Fun ways to

Teach Math

Play Bowls and Pennies

Contributed by linzy

Write the numbers 1 through 5 on small pieces of paper and stick them as labels on different bowls. Give your child some pennies and ask him to put the right amount of pennies on each bowl as labeled. You can also play variations of this game by placing the pennies in the bowl yourself and asking your child to label the bowls according to the number of pennies in them.

Get Some Target Practice

Contributed by Chris1

Use a makeshift basketball hoop for target practice - all you need is a bin and about 10 soft bean bags or scrunched balls of paper. Throw the paper balls and try to put them in the bin, counting the number of balls that goes inside and the number of times you missed.

Create Clay Fractions

Contributed by texaslady22

Take a big chunk of clay or Play-Doh and divide them into halves, thirds and quarters. Introduce these mathematical terms verbally while you visually demonstrate how to divide the clay chunk.

Do Grocery Math

Contributed by TABS

Bring your child as you do your grocery shopping and count the number of each item you put in your shopping cart. A good example would be, "Twelve eggs, one milk carton, three oranges, etc."

Sing Math Songs

Contributed by linzy

There are a lot of songs you can sing which have math concepts in them: "One, two, three, four, five once I caught a fish alive...", "1, 2, buckle my shoe...", "1 potato, 2 potato," etc. Adding actions to these songs will make it so much more fun to sing, and your child will learn to count in a joyous manner.

From Smallest to Largest

Contributed by Chris1

Create a set of rectangular cards of same width but set to various heights. Prop them up on a table and ask your child for help in arranging them from smallest to largest and vice versa.