Your Child’s Hidden Math Skills
The day your baby met you, she started on her homework.
You might remember that her gaze was fixed on your face, hairline, areola, eyes, open mouth — the round things.
The interest she showed was the beginning of her ability to observe, collect information based on what she sees, and notice details of objects, or differences between objects.
Later in life those skills will be called mathematics.
There are plenty of everyday activities that teach your young child what she needs to know about future academic skills.
- Laundry – as soon as your baby can stoop and recover, or toddle, she is ready to “help” you with laundry. When you tell her that the red socks belong to sister’s clothing pile, and the white socks go in daddy’s pile, you are teaching her about sorting. Mommy’s little secret: your kid just did a chore!
- Play time – If you have a shapes puzzle for your 2 1/2 year old, know that it helps her to match an object to its form. If you don’t, take 3 or 4 household items, trace around them, and allow your child to place each item in its outline.
- Dinner preparation – This is also great way for your toddler to see you measuring ingredients, and making decisions about how much lettuce to apportion each person. Another stealth chore: those pudgy little crazy-strong hands of hers can tear lettuce and place it in bowls.
- Group play times – While your toddler won’t be able to remember the rules, or be terribly concerned about following them, she can participate in some parts of the games that older kids play. When it is time to deal each player a card, or move the game pieces two spaces because the dice landed on snake-eyes, your child learns one-to-one correspondence, a basic principle of counting.
Instead of quizzing or pressuring your child to learn, encourage her natural interest in shapes, amounts, one-for-me, one-for-you. Fun-based learning will make academic skills seem like just another part of life, rather than a stress-inducing performance.
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Carly Jennings | Cognitive Development | 
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