Community Education - current class catalogs Families - Winter 2017 | Page 22

Early Math Discovery

Early Math Discovery
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University tell us children are
born mathematicians! Children use and experiment with
math, years before they can read or write. Yet the thought
of being your preschool child’s math learning partner can
leave many parents overwhelmed and confused. Learn how
you can make math fun for the whole family.

Where do you start?
“Math is everywhere and a part of a child’s everyday
experience, so the time to start experimenting with math
is when they are babies,” says Cameo Kolonight, Early
Childhood Family Education (ECFE) teacher. “Of course,
we can’t expect a six-month old to count. However, if your
child has asked for more, they have shown an early math
concept.” It’s important to change how you think about math
– it will make it much less intimidating.

Math for early learners includes some of the
following concepts:

What can you do?

• Meaningful counting: one at a time,
backwards, skip counting

Young children learn best when they engage their senses and
add movement. Try connecting a math concept to everyday
interactions. Kolonight shares ways that you can help your
child learn early math skills by building on their natural
curiosity and having fun together:
•C
 omparing - When playing blocks with your child, talk about
the shape of a rectangular block. Compare a square block
to a triangle block. Count sides and corners of each. Expand
their learning by asking if a tower of blocks is taller or shorter
than they are or if the blue block is above the red block.
•S
 orting and classifying are concepts that can begin very
young – sorting colors and shapes of blocks, or matching
socks when sorting laundry. Extend the learning as your
child ages by adding patterns. Make a necklace out of
colored cereal or a pattern out of blocks. Alternate the
colors or shapes to make a pattern. Ask your child, “What
color or shape comes next?”
•C
 ounting is the most familiar form of early math. As you go
up or down stairs with your child, begin counting up from
one. Then as your child masters that, practice counting
backwards. “We went up ten steps, let’s count backwards as
we go down – 10, 9, 8…”
•E
 stimating, while more advanced, can be done by counting
stop signs or street signs and then estimating if there
is more of one than the other. Or in the bathtub using
measuring cups – estimate how many smaller cups it will
take to fill up a larger cup.

• Comparison: bigger, smaller, longer, shorter,
heavier, lighter
• Sorting and classifying: by color, shape,
texture, size
• Patterning: What comes next? What is the
pattern? Can you guess my pattern?

Think of early math as building a foundation –
just like a house is built on a foundation. In the
toddler years, you can help your child begin
to develop their early math foundation that
will be built upon when they enter school.

Parents are the key to success!
Your attitude about math is essential to your
child’s success. A positive interest in early
math exploration will encourage your child
to embrace rather than fear math. When
you combine young children’s curiosity
about their world with an environment full of
hands-on materials and experiences, you are
helping to create lifelong learners.
Finally, Kolonight adds these words of
encouragement to all parents, “If your
school experience with math was less than
ideal, keep in mind your child’s experience
may very well be very different than yours.
New approaches to learning math skills and
curriculum may be unfamiliar, but there are
math resources available to help both your
child and you.”
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