1 little, 2 little, 3 little ornaments. Decorating the tree was on my to-do list this weekend. As you can see by the picture, decorating 1 tree wasn’t enough.
We had to do another one, complete with chopstick branches, elastic bands and beads. But whatever you use, there’s some math and kindergarten readiness learning in those decorations.
One of the obvious learning activities is counting the decorations. Older kidlets will be able to count with some degree of accuracy–for small numbers–but they need lots of opportunities to practice counting. This helps them build mental concepts of how many objects go with each number, so that they can look at 3 ornaments and say 3 right away instead of having to count 1…2…3.
An important concept for younger kids is that one number goes with one thing. We’ve all seen little ones count 3 things and end up with a very different number because they kept counting the same ones over and over. They haven’t yet learned that 1 number = 1 object. Setting out a few decorations on the floor or table and saying each number as each decoration gets hung really helps. When the decorations are done, so is the counting.
A third learning activity is matching decorations that are the same. Grownups sort out all the breakable and unsafe ones. Then, kids may be able to sort out the others. Some decorations might be soft. Maybe some are bells that make a lovely noise. Are there some snowflakes that belong in a group? Sorting and categorizing are another skill that helps for readiness for kindergarten.
By including a little bit of learning in activities that we are already doing we are giving kids a life-long gift. Is this something you feel comfortable doing?