Need a play dough recipe? Salt dough recipe, bread dough recipe, no cook play dough recipe?
How about a year’s worth of playdough play ideas – including math, literacy and creative play.
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.
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
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:
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?
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.
Here are some of the ideas we played:
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.
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
