Math Activities

Counting

Give your child a handful of objects (pennies, cereal, crayons.....) and have them touch and pull objects toward them as they count. (Practice counting up to 20.)

Have your child count to 20 each night after supper.

Grouping

Give your child a handful of assorted items.  Have your child sort the items and put them into groups or categories.  Example:  Give your child a pile of assorted change coins.  Encourage your child to group the coins by size, shape, or color.  Next  make a line of pennies, a line of dimes, and a line of nickels. Discuss more and less.

Patterning

Give your child two small handfuls of two different objects and have them create a pattern.

(ABABABAB or ABBABBABB or AAABAAABAAAB or AABBAABBAABB or ABCABCABC)

 Recognizing Shapes

Look for shapes in every day life and name them. This is a great game for car trips!

 (Circle, triangle, square, and rectangle)

Ordering Numbers

Take four random cards from a deck of cards and put them  in order from lowest to highest number. (Exclude face cards)

Use dominoes for this game too!

More Less and Equal Number Game

More Wins:

The deck of cards is divided into halves, one for each player and placed face down.  Each turns up a card and the higher card captures the other card.  In order to claim the cards the winner must use appropriate language to express the relationship between the two numbers.  For example, if the players turn up a nine  and a five , the player who has the nine  must say "nine  is more  than  five " before taking the pack. Play continues until the turned cards are the same.  When the cards are the same shout "equal number" and each player keeps their card.  Play continues until all cards are played.     Each person counts their collected cards.  The winner is the person with the most cards!

Less Wins:

Same as the game above but the person with less wins the game. "2 is less than five so I win this hand"

Printing Numerals

Use a different writing tools each day to print numerals 1-10.

Shaving cream on a cookie sheet

Magna Doodle board

Magic Board

Dry Erase Board with Markers

Chalk board

Paint brush with paints

Special markers, pencils, or pens

Number Rhymes

 Around we go to make a zero

 Straight line down, then we're done that's the way to make a one

 Around and back on the railroad track..... Two, Two..

 Around a tree, around a tree, that's the way to make a three

 Down and over and down once more, that's the way to make a four

 Grab your hat, go down the street and around the corner

 Stick and a hoop do the tricks, that's the way to make a six

 Across and down, it rhymes with eleven, that's the way to make a seven

 Make an S and do not wait, go back up and that's an eight!

 A loop and a line, that's a nine.

Everyday Mathematics  Link