The initial phase of your child’s education, which will probably last more than 20 years, is preschool. Given the young age of their children, parents may have the most important role to play at this point. One of the two essential academic abilities your kid should learn in preschool is numeracy, along with reading. Your assistance will be essential to maintaining your child’s enthusiasm in math and laying a solid foundation that will benefit him or her in primary school.
This is due to the fact that learning can take place outside of the classroom, since the actual world offers a wealth of easily accessible everyday experiences and activities that parents can utilize to assist their children in developing a knowledge of mathematical ideas. In this article, The Learning Lab highlights some ways through which parents can nurture numeracy skills in their preschool children from a young age.
Preschoolers should begin to grasp four fundamental mathematical ideas at a young age: counting and number sense, measures, geometry and spatial relationships, and patterning abilities. Although these ideas may seem abstract, there are numerous useful strategies to encourage your child’s innate curiosity and help him or her become interested in and familiar with them.
1. Counting and Number Sense
Counting and numbers are often the first mathematical concepts children encounter in their lives. The chances are that you have introduced your child to some kind of counting through his or her interactions with everyday items even before enrolling in preschool. You may even have gotten your child started on writing out the numbers from 0 to 9.
Here are a few more structured suggestions that you can consider to stimulate your child’s learning:
- Allowing him or her to experiment more by playing with different sets of daily objects in the classroom/at home
- Encouraging him or her to count out loud and learning to pen down the numerals after counting
- Incorporating some mathematical terms (e.g. “one thing/two things”, “more than”, “less than”, “many”, “little”) when speaking to your child
- Using stimulus like toys or snacks to teach him or her about the relationship between numbers (e.g. “Can you show me three of your favourite toys? If you gave me one, how many would you have left?”
Through such daily encounters that you orchestrate, your child will be better able to develop the ability to see relationships between numbers, compare different sets and numbers of objects, and vocalise the appropriate terms.
2. Measurements
Your child is also starting to visually measure, classify, and categorize individuals and objects based on characteristics like color, weight, height, and volume at this developmental period. To put it another way, he or she is learning how to use comparisons and observations to either group or separate items.
You may want to think about the following to help your youngster learn measurement ideas more quickly:
- Building constructions with toy blocks of various sizes and colors while letting your child construct their own according to a set of guidelines (for example, a structure five blocks high composed entirely of red blocks)
- Using touch and sight to assist them in visualizing and sensing the differences between the structures
- Encouraging children to use directional phrases and suitable terminology for object comparison (e.g., “The tall structure made up of many red blocks is heavier than the short structure made up of a few green blocks”) to explain what they perceive
3. Geometry and Spatial Relationships
Since it serves as the foundation for many more intricate mathematical ideas that your child may come across at higher levels in the future, your child’s comprehension of shapes and spatial relationships is crucial. Your preschooler is being introduced to the ideas of forms, sizes, angles, and dimensions for the first time as they start interacting with both flat (2-D) and solid (3-D) shapes on a daily basis.
At first, your child might not know how to communicate such differences. You can assist them by:
- Employing appropriate terminology to classify and identify the various shapes and discuss their differences (for example, the square block lies beneath the table)
- Using familiar objects (such as straws, playdough, Lego bricks, and stationery) that kids can use to play and create shapes
- To help your child visualize, match 2-D pictures or objects with their appropriate 3-D things.
- Recognizing and repeating the geometric forms your youngster encounters both indoors and outdoors
4. Patterning Skills
As the name implies, patterning skills are the capacity to arrange things in a particular sequence such that they repeat and form a logical pattern. This could be represented by images, forms, or numbers. In order to determine what comes next, preschoolers are learning to analyze patterns and draw connections between objects.
What you can do to help your child pick up these skills include:
Developing interactive, real-world patterns that allow kids to use 3-D items and better comprehend and remember the idea
To better engage and interest your child, use their favorite colors and things (e.g., encouraging your child to arrange his or her toys by size, type, or color).
Using a variety of senses to demonstrate that patterns are present everywhere (e.g., “Look at all these leaves”). They are all green, albeit some are larger than others.
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