Doing preschool match at home is a great way to help your child get a better foundation for the math in their future. It is an excellent way for you, the parent, to get more involved, and help your child be kindergarten ready and learn more. Here are some tips for home activities for preschool math:
1. Talk about math in daily life, and let your preschooler get involved in it. For example, when you make dinner, or cookies, or something, you can let them help you measure out the ingredients. Talk to them about what is bigger or small, half or a third of a cup, etc.
2. Play counting board games. Most board games have a lot of numbers in them. Even simple games like Chutes and Ladders involve counting up how many squares you get to move, etc. Dealing with numbers every day, and counting out spaces aloud can help kids better understand value, bigger, smaller, etc. and thus math.
3. Make a game of counting. When doing preschool math activities at home, you want to practice counting all the time. Ask your preschoolers a lot of questions, such as “How many cars do we have?” “How many plates should we set on the table?” “How many letters did we get in the mail?” The more you count with your child, the better they get at it, and the better they will be with math.
4. Point out patterns. Patterns are part of understanding math. They help kids understand space, spatial relations etc. What you want to do is help them pay attention to the difference between triangles, rectangles, polka dots, and plaids.
5. Use “math” terms in everyday life. For a preschooler to do well in math, they have to understand various aspects of spatial relations. So, use terms like above, beneath, larger, smaller, etc. The idea is that if you use them regularly, your child will understand what they mean. Once they know differences between in front of and behind, you can start talking using terms like horizontal, vertical, perpendicular, and parallel. Give directions to your preschooler using these terms to see if they grasp the concepts.6. Let your kid compare prices. When you shop, have your preschooler with you, and talk about why you might buy the bigger package that costs more overall, but less per item, ounce, etc. The idea is to give them everyday application of comparing numbers.
7. Have your preschooler sit in when you pay bills, balance checkbooks, etc. The more they see you using numbers, the better they will understand them and how they work, which in the end means better understanding of numbers.
8. When you buy your kids something, or get money out of the bank, have them watch you, count the money out, pay for things themselves, so that they get familiar with handling numbers.
9. Part of preschool math is weighing and measuring things. You want to you’re your child understand all of this by helping them create their very own growth chart. They should weigh and measure themselves regularly, so that they can record their own growth.
10. Blocks make great preschool math activities. You can sort them, count them, and have them build with them, which is all math related.