maps. The bedroom is a great place to start, as they know the space well. Ask them to start putting items in the right places in the map, and ask questions as they do so. For example, ask ‘How close is your bed to the closet?’ and ‘Where’s the bookshelf?’
5. Compare Feet Sizes
This is a good activity to introduce your child to the concept of sizes. You can put your foot next to theirs, and ask them whose feet are bigger. You can also use a ruler to measure your feet, and discuss how you know whose feet are bigger too. If they need to have their feet measured for shoes, then that’s another opportunity to talk about size. For example, you can ask them whether they think their feet are bigger or smaller than the last time they were measured.
6. Sugar Cube Building
When teaching preschoolers shapes, you can quite easily teach them the basics, such as squares and triangles. “3D shapes may be harder to comprehend, though. In these cases, you can build the shapes with them. You can use sugar cubes, building blocks, or whatever else you have in the house. While your child may not be able to grasp the names of the shapes, they’ll certainly remember them when they revisit them in school,” suggests Tim Hits, a child development blogger at Draftbeyond and Researchpapersuk.
7. Number Tracing
Here’s another art activity that can help with early math skills. You can give your child some paper with some numbers already written on. You can ask them to trace over those numbers, which will help them get familiar with the numbers, as well as how to write them out. You can make things interesting by switching up the mediums, such as pens or paint.
8. Play Board Games
There are lots of board games that are perfect for teaching math. Basic games like Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land all contain simple counting. When you play the games with them, ask them to count the number of pips on the dice, so they know how many spaces they can move.
With these eight activities, you’ll be able to introduce your preschooler to all kinds of math basics. That helps set them up to succeed once they go to school, so why not get started now? You’ll be amazed at what they can pick up.
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