Everyday maths ideas
There’s maths to be found in all sorts of places. If you’re mindful of the opportunities you can weave some practical maths games into your everyday routines and play – giving your children the counting, sorting and matching practise that forms the foundation of later maths (and literacy) skills, without sitting down for formal lessons or loosing a playful approach.
Toddlers and pre-schoolers usually love to help with the household chores so here are three ideas to mix in some maths.
- When you hang out the washing together ask your helper if they can match the clothes pegs into colour pairs and pass you them two at a time to peg up each piece of clothing.
- At a mealtime have your child work out how many people are going to be eating. Ask them to pick out the rigth number of cutlery and sort them into knives, forks and spoons.
- At laundry time, matching pairs of socks is tailor made for toddlers!
These activities let young children see how maths is important in the real world and help them practise their skills in context, which is a more valuable learning experience than using a set of flashcards. They also let you mix in some maths whilst still getting on with all the chores you need to do.
happily shared with Tot School and preschool corner
Go fish maths game
This maths game combines crafting, turn taking and a bit of science as well as the chance to work on counting and number ordering. It’s easy to create the materials for the game and you can adapt it to suit whichever set of numbers you’re working on – or make a set with letters if you want to practise the alphabet.
You’ll need to start by making a set of fish.
1. Cut out some fish shapes from some coloured card and let the children decorate them. Leave a space on each one to add a number.
2. Fill in the numbers on each fish. We start out with numbers 1-10 but you can add more, or perhaps use 10, 20, 30… depending on which number sequence you’d like to play with.
3. To make a magnetic version you can add a metal paperclip near the mouth of each fish. You can then use a magnetic fishing rod (which you can make by trying a magnet to a piece of string) to go fishing for your number letters.
How to play:
- Place the fish, number side up, on the floor, in a hoop or in a bucket. Or make an undersea landscape picture for them to swin in.
- The easiest version of the game is to practise your hand-eye co-ordination and just let the children go fish. See if they can recognise the numbers on each fish they catch. Encourage the children to co-operate and take turns with the fishing rod.
- You can aim to catch the fish in ascending or descending number order, or just see which ones they catch and arrange them into a sequence once they’ve all been caught.
- Tell the children you had ten fish when you started and, as they catch the fish, ask them if they can work out how many more must be left in the pond.
- You can try some sums too. Pick a number, say 3, and then catch a fish. Can you add the number on the fish to your starting number of 3? (you might like to use a number line to help work this out). Or have the children catch two fish and see if they can add their numbers together.
- If you have an older sibling playing along they can practise their number bonds. If they catch a 3, what number do they need to add to get to ten? They could work on times tables too.
As an alternative, you can make version of the fish with letters instead of numbers. When they catch a fish you can see if the children can say the sound of the letter they have. Can they think of something that starts with that letter? Can they find something in the room that starts with the letter?
We like to use this game to make numbers (and letters) fun and have the children approach learning them in a playful way. How do you add numbers to your play?
Counting ladybirds
Make a set of number ladybirds, add in some stickers and have some counting fun.
Taking a child’s passion and using it to practise a new skill works really well. I know a child who *loves* stickers – that simple process of peel and stick, peel and stick, gives them immense satisfaction! So I thought I’d use this in a different way to help us work on our counting too. Ladybirds with spots lend themselves to counting games really well, and sticker dots are inexpensive and easy to get hold of.
To start your ladybird counting, first make your ladybirds.
- Cut out some ladybird shapes from card.
- Write on them numbers one to ten.
- Let the children lose with the stickers – putting the right number of spots on each ladybird.
Here are some of the ideas we played:
- Can you find the ladybird with a number one?
- Can you add the right number of stickers to match the number?
- Which ladybird has got the most stickers?
- Can you line up the ladybirds from one to ten, or from ten to one.
- This ladybird has two spots – can you find a ladybird with one spot more?
- How old are you? Can you find a ladybird with the same number of spots?
Maths ideas for babies
Are you teaching your baby any maths? We focus a lot on helping babies develop physical skills and learn to communicate but learning about maths starts at a very young age too. The whole ethos of our SUPERbaby series is on simple, playful things you can easily fit in with your everyday play with your baby so I’m not suggesting getting out any flashcards or doing any formal maths lessons but here are Five Maths Ideas for Babies that will blend in with your day easily and encourage your little one to have a great start in life.
- Counting: The first one’s the easiest and most obvious and is simply to count. When you use blocks to build a tower, when you place finger foods on your babies plate, out and about when you look at all the ducks you’re feeding, at home when you’re reading and looking at all the teddies in your story. Pointing to each item and counting them helps your baby learn the pattern of the numbers and importantly helps them learn one-to-one correspondence – that the word ‘one’ corresponds to one physical object.
- Subtraction and addition: It might seem strange to think about your baby doing calculations but the ideas of ‘One More?’ and ‘All gone!’ at a meal time are just that, and a very important starting point for later addition and subtraction.
- Dimensions: Babies just love exploring objects, passing them from hand to hand, turning them and putting them in and out of pots. If you give some thought to the objects you give them, trying to include lots of different shapes and sizes, you’re giving them the opportunity to learn about sizes and dimensions as they play. Provide interesting resources and let your little mathematician do the exploring.
- Singing: There are lots of nursery rhymes which use numbers and let you count up or down. Using props or your fingers as you sing reinforces the concepts of numbers relating to actual objects. Try Three Cheeky Monkeys, 12345 Once I Caught a Fish Alive or One Potato, Two Potato.
- Volume: Using water play (and sand play when they’re a little older) is a great medium for exploring volume. Simply add in some jugs and pots and let your baby (or help them to) fill the jugs and pour them in to the containers. Babies (and children – and adults too!) learn through doing, being part of the action and trying things out for themselves – and trying to pour a big jug full of water into a small container is a great lesson in volume.
What else do you play to help your baby learn maths?
Our SUPERbaby play series focuses on simple, playful ideas you can use with the youngest of children to have fun and encourage them to develop important early learning skills. The emphasis is on ideas you can easily fit into a busy week, using materials you’ll have around your home. View all our SUPERbaby ideas here.
happily shared with Math Monday and Works For Me Wednesday and Tot Tuesday and ABC and 123 and We Play
Rabbit craft
Are you celebrating the Chinese new year next week? I like to observe celebrations from around the world with the children as I think it open their eyes to diverse cultures, showing them how people around the world are different but how the basis of many traditions are very similar too. We like to make Chinese style lanterns (which are perfect for practising scissors skills) and eating a Chinese meal. This year, which begins on 3rd February 2011, will be the year of the rabbit so here’s an idea for a craft you could try:
Potato Printing a Rabbit
We used potatoes and carrots to print with to make our rabbit. (Seems appropriate to use carrots, don’t you think?) Carrot printing is great for younger children as the carrots are just right for holding in little hands. Potatoes are a little more cumbersome to hold but you can make easier for the children to grasp if you cut out a handle into the top – as shown in the picture.
This rabbit design provides the opportunity to mix in some maths, as we thought about what shapes we could use to make our pictures. We decided to make a picture using just two shapes: circles and triangles.
I used a knife to cut out a triangle from the carrots, the potatoes were simply sliced in half.
We also talked about size as we used a big shape to make the body, ears and carrots and a small shape for the head, nose and carrot leaves.
We enjoyed having a specific project – working out how to form our rabbits and follow our instructions to create the pictures – but it was great to add in time at for some free style printing too, to see what other designs we could come up with using the circles and triangles.
More Chinese New Year activities
Raise a global child! Exploring festivals from different countries and cultures is a wonderful way to learn about the world. You can see our archive of Chinese New Year activities here.
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