Teaching Math to Young Children - post

Math concepts and skills can be taught to children and practiced through games. Learning new skills can be fun through games. Kids are more likely to practice math if the games are fun for them.

The Creature Spots game, which instructs coordinated correspondence and cardinality, requires the accompanying materials:

• Animal illustrations or materials that kids can use to draw their own animals.
• Small circles of paper to use as spots.
• Glue.
• A die or spinner to figure out how many spots to put on each animal.

You can either give each child a large animal outline or have them each draw an animal's outline on paper. To determine how many spots to allocate to each child's animal, they should all throw the die. The children should choose the same number of "spots" from a bowl of paper circles in the center of the table after counting out the number of dots on the die's face. Once they have selected the appropriate number, they can apply the spots to their creatures. Instructors can utilize the Creature Spots game with the whole class, a small group, or one on one. To ensure educational play, teachers can participate in the game's play.

Looking for more ways to add math activities to the classroom? Visit ChildCareEd and register for one of the following training courses.

• No Such Thing as Boring Math
• Letter & Number Planning in Child Care

Teaching Math to Young Children. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES). 2013. https://whatworks.ed.gov.