Preschool Math Activities

Scales with different objects
Purchase a small see-saw plastic scale. Set out some plastic containers filled with a variety of dry goods. Ideas are rice, beans, sand, marbles (be careful with younger toddler who put things in their mouths!). Let your toddler find quantities to balance the scale with differing items.

Puzzles
Puzzles are important for pattern recognition, spatial relationships, and logical thinking which are all necessary skills to read, do math, and develop problem-solving strategies.

A selection of puzzles for your toddler’s preschool math activities is essential and often these make wonderful quiet time activities too. Ages 3+ can start with any in the 12 – 24 piece range or larger if they have done puzzles form young. 4+ can do from 24 – 48 and on.

Giant floor puzzles are also huge amounts of fun and they encourage crossing the midline as well as gross motor skills.

Matching
Matching games come in a variety of forms. You can take a few pictures from a magazine and stick them on card. Cut them in half and mix them up. Your preschooler can them match the halves.

Many puzzles come in sets of opposites to match as well as missing parts. These are all good investments.

Sorting
From socks, to knives, from shoes to colours, everything can be sorted. Involve your preschooler in your laundry work and you have a host of preschool math activities to do.

Tangrams
Tangrams are polygon plastic shapes which are bought in a set often with outline shapes that your preschooler can piece together. These are wonderful as a quiet time activity.

Sequencing
Sequencing skills are important for reading and math. These can first be taught in the concrete by using picture cards. You can download this set of gardening sequencing cards to get an idea of how to make some yourself.

You can also teach sequencing in the abstract by talking about your timing for going out. For instance, if you are about to go out grocery shopping you may say to your preschooler:
“First we are going to get socks and shoes on.”
“Then we need to get our shopping bags and mom’s purse.”
“We will drive in the car to [Walmart] and do our shopping.”

You can also ask your child to sequence things, for instance at breakfast time:
“Today we are having waffles. What do we need to do first…[second, third etc]

Numbers
Teaching your 3 year old preschooler their numbers is a little early but some children, like my 4 child, are interested in numbers and letters from an early age. Learning the shape of a number is the easy part but this needs to be followed with understanding one-on-one-correspondence.

The easy way to teach them to recognise numbers is to print out a large number in your text program and insert a corresponding amount clipart picture. Stick these numbers (1 – 5 and later 1 – 10) somewhere that they can see them – perhaps at the breakfast area.

Counting
Counting skills can be taught as you ask your preschooler to help lay the table. If there are just three of you eating then ask for 3 knives and count them as your child lays them out. Follow with the spoons, knives, plates and glasses.

You can count parked cars while waiting at a robot, flowers in a flower bed, toys on the bed, shoes in the cupboard as well.

Later you may want to introduce counting cubes and a number card. You would then show your preschooler a number card and how many cubes that represents.

Preschool math activities should always be in the concrete i.e. things that your toddler can feel and manipulate, never in the abstract.

Months
This lovely calendar is a great way to teach your preschooler about the months of the year. It comes with stickers that they can add on certain days. We do one every year.

Use my seasonal activities to teach your child about passing time.

Time
Once your child knows their numbers up to 12 you can start to teach them to read the time on both and analogue and digital clock.