Boost your child's quantitative and verbal skills by simply encouraging her to play with and describe various household items! Simple actions such as grouping and counting items based on their similarities and differences will help develop a solid foundation for your young child to learn later math concepts such as odd and even numbers, integers, as well as multiplication and divisibility.
By classifying articles based on color, texture, and shape and then discussing each object's characteristics with your child, you will also greatly expand her vocabulary skills and categorization ability.
What You Need:
- Miscellaneous objects found around the house such as jars, lids, and buttons
What You Do:
- Encourage your child to help you put away the groceries. Ask her to describe each item she is putting away in terms of its basic attributes such as shape and texture.
- Let your child help sort the laundry in terms of where each item goes, who it belongs to, and what type of clothing it is. Ask her to explain why she is putting each item in its specific pile and to count the quantity in each pile.
- Give your child jars, lids, buttons, corks, or any other small objects and containers around the house for grouping. Tell her to sort the items based on size, color, and use and then to count the objects in each group.
- Let your child put away the silverware, placing utensils into specific containers based on her observations of their size and shape.
When examining objects with your child throughout these activities and in daily life, try to use words that compare and describe objects based on their likeness, difference, size, shape, texture, and overall appearance. Always count groups of items you see around the house. You can eventually work your way up to counting by multiples and explaining odd and even numbers when you feel your child is ready.
Books for Children:
Billy’s Button by William Accorsi. Greenwillow, 1992.
Is It Red? Is It Yellow? Is It Blue? by Tana Hoban. Greenwillow, 1987.
Is It Rough? Is It Smooth? Is It Shiny? by Tana Hoban. Greenwillow, 1984.
Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni. Astor-Honor, 1959.
By Pam Schiller and Lynne Peterson
Adapted with permission from "Count On Math: Activities for Small Hands and Lively Minds." Copyright 1997 by Pam Schiller and Lynne Peterson. Used with permission of Gryphon House, Inc., Maryland. All Rights Reserved.
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