Numeracy

Here are some suggestions of how to bring numeracy into your home if you have connectivity concerns:

1. Play a Game with your child. Any commercial board or card games you have at home are great! (Guess Who? Clue, Uno, etc)
2. Sort & Count – have your child sort & count cutlery, toys, laundry and more. Some questions you can ask are, “Where should this item go?”, “How did you know which group to put the items in?”, “How many…?”, “Which group has more items? How many more?”
3. Estimation – use pasta, cereal, coins, paper clips, etc to create a group of items. Encourage your child to estimate how many there are? Discuss what strategies you might use to help make a reasonable estimate.
4. Environmental Shape or Pattern Hunt – go on a scavenger hunt around the house (or even through picture books) and keep track of all of the different shapes or patterns you find.
5. Building, Puzzles, Mazes – build with lego, blocks or any other loose parts (coins, shells, pebbles, buttons, cereal, marshmallows) and help explore ideas like symmetry and spatial reasoning.
6. Measuring Around the House – have your child use different sized cups to play with water or paper clips, coins or blocks to measure the length of things around the house. Go on a scavenger hunt and try to find some things that are about the same size they are. What are some things that are about the same size as their feet? Their arm? Their pinky finger?
7. Physical Activities – While doing physical activities (walking from one end of the house to the other, hopping, going up or down stairs), keep track by counting both forwards and backwards. Try skip counting by 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 10’s. Create a number path to walk to by using paper or cardboard boxes to create your path.
8. Cooking & Food – have your child help out in the kitchen by counting and measuring out ingredients. Your child could count how many of various foods, utensils, cups, plates etc and help to measure ingredients while you cook or bake something together