Teaching kids numbers through daily activities

We have many opportunities to create an awareness of numbers for our children in our daily lives. I am truly amazed by young school-going children who help their parents mind their stalls in the market. They can work out the maths even before you produce your calculator.

Pepper your conversations with maths vocabulary like “I wonder” utterances. Say to the kid: “I wonder if there is a box this present can fit into,” “I wonder how many pairs of socks went into the wash,” or “I wonder if you are heavier when you wear your pyjamas or your play clothes.”

Rather than correct your child’s number attempts, ask questions to encourage further exploration or self-correction. Years ago when I was working with a four-year-old to count from one to 10, she would practise her counting with the number rods, picking up each rod as I called out the number. When she picked up the incorrect one, I’d say: “Count again, and see if you get the same number.”

Get your preschooler to do inventories or play treasure hunts at home. Ask him how many black shoes there are in your house. Count the apples and oranges before storing them in the fridge. Put things in boxes. Find out which one fits.

Encourage your child to collect things like rocks, stamps, buttons, lids, keys. He can sort them by colour and size. Let him find out different ways he can put them in groups. How about shapes? Well, they can also be the ones he likes and those that he doesn’t.

Make a spinner of dots and another with numbers. You can also use dice for games like snakes and ladders (which you will have to improvise on a large piece of paper).

Let your child make up some rules to the games. There will always be disagreements about rules when children and adults play together. It is great too to help them develop thinking skills when they learn to negotiate.

Children also like to work on sequences. Get life-cycle pictures of, say, a butterfly, frog, human and bird. Your child will put them in order as they discover a thing or two about life cycles.

Develop a family routine chart. Your children will find it easier to cope with daily chores and activities when they know what to expect. Take photographs of each activity and number them according to the times.

Your child can also draw his own pictures to indicate these routine activities. When children draw up their charts, parents may find it interesting to note which activities are important to their kids.

Get a cardboard box to make a dollhouse with your child (even boys can do it). Your child can understand spatial relationships. He can also count the pieces of furniture that go into the dollhouse.

Used egg-cartons make a great counting tool. Children can place their small objects like beads or pasta shells in each of the egg cups. For those who have number recognition, put a number to correspond with the quantity.

Finally, my all-time favourite activity for learning numbers and many other things is cooking. Your child will learn to measure, count, estimate, make shapes as well as develop independence in preparing food for himself.

I remember the children aged between three and six in my daycare programme who used to make comments such as: “My mother’s fried rice is not as tasty as Aunty Samsiah’s; she uses too much salt,” or “We only use half a cup of butter to make our cookies.” They were doing fractions even before entering formal schooling.

In your daily interactions with your child, use the following words: Large, small, full, empty, first, second, third, fourth, last, under, over, around, through, beside, above, between, double, triple, half, nothing, everything, light, heavy, forward, backward, next, few, many, circle, square, rectangle.

Children learn very quickly when they get to apply these words in their activities. Numbers are everywhere in their environment. Parents need only to adapt the learning of numbers into something simpler for the young ones.

As the days in year 2011 are numbered, I’d like to wish all the readers of Childwise: “Happy New Year!” Thank you for your support all these years!

Ruth Liew is a child developmentalist, Montessori trainer and examiner. A mother of two teenage daughters, she is committed to supporting children’s rights.