Introducing math to preschool age children is not necessarily about worksheets or flash cards. In fact, these are likely to dissuade kids from wanting to learn about mathematical concepts. The best approach to teaching children math skills is to work on improving their 'number sense', at term that is becoming wildly popular in educational circles. The concept is to encourage children to think about and explore numbers, shapes and patterns.
One of my favorite things to do is use high quality children's literature to teach math concepts. I am working with my four year old boy on shapes right now, and I found this fantastic new book: Lots of Dots, by Craig Frazier. It inspired me to pull out the M&M mini candies.
We had fun exploring the different circle concepts in the book. We matched colored candies to colored dots, compared sizes, made patterns with the M&M's to match or change patterns in the book, and then had a chocolate treat as well!
How can flash cards ever compete with chocolate?
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