1…2…3…kindergarten readiness. Kindergarten readiness will include some familiarity with numbers and early counting. Being math & logic-smart is more than numbers and being able to count, although that is certainly part of it. Children who have strong mathematical and logical intelligence (one of the 8 multiple intelligences) are also comfortable with patterns and reasoning. Even though all children have their own individual strengths and challenges, there are ways to help your child become number and logic smart. Here’s some smart fun:
- Count when
ever there is an opportunity. How many bowls are needed at breakfast? Say the numbers as you put some cranberries in the snack cup. Count the buttons on the coat, the steps to the car, the fishy crackers on the plate. Count for babies so that their brains pick up the words.
- Talk about more and less/fewer. Ask questions. Do you have more fingers or do you have more noses? Compare big and little, long and short, and other relationships too.
- When sorting the laundry, make groups. If there’s a group of white clothes like socks and shirts and a group of
towels of all colors, where would a white towel go? Does it go with the towels or the white things? That’s called Venn diagrams in 3-d for kids. (Beware of red, it can turn a whole load pink!)
- Look for patterns. They can be anywhere: clothes, driveways, buildings, or fences. Make some patterns with blocks and let your child try. Lots of exposure to patterns is needed before kids can recognize them and create patterns.
- T
here are lots of books to share with your child about numbers and shapes. The structure of most stories has a problem and a solution. Before reading the page with the outcome, ask your child for suggestions about what might happen.
- Sorting toys into bins, at least for a few minutes, is a hands-on way to help your child understand a system of organization.
Cups or dolls that all nest inside each other are mathematical toys based on size relationships.
There are countless ways (quirky humor intended) to help your child be logic/math smart and develop kindergarten readiness. Can you number some of these in your days?