What Children Should Know Entering Kindergarten
…..and how to get them to know it.
Your child’s first teacher is you! Below is a list of activities, conversation starters, and resources to help you expose your child to mathematical concepts in their every day lives, making math meaningful.
Activities:
· Use food items to count, compare and talk about patterns. Make different piles of snacks and ask if the piles are fair. Encourage the use of comparison language with words like more/ less, bigger/ smaller. Ask children to prove their ideas to you with counting. Food items can also be used to talk about patterns for example, make a pattern with fruit and ask what would come next.
· Practice addition and subtraction using snacks, small toys, or blocks. Show children that addition is putting groups together and subtraction is taking them apart.
· Use a calendar to keep track of days. This will give your child practice connecting written numbers to words. Count up or down to special events or holidays.
· Cook with your children! Let them see you read the recipes. Have them measure and count ingredients.
· Read mathematical literature such as Anno’s Counting Book or talk about mathematical concepts in familiar stories like Goldilocks and The Three Bears. See the Resources section below for a link to a great mathematical literature title list.
Some conversation starters:
· “How many crackers do you think I gave you?”
· “How many M&M’s do you think are in my hand? How many of each color are there?”
· “Which cup of goldfish do you want? Which one should I get? Why do you think that?”
· “I need 4 carrots for this salad, I just cut one. How many more do I need to cut?”
· “Look at the recipe. How many scoops of flour are needed to make the cookies?”
Resources:
· Bedtime Math: Great online resource with engaging stories and pictures that will give you topics to help you talk with your child about math. http://bedtimemath.org/
· PBS Kids: Tons of math games with some of your child's favorite characters like Cat in the Hat and Curious George. pbskids.org
· Greg Tang Math: Has games for kids to play that develop number sense like Ten Frame Mania and NumTanga. http://www.gregtangmath.com/index
· APPS: Subitize Tree, Moose Math by Duck and Moose, Zap Zap Math
· Math Literature: mathicalbooks.org