Preschool Math
Teaching preschoolers math can be fun! Learn how to incorporate math learning into every day life. Find resources for free worksheets and math games for preschoolers.
Preschool Math Teaching Tips & Ideas
Preschool Math: Mastering Number Recognition and Counting
Learning about numbers is a preschooler’s first step toward becoming a budding young mathematician. And in preschool, math learning is all about counting, number recognition, and one-to-one correspondence. If a child doesn’t ace these seemingly simple skills in a timely manner, don’t fret: even math whizzes need time to blossom. But with age appropriate techniques, helping your child to master these math milestones will be as easy as 1, 2, 3!
Math for Preschoolers: More Than Just Counting
Preschool-age children are ready to explore more than one might think! Parents often focus on counting from one to ten, but there are many other skills that children are ready and able to investigate.
Preschool Practice: Shapes and Colors
Learning shapes and colors may well be a young child’s first educational endeavor. Although recognizing objects as red or blue, round or square might seem like child’s play, it’s actually integral to a young child’s cognitive development, and sets the stage for math concepts from sorting and patterning to geometry, and beyond!
What can you as a parent do to help your young learner master these academic milestones? You may not have to look beyond the backdrop of your life for the perfect learning tools. Try a few of these fun activities to help your child master colors and shapes.
Developmental Milestones for Preschool Mathematics
Children’s ability to understand mathematics takes a big leap forward in the preschool years. Their strengthening ability to represent using manipulatives, symbols, and signs opens up many new possibilities. Children also make strides in algebra and patterning. They can sequence events in time by age three. By age four, they can re-create patterns or make their own repeating pattern. During the preschool years, the child’s ability to problem solve takes on a new zeal. Children’s ability to classify objects is more developed; they can sort and organize objects into different categories and tell which pile has more. This chart details the skills that children can exhibit at different ages.
Mathematics Teaching Strategies
As a teacher, you can foster the development of early mathematical skills by providing environments rich in language, where thinking is encouraged, uniqueness is valued, and exploration is supported. Teachers support young children's diligence and mathematical development when they direct attention to the math children use in their play, challenge them to solve problems and encourage their persistence.
Simple Tips for Summer Math Learning
Summer reading clubs and story times can help with early literacy and reading, but it might seem daunting to figure out how to prepare a young child for math. Here’s the great news: you’re the right person for the job.
Kindergarten Math
Simple approaches to teaching math for preschoolers and kindergarteners in the home environment.
Choosing Preschool and Kindergarten Homeschool Curriculum
Preschool and Kindergarten – what fun ages! Play is learning and learning is play. Perhaps you’re looking for some ideas for your formal Tot School or perhaps you just want to make sure that your little ones will be ready for first grade when it comes along.
Math Play: How Young Children Approach Math
Mathematical experiences for very young children should build largely upon their play and the natural relationships between learning and life in their daily activities, interests, and questions.
Pre K Teaching Strategies and Early Childhood Education
Young children are unique creatures who love nothing more than to experience everything from tactile, hands-on items to feeling the wind in their faces as they jump off a wall. They are all about hiding under blankets to see what happens if they walk through the house like a ghost or playing safari and taking pictures with their imaginary camera.
Preparing for Preschool Math
Preschoolers do math even though they are not sitting at desks with workbooks or memorizing multiplication tables. Preschool math helps them make sense of the world around them and teaches them to reason and problem-solve. Teachers of preschool math build on children's prior knowledge and capitalize on their spontaneous discoveries to further their understanding of mathematical concepts.
Preschool Math--Counting by Tens/Odds and Evens
This youtube video demonstrates some great strategies to help preschoolers learn counting by tens and odd and even numbers.
Everyday math play in preschool
As adults, we can tend to over-think how to go about teaching math to young children but promoting mathematical thinking and basic math concepts can come through all kinds of simple hands-on activities. Here are some of great math activities to integrate into your homeschool.
Homeschooling Kindergarten Math
Teaching math to young learners at home can be successful if you respond to your child. Children learn best when they aren't forced to learn. Introduce them to ideas, books, educational television, and most importantly, show them how this stuff is used in everyday life. they will catch on and learn it at their own pace.
Instill a Love of Math
Parents are bombarded with messages to read with their children, but it’s rare to hear about the importance of doing math with them. Here are some helpful tips on why and how to instill a love of math in your children.
Board, Card and Dice Games for Learning Math, Logic and Strategy
This list is a great start to incorporating fun activities and games into your homeschool math curriculum.
Let's Play Math!
This wonderful blog is written by a homeschooling mother who wants to make learning math fun. It is a place where you can learn about new ways of learning, teaching, and understanding math. Math is a game, playing with ideas. This blog is about the ongoing adventure of learning, teaching, and playing around with mathematics from preschool to precalculus.
Preschool Math: All Sorts of Sorting
Parents may think counting and recognizing numbers are the nuts and bolts of preschool math. While these are important skills for young mathematicians to master, building a foundation for complex mathematical thinking begins in the early childhood years. Sorting and classifying objects helps children begin to notice how items are alike and different, and creates an awareness that is vital for math learning.
Mathematics in Pre-K
Young preschool children are active learners, naturally curious and ready to engage in mathematical learning. They approach math with excitement and curiosity, if the practices are age-appropriate, engaging, and involve hands-on, minds-on learning approaches.
Homeschool Math
HomeschoolMath.net is a comprehensive math resource site for homeschooling parents and teachers: find free worksheets, math ebooks for elementary grades, an extensive link list of games, a homeschool math curriculum guide, interactive tutorials & quizzes, and teaching tips articles. The resources emphasize understanding of concepts instead of just mechanical memorization of rules.
Preschool Math Games and Activities
Math With Legos: Preschool Roll and Count
Use 1 x 1 Lego bricks and a 12-sided math die to encourage counting and learning.
Pre-K Mathematics Activities
This 49 page pdf file contains scores of activities to teach math concepts to preschoolers.
Adding Fun
With just a few inexpensive supplies, you can make this simple adding activity for your preschooler.
17 (Almost) Effortless Preschool Math Activities
These easy and fun math activities are great for helping preschoolers learn number recognition, one to one correspondence, counting, and understanding quantity.
Let's Count! Learning Numbers in Multiple Ways
This great video shows different activities that can be used to teach young children how to count.
Number Chants and Counting Songs: Teaching Early Mathematics Skills, Shapes, Money and Telling Time
A selection of songs and lyrics from a variety of different albums teaching how to count, recognize shapes, use the concept of zero, use units of measurement and money.
40 Awesome Number Activities for Preschoolers
Number activities for preschoolers don't have to be boring and just worksheets. Make them fun so your preschooler will love math. These number activities help with identifying numbers, counting and one to one correspondence.
Sort the Mail: Pretend Play and Number Recognition
Kids love to pretend and test their limits within boundaries of make believe. Combining pretend play with math is a great way to challenge your kids without making them feel like it’s a test. Pretending to be a postal worker gives the task of sorting meaning and with that meaning their learning is deeper and better retained.
Place Value with Beads
Learn the concept of 10s with these simple bead and pipe cleaner manipulatives.
Sort and Count Bottles
Use old bottles and pom poms for simple counting and sorting maths games and motor skills fun! With lots of ways to play and learn, these are a great addition to the maths area at home or school.
5 Great Pre-K Math Activities
Giving children a foundation to build number sense is very important. Learning might as well be fun to help kids build a great outlook on math, as they grow older. Here are five fun Pre-K math activities that build number recognition and counting skills.
Preschool Math Activities with Duplo Legos
Counting and learning about patterns is fun with Duplo blocks. These easy activities can be put together in no time at home.
7 Fun Ways to Learn Numbers Through Play
Enjoy these activities that introduce number concepts and active learning through play.
8 Hands-On Number Activities for Kids
Teaching math beyond basic counting at home can seem daunting. But these simple activities show that it can be easy and fun. These hands-on ways to introduce counting and other basic math skills are great.
Counting Tubes
The fun and colorful tubes are a great way to practice 1:1 correspondence, counting, and numbers.
75+ Math Activities
These simple early learning math activities teach skills like number recognition, counting, simple addition and subtraction, sorting, sequencing numbers, and measuring.
Flower Power Patterns for Preschool and Early Childhood
Practice patterning with this spring-themed set of pattern boards. children will be able to determine the next picture in the pattern and will be able to continue the pattern on each of the boards.
Board, Card and Dice Games for Learning Math, Logic and Strategy
This list is a great start to incorporating fun activities and games into your homeschool math curriculum.
Free Printable Ten Frame Cards
Learn 10s with these free printable cards that offer a fun way to practice. Read about different ways to use the cards for enjoyable math games to teach this concept.
Lego Challenge Math Activity-Free Printable
Practicing math skills like spatial awareness and geometry can be fun, especially when the math activity involves Legos! Here’s a free printable math challenge for kids using Lego or Duplo bricks!
Homeschool Preschool Math Curriculum
TouchMath
This pre-K homeschool math unit download includes an implementation guide, module guides with instructional strategies, student activity sheets, answer keys, progress monitoring, and vocabulary. Designed for ages 3-4, it covers counting and number sense, comparing and classifying, sorting, graphing, patterning, 2-D and 3-D shapes, coins, and representing quantities and shapes.
Mad Dog Math
Mad Dog Math is a fun, exciting, motivating, and challenging supplement to any math curriculum. They've taken the basic facts and broken them down into bite-sized pieces that any child can master.
A child progresses through a series of timed drills at his own pace.
Ray's Arithmetic
Ray's Arithmetics teach arithmetic in an orderly fashion, starting from rules and principles, building knowledge piece by piece, leading pupils from simple to complex. From the very first pages, Ray's Arithmetics incorporate what has become the scourge of today's math students - story problems. Students must READ simple sentences which pose real life problems, decide whether to add, subtract, multiply or divide, and finally arrive at the answer - sometimes mentally - sometimes in writing.
JumpStart Free Math Curriculum
Homeschooling parents will find that when it comes to choosing the curriculum for math, there is a huge variety available. In fact, the number of math curriculums available to choose from may make choosing the right one difficult. These supplemental math activities for grades K-5 are fun ways to incorporate more math into your homeschooling.
Time4Learning
The Time4Learning preschool program combines technology, animated characters, original stories and fun music to inspire a love of learning in the littlest e-learners. Ed Mouse and his friends guide children through more than forty topics such as numbers, letters, rhymes, self, time, music and colors.
Numbers Plus - Preschool Mathematics Curriculum
The Numbers Plus Preschool Mathematics Curriculum is a comprehensive set of detailed plans for small- and large-group early childhood mathematics activities, with ideas for extending learning throughout the program day. What’s special about Numbers Plus is that children’s mathematical learning is sequenced within activities — each activity has a built-in progression so children of different developmental and ability levels can participate together and have a positive and meaningful learning experience. By actively engaging young children with materials and ideas, Numbers Plus builds on the latest knowledge from research and practice about early mathematics learning and how adults support it.
Living Math
Early exposure to real mathematics in natural settings, without requiring mastery of arithmetic on a set timetable is a key to the ease with which kids attain mastery when the time is right for them. Math literature and history humanizes math, makes it come alive, and provides a context to enjoy and retain learning. This wonderful site offers a literature-based approach to math learning, with book lists, lesson plans, and more.
IXL Math Curriculum
IXL provides comprehensive math practice for K-12.
Alpha Omega Publications Mathematics Resources for Homeschoolers
These workbooks help teach pre-K concepts such as time, counting, and more.
Sonlight Math Curricula
Teach confidently with Sonlight's handpicked math resources — the programs are the best on the market for elementary math to Calculus.
Every math curriculum has potential strengths and weaknesses, so you'll find included information to help you find the best fit for your students.
They offer several math programs for the elementary grades. Young children benefit from an enriched environment in which they see math being used in different ways and in which they approach problems from different directions.
Preschool Math Worksheets and Printables
Free Printable Ten Frame Cards
Learn 10s with these free printable cards that offer a fun way to practice. Read about different ways to use the cards for enjoyable math games to teach this concept.
Homeschool Math
HomeschoolMath.net is a comprehensive math resource site for homeschooling parents and teachers: find free worksheets, math ebooks for elementary grades, an extensive link list of games, a homeschool math curriculum guide, interactive tutorials & quizzes, and teaching tips articles. The resources emphasize understanding of concepts instead of just mechanical memorization of rules.
Preschool Math Worksheets and Printables
Preschool math worksheets help your young learner develop essential early math skills. From number recognition to counting to addition, preschoolers learn a lot about numbers in one year. Our collection of preschool math worksheets is designed for kids who want to build skills that will prepare them for kindergarten and beyond. These preschool math worksheets help present new number topics to kids in a way that's fun and easy to understand. Help foster a culture of learning by doing these preschool math worksheets with your child.
Making Learning Fun Math Ideas
Fun and free printables that are great for preschoolers. These activities make learning fun!
Preschool Math Printables
These printables are free and help provide extra support for teaching preschool math. You'll find calendars, number tracing cards, number mats, patterns, and more.
Lego Challenge Math Activity-Free Printable
Practicing math skills like spatial awareness and geometry can be fun, especially when the math activity involves Legos! Here’s a free printable math challenge for kids using Lego or Duplo bricks!
Featured Resources
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Spell to Write & Read
This teacher's manual, written by a homeschool educator with experience as a professional school teacher and private tutor, shows how to teach reading the "write" way. By phonetically teaching spelling from the start as the backbone for reading, all children can be taught, regardless of learning styles, to read and spell. If your student knows how to read already, this program can improve his or her spelling. Find out more about this product here.
Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook
A short, illustrated guide to the use of Montessori classroom materials. Describes how to set up a "children's house" - an environment for learning where children can be their own masters.
Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner
Dr. Linda Silverman coined the term "visual-spatial learner" to describe the special and unique gifts of people who learn best through seeing and with images. This guide is a great resource as you support your homeschooling visual learner in discovering the best ways to learn and succeed.
But What About Socialization? Answering the Perpetual Home Schooling Question: A Review of the Literature
This book by Dr. Susan A. McDowell uses research, statistics, and the experiences of homeschooling families to answer questions and counter myths about homeschooling and socialization. Read through a discussion of the multiple meanings of socialization, what parents, leaders, and children have to say about the issue, and what the research shows.
They're Your Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate
For many people, their schooling was uncomfortable, tedious, and sometimes a waste of time and energy. This book offers the idea that the public school system is tragically flawed and that we are able to do better for our own children. Sam Sorbo, mom of three and wife of actor Kevin Sorbo, took the leap into homeschooling and found the joy and success she was seeking. Included are strategies for working parents, those who are scared to take the leap, and anyone who wants the best for their child...