Chapter 1 — I Can Hear You!

— INTRODUCTION —

What a wonderful time watching your young child learn about the world! They are little sponges observing everything going on around them and they can hear you! They play and experiment constantly, making sense of the world and learning how to crawl, walk, talk, and interact with all that they are experiencing.

Mathematics is a natural part of this world they are learning about. No matter what your experiences and feelings about math, this is your chance to make mathematics a playful and fun activity that your family does together.

For now, the main mathematical activity to do together will be exposing your child constantly to mathematical language and ideas. Counting things out loud as you work with them and naming items that your child plays with is what gets everything rolling.

Have fun! This is an amazing time for your family!

— NEW IDEAS IN THIS CHAPTER —

Here is a quick list of topics that will be covered in this chapter.

• Have fun with math together!

• Verbalize math — You are doing math all the time in your head. Include your child by verbalizing it.

• Point and describe — When you are talking about something, point to it and then talk about it.

• Expose - Your child is learning by being exposed to things. Your child will probably not understand things initially, but by frequent exposure your child will pick up on the patterns and learn what is going on.

• Count everything out loud.

• Objects have properties that can be named, described, and discussed.

*SECTION* — MATH OUT LOUD

ACTIVITY — MATH OUT LOUD — GENERAL

At these early ages, it is all about exposure! Your child is being exposed to a wide array of experiences and is discovering patterns. Expose your child to math and play with math together. Start this even before your child seems to understand what you are saying. Your child is a sponge who will eventually understand your words.

Make a habit of pointing at things your child is interacting with and describing them with words involving numbers, shapes, and colors. If you are dealing with a small set of things, count them out loud to your child.

ACTIVITY — MATH OUT LOUD — SHOPPING

There are many things to count or describe when you shop in a store. Count the apples you buy or the people in line in front of you. Point out the shapes of fruit or pictures on food boxes.

ACTIVITY — MATH OUT LOUD — TRAVELING

While you are traveling, there are many opportunities to talk mathematically with your child. For example, if you see a somewhat unusual red car, you can point that out and count together other red cars that are like it. Similarly, you might see a big truck and start counting those. You might see a circle in a design in a building and ask your child to point out other circles they see. There is no end to the shapes, colors, and counting that you can find and talk about once you get used to looking for them.

ACTIVITY — MATH OUT LOUD — SWINGS

Pushing your child on the swings is a perfect opportunity to count with your child. With each push, count "1, 2, 3, 4, 5." After your child starts learning how to count to 5, counting down from 5 is also a good idea. Start or end at 0 sometimes.

ACTIVITY — INTERACTIVE READ OUT LOUD

Story time is a wonderful chance to do a bit of math with your child during a cozy time. This builds up happy associations with math that encourage your child to see math as something pleasant to do together.

As you read a story with your child, talk about things in the pictures and in the story. If there are birds in the picture, point to the birds and count the birds to your child: "Look, there are 1, 2, 3 birds in the tree." If there is a big yellow sun, point to the sun and say: "The sun is round and it is yellow. The wall of this room is also yellow. Point to something round in this room." As your child gets older and understands more things, you can count together or you can ask your child to point to things you describe.

*SECTION* — SHAPES

ACTIVITY — SHAPES INSIDE SHAPES

Help your child explore the physical relationships between shapes by providing an environment rich in opportunities.

Cut holes (square, circle, triangle) in a box and watch your child fit toys through them.

Add different colors to outline the holes (red triangle, blue circle, yellow square) and name the shape of the hole when your child puts the toy through.

ACTIVITY — CREATE A JIGSAW PUZZLE

Make a puzzle for your child to play with. Have your child paint or draw on a piece of cardboard or stiff paper.

Cut the paper into large pieces. Jigsaw puzzle!

ACTIVITY — SHAPE HUNT

Similar to I Spy, play this game anywhere!

Player 1: "I'm thinking of a large blue circle."
Player 2: "I see it! It's the clock!"

Take turns with your child observing and finding.

Start with simple shapes, add size and color, and then add shape inside of shape or other arrangements.

ACTIVITY — COLORED TILINGS

Create a set of "tiles" from cardboard or stiff paper. Use the patterns in the Printables pdf to create a set of shapes that fit well together. Use one color for each shape (red squares, blue triangles, etc.). Watch your child make patterns fitting the tiles together. Name the shapes and colors as they go.

With older children, talk about patterns in the tiling that repeat. Also, talk about symmetries in the overall design. Some designs have one side that is the reflection of the other side, and that is called mirror symmetry.

After your child has made a few designs, start pointing out patterns in the tiled floors and buildings that you see.

*SECTION* — OBJECT DESCRIPTIONS

ACTIVITY — LAUNDRY SORTING

Let's sort laundry! What a great way to find properties that make things the same or different.

• Sort by colors to be washed together.

• Sort by type (and size) when clean.

• Talk about why socks make a pair.

GAME — OBJECT HUNT

Version one:

• Guesser -- finds a specific object.
• Puzzler -- describes the object.

Version two:

• Guesser -- asks questions about the object until they guess what it is.
• Puzzler -- answers yes/no questions.

Incorporate concepts into the game that your child is learning, such as color, size (large, medium, small), weight (heavy, light), quantity, and relationship (inside, on top of, below).

GAME — PATTERNS

Patterns are everywhere! See how many you can make with your child. Play with:

• Movement patterns: stepping, jumping, waving, nodding
• Sound patterns: clapping, knee slapping, tongue clicking, stamping
• Loudness patterns: soft, medium, loud
• Visual patterns: color, shape, size

Player one: makes a pattern and challenges the other person to repeat it. (Step, clap, jump)
Player two: can repeat and eventually add to the pattern, challenging player one to repeat it. (Step, clap, jump, touch their nose)

As you get better, challenge each other to repeat longer and longer patterns from memory. You can use a pattern as a secret code for getting through a passageway. You can also make necklaces with your child by taking string and threading on beads or bits of food to create repeating patterns. Walking hand in hand, you can use hand squeeze patterns.

ACTIVITY — SAME AND DIFFERENT

Choose two items that are somewhat similar. How are they similar? How are they different?

Allow your child lots of freedom to come up with unusual reasons. Sometimes let your child pick the two items to challenge you to come up with the similarities and differences.

For example, pick a spoon and a fork. They are similar because you eat with them and they are both kept in the kitchen. They are different because one is pointy and one is round.

One variation is to choose an item and ask which things in the room are similar to it and which things are very different from it.

*SECTION* — Counting up to 5

Prerequisite: Beginning ability to count from 1 to 5

ACTIVITY — NUMBER HUNT

Pick a number, say 2. Challenge your child to go on a treasure hunt to find as many ways as possible that 2 shows up around you. It may show up as the numeral 2 on a wall, sign, or building, or it may show up as two of something, such as two chairs or two dishes.

GAME — IN THE OTHER HAND

Start with a bowl of small pieces of food. Have your child count out loud a few items from the bowl, say 5, and give them to you. Secretly divide these items between your hands and then hold both hands out with one hand open and the other closed. Your child now counts aloud the items in the open hand and then chooses which hand to "steal" from. Have your child predict how many items will be stolen before you open your hand.

The stolen items become part of your child's pile, and you keep the remaining items. Play continues for as many rounds as needed until the bowl is empty. At the end, you both line up your items next to each other to see who has more.

ACTIVITY — ONE MORE ONE LESS

As understanding of the first few numbers grows, ask your child questions about one more or one less. Without talking about how many items there currently are, ask "Would you like one more?" or "Would you like one less?"
Slowly, start emphasizing the current quantity and how it changes. Count the number of items together, perhaps two apple slices on your child's plate.

Summarize saying there are two apple slices, and ask if your child would like one more apple slice or perhaps one less. If the amount does change, end by asking how many apple slices there are now.

Similarly, when you are walking about, pick out things to count. Suppose there are three people in line in front of you. Count them together and ask how many there will be when one leaves and there will be one less.

GAME — NUMBER GOBBLER

With some food item you have a lot of, make a 21-piece triangle with 1 piece in the top row, 2 pieces in the next, up to 6 pieces in the last row.

Take turns with your child rolling a die. Each time the count of a roll matches a row that is still in the triangle, the player gets to remove that row and either eat it (yum) or put it in their personal pile.

Beginning players can do a 1-to-1 match of the dots on the die with the food pieces in a row. The player with the bigger pile of food wins!