You are your child’s first
and most important teacher. You can help your child be successful by talking
about math in your daily life, helping with homework, and choosing activities
like games and puzzles that help children practice basic skills. When talking
about math, make sure your child can tell that you think math is useful,
important, accessible, and interesting.
Math in Family Life
By the end of kindergarten,
children should be counting to 100, reading numbers to 31, writing numbers to
30, using pictures and objects to solve simple addition and subtraction
problems, comparing the length, weight, or capacity of different objects, and
identifying basic shapes. The examples below might give you some ideas about
how to practice these and other important skills with your kindergartener as
you go about your daily life.
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At Home
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• Use the calendar to count
up to or back from a special day, like a birthday or holiday.
•Ask your child to help by
counting household items, for example, forks for a large family dinner or
quarters for lunch money.
• When counting large
numbers of things, help your child group and count them by 2’s (2, 4, 6…), 5’s
(5, 10,15…), or 10’s (10, 20, 30…).
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At the Store
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• Ask your child to count
the items you want to buy, for example, 10 cans of tomatoes.
• Ask your child to add
with objects. (I picked out 2 oranges and you picked out 3 oranges. How
many do we have altogether?)
• Ask your child to
subtract with objects. (We have 7 apples. I think that’s too many. If we
put 2 back, how many will we have left?)
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On the Go
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• Have your child watch for
your bus or train. (Tell me when you see the bus with a 19 on it.)
• Look for and discuss 2-D
and 3-D shapes. (I see something that’s a cube. Can you find it? or
Can you see some rectangles out the window? How about circles? Do you
notice more rectangles or circles?)
• Talk about the time it
takes to get somewhere or the times on bus or train schedules. (It’s 3:05.
The bus is supposed to come at 3:09. How many minutes will we have to wait?)
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At the Store
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Math Materials to Have
at Home
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Games That Use Math
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Keep these items in your
home and help your child use them.
• ruler •
blocks •
measuring cups • measuring tape
• measuring spoons •
calendar amounts •
clock with hands
• real money: many
coins and bills of different
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Playing games together is a
relaxed and effective way to improve students’ basic skills. Games like the
ones listed below are appropriate for kindergarteners.
• Chutes and
Ladders •
dominoes
• Candyland •
Connect Four •
checkers •
Simple card games like Go Fish and Hearts
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For more information about
helping your kindergartener with math, including suggestions about library
books
related to math and online
practice games, go to www.mathlearningcenter.org/resources/materials/parentsK.asp.
Bridges in Mathematics Parents
and teachers may reproduce for classroom and home use. ©The Math Learning
Center