Pre Math
Benchmark 3.1 Recognizes and describes spatial relationships
Benchmark 3.2 Recognizes geometric shapes and their attributes
MARCH ACTIVITIES--
Age 1 --Exhibits some sense of size, color, and shape recognition of objects in immediate environment. Look for hidden objects-through hiding and finding, peekaboo, and playing “Where’s the toy?” “Where’s daddy?” Reaches into containers, pushes buttons, and likes to make noises with objects. Understands simple locations position words such as under, in or out.
Age 2 -- Likes to push or pull toys, wagons, baskets, lawnmowers or vacuums. Use shapes or blocks to place into the laundry basket or wagon. Push and pull around the house.
Age 3 --Begins to identify a basic shape in the environment such as circle, square, or triangle. As you are waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store look for shapes around you and have your child identify them. This keeps them “entertained” as they learn.
Age 4 --Your child begins to develop an understanding of directionality as well as order and position. You can use new words to explain these ideas during the course of a week. Look for ways to describe up and down, before and after, and first and last.
Age 5 --Provide various objects that encourage building. For an indoor activity, use large marshmallows, toothpicks, pretzel sticks, gumdrops and caramel cubes to create original artwork. If you want to build outside, you could pound golf tees into Styrofoam. Hit the golf tees with a block if you do not have a small hammer. If your child has great skill with hammering, perhaps he/she would like to use large-headed nails to hammer into a scrap piece of wood. Children should wear safety goggles as an adult supervises this activity.
TOOLS FOR MOTHERHOOD GRADUATES share some of the activities they did with their children.
Getting into "shape" running game By Heather, Topeka
1 & 4 years old I cut out shapes (i.e. triangle, square, heart, star and oval) from an old shirt. I spread them throughout the yard in no particular order. Then on an old red block I drew the shapes to make our "die". Then we took turns "rolling" the die and picking the corresponding shape around the yard. The first person to get 1/2 of the number of shapes wins. We had 14 shapes so we figured out what 1/2 was by putting them in two different piles and counting them, so 7. I also played that if you get a match for a shape you already had you got to roll again. Towards the end of the game we started running out of shapes that we were rolling so just because you start the game doesn't automatically mean you will win the game; In this case your turn is over without picking up a shape. Zoe "really liked this game and wants to play again." Lexi followed Zoe around to find the shapes and enjoyed "rolling" or throwing the block/die for us too.
Changes I would make: Well, I could have made less shapes and left a blank "lose a turn" side on the die. I think when Zoe gets to start reading instead of the shapes on a block I can write the words that she can sound out and read to find out what to pick up. For Lexi I would cut the shapes from different colors so she can learn both shapes and colors-again change block or just call out.
Would you recommend? Oh, yeah! Quick, easy, cheap, grows with the child. Easy and fun even for Lexi's age and burns off some of that excess energy. Also can play hide/seek with the shapes indoors.
3 years of age Patterns with Shapes... Kahle wrote, I cut out shapes various sizes of square, triangle, and circle. I then started patterns and had Kaihtlyn finish them. She did a great job of this. Next I gave her the shapes and asked her to put them in piles. She separated them by shape and then by color!
Any changes? I would add more shapes and maybe textures to this activity.
Recomendations: Yes, but realize it goes quickly and my three year old seemed to get bored by this fairly quickly.
Christmas Time suggestion: If you have several of the same ornaments on the tree, you could take them down and play a sorting game with them.
9 Months Old
I showed my son how to take the rings that stack o a tower and put them on in order. He struggles getting them on when we first began playing, but I can tell he gets the idea after a few trys. I have to help him and model for him how to do it as we begin to learn the activity, but we will keep working until he can do it along.--Joanna
18 Months I gave Lexi a muffin tin and 12 golf balls to put in each spot. She did that really well. It taught her one-to-one correspondence which is a very important Math concept... plus it kept her busy by herself for a time.--Heather
2 1/2 Years Old I got online and found some different sized pumpkin templates (small, medium and large) that I printed out on white paper. I am no artist and wanted to make sure the pumpkins looked like pumpkins. I made sure to make 10 of them. Seth then colored all the pumpkins orange and I put a number 1-10 on each pumpkin. We then cut them out. I also made separate numbers on little pieces of paper to sorrespond with the numbers on the pumpkin. We folded the little numbers and put them in a cup and spread out all of our other pumpkins so we could see what numbers were on them. Pumpkins numbered 1-4 were "small" pumpkins. Pumpkins numbered 5-7 were "medium sized" pumpkins. Pumpkins numbered 8-10 were "large/big" pumpkins. I made sure to point out the different sizes to Seth to start explaining the concept that some things are smaller/bigger than others. With the numbers in the cup I had Seth draw out 1 number at a time, after giving the cup a good shake of course. When he pulled out a number he told me what the number was and then he found the matching pumpkin. You could use whatever shape/item you want. Since it was October and Seth loves pumpkins it was the natural choice. I personally wouldnt change a thing on the activity, but someone else might want to change the object used. For example if it is November you could use turkeys or Christmas Trees for December.--Shannon
Age 1 --Exhibits some sense of size, color, and shape recognition of objects in immediate environment. Look for hidden objects-through hiding and finding, peekaboo, and playing “Where’s the toy?” “Where’s daddy?” Reaches into containers, pushes buttons, and likes to make noises with objects. Understands simple locations position words such as under, in or out.
Age 2 -- Likes to push or pull toys, wagons, baskets, lawnmowers or vacuums. Use shapes or blocks to place into the laundry basket or wagon. Push and pull around the house.
Age 3 --Begins to identify a basic shape in the environment such as circle, square, or triangle. As you are waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store look for shapes around you and have your child identify them. This keeps them “entertained” as they learn.
Age 4 --Your child begins to develop an understanding of directionality as well as order and position. You can use new words to explain these ideas during the course of a week. Look for ways to describe up and down, before and after, and first and last.
Age 5 --Provide various objects that encourage building. For an indoor activity, use large marshmallows, toothpicks, pretzel sticks, gumdrops and caramel cubes to create original artwork. If you want to build outside, you could pound golf tees into Styrofoam. Hit the golf tees with a block if you do not have a small hammer. If your child has great skill with hammering, perhaps he/she would like to use large-headed nails to hammer into a scrap piece of wood. Children should wear safety goggles as an adult supervises this activity.
TOOLS FOR MOTHERHOOD GRADUATES share some of the activities they did with their children.
Getting into "shape" running game By Heather, Topeka
1 & 4 years old I cut out shapes (i.e. triangle, square, heart, star and oval) from an old shirt. I spread them throughout the yard in no particular order. Then on an old red block I drew the shapes to make our "die". Then we took turns "rolling" the die and picking the corresponding shape around the yard. The first person to get 1/2 of the number of shapes wins. We had 14 shapes so we figured out what 1/2 was by putting them in two different piles and counting them, so 7. I also played that if you get a match for a shape you already had you got to roll again. Towards the end of the game we started running out of shapes that we were rolling so just because you start the game doesn't automatically mean you will win the game; In this case your turn is over without picking up a shape. Zoe "really liked this game and wants to play again." Lexi followed Zoe around to find the shapes and enjoyed "rolling" or throwing the block/die for us too.
Changes I would make: Well, I could have made less shapes and left a blank "lose a turn" side on the die. I think when Zoe gets to start reading instead of the shapes on a block I can write the words that she can sound out and read to find out what to pick up. For Lexi I would cut the shapes from different colors so she can learn both shapes and colors-again change block or just call out.
Would you recommend? Oh, yeah! Quick, easy, cheap, grows with the child. Easy and fun even for Lexi's age and burns off some of that excess energy. Also can play hide/seek with the shapes indoors.
3 years of age Patterns with Shapes... Kahle wrote, I cut out shapes various sizes of square, triangle, and circle. I then started patterns and had Kaihtlyn finish them. She did a great job of this. Next I gave her the shapes and asked her to put them in piles. She separated them by shape and then by color!
Any changes? I would add more shapes and maybe textures to this activity.
Recomendations: Yes, but realize it goes quickly and my three year old seemed to get bored by this fairly quickly.
Christmas Time suggestion: If you have several of the same ornaments on the tree, you could take them down and play a sorting game with them.
9 Months Old
I showed my son how to take the rings that stack o a tower and put them on in order. He struggles getting them on when we first began playing, but I can tell he gets the idea after a few trys. I have to help him and model for him how to do it as we begin to learn the activity, but we will keep working until he can do it along.--Joanna
18 Months I gave Lexi a muffin tin and 12 golf balls to put in each spot. She did that really well. It taught her one-to-one correspondence which is a very important Math concept... plus it kept her busy by herself for a time.--Heather
2 1/2 Years Old I got online and found some different sized pumpkin templates (small, medium and large) that I printed out on white paper. I am no artist and wanted to make sure the pumpkins looked like pumpkins. I made sure to make 10 of them. Seth then colored all the pumpkins orange and I put a number 1-10 on each pumpkin. We then cut them out. I also made separate numbers on little pieces of paper to sorrespond with the numbers on the pumpkin. We folded the little numbers and put them in a cup and spread out all of our other pumpkins so we could see what numbers were on them. Pumpkins numbered 1-4 were "small" pumpkins. Pumpkins numbered 5-7 were "medium sized" pumpkins. Pumpkins numbered 8-10 were "large/big" pumpkins. I made sure to point out the different sizes to Seth to start explaining the concept that some things are smaller/bigger than others. With the numbers in the cup I had Seth draw out 1 number at a time, after giving the cup a good shake of course. When he pulled out a number he told me what the number was and then he found the matching pumpkin. You could use whatever shape/item you want. Since it was October and Seth loves pumpkins it was the natural choice. I personally wouldnt change a thing on the activity, but someone else might want to change the object used. For example if it is November you could use turkeys or Christmas Trees for December.--Shannon