Preschool Math Teaching Moments

Did you blow a math teaching moment today? How to preschool your child in math without them knowing it.

What You Need To Know

Throughout the day there are great opportunities for teaching young ones about mathematics. Our daily tasks involve sizes, shapes, numbers and quantity.

By acknowledging the existence of math in everyday life, a child can gain a greater understanding of the subject.

• A young child learns that objects exist, can be moved, and sometimes fit together.
• As language improves children can acknowledge mathematical concepts.
• Children who learn number concepts through hands-on play gain a broader view of math.
• The best Early Years (Birth-5)
• The problem-solving questions will pique a child's curiosity.

How You Can Help

Keep your eyes open for math teaching moments. Here’s a few to try at home.

• The Glass Is: Using three glasses, fill one to the top, one in the middle and leave one empty. Ask your child to identify them. Experts say many preschoolers will understand the idea of empty and more, but others may have trouble with half and less.
• Bean Cup: Give your child three plastic cups and a container of dried beans. Ask them to fill one cup full of beans, leave one empty, and fill the third with fewer beans than the full cup but more than the empty one. Over time young a child can understand the concepts of equations, fractions and the notion of zero.
• More Math Moments:    
• Use a measuring tape try measuring toy blocks or legos with your child.                                         
• Math concepts can be found in children's books. Kids like to count the food that upsets the stomach of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. There are many online activities related to this story.   (http://www.teachingheart.net/veryhungrycaterpillar.html)
• Cooking in the kitchen allows for kids to help measure ingredients using cups and spoons.  How about a recipe for baking bread with yeast? (http://www.education.com/activity/article/speakaboo-yeast-dough/)

We use math in our everyday lives. Seek out those math moments to share with your preschooler and maybe they’ll spot the next one.         

Education.com has preschool math worksheet and printables for improving math concepts:

http://www.education.com/worksheets/preschool/math/

For more on this topic, see the complete article:

http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Mathematics_Through/