Christmas Shopping Ideas: Preschool Math Toys and Games

Here's a nice list of toys and puzzles that develop nascent math skills. I spend a lot of time on early math skills with my toddler because the foundation she gets now is what will carry her through later. Also, I work a lot with kids who are struggling with math and I've picked up some good insights for which toys and activities help prevent some of the deficits I see from ever developing.

1. Wooden Shape Sorting Clock. This offers the chance to review shapes, colors, number order and telling time.

2.Tangrams for toddlers. Matching and following patterns is an important early math skill.

3. Number Snail Puzzle. This is a great puzzle. You really should take a look at it. It requires kids to know that 2 comes after 1 and 3 comes after 2. Also it uses more spatial skills than the usual flat puzzles to create a 3d snail sculpture. Spatial skills are important for math.

4. Infantino Matching Colors and Textures puzzle. This puzzle requires sorting and matching skills. Because there are so many pieces, you can easily split this into two separate puzzle kits to keep things fresh and avoid overwhelming younger kids with the sheer number of pieces.

5. Memory game. One of the more serious math skill deficits I see in the kids I work with is the inability to memorize anything. They can't retain information long enough to do simple calculations in their heads. Expanding their mental capacity to not only keep numbers in their head but manipulate them mentally is a big skill I work to develop in my students and in my own kids. Memory may seem like a simple game, but the math skills it develops are critical. This is a MUST have game.

6.I Spy books are a great way to hone sorting skills and visual accuracy. This simple game also engages memory by requiring kids to remember what the object they are looking for looks like and then mentally compare the one they find to the one in their head.

Thanksgiving Games for Kids: Turkey Treats Gobble

Here's a fun and cheap game to keep kids and adults alike busy while waiting for the turkey to come out of the oven. Turkey Treats Gobble is a great math game that can be adapted for either toddlers or older kids.

Supplies

-Turkey clip art. I used the graphic from this site,but you can also use Google Images to find a turkey you like better. I just stuck with black and white as it's easier on the printer ink.
-Paper
-Candy or other food that can be used to mark off turkeys
-Dice

Instructions

1.Copy paste the turkey clip art into a word document. Use narrow margins (0.5") to fit about 6 turkeys per row. Fill the page with turkeys. I was able to fit about 42 on my sheet.

2. Print your game sheets.

3.Gather your food to mark off the turkeys. M&Ms would work. Peas would too for those of us who want to be healthy. You could do a mix of candy and veggies like carrot 'coins' and tell kids they don't win unless the use all their veggies and fill the board completely.

How to Play Turkey Treats Gobble

1. Kids roll the dice and mark off turkeys in one of the following ways:

For toddlers, have them cover turkeys with treats corresponding to the number on the dice. If they rolled a 6, for example, they can mark off 6 turkeys.

Early elementary kids could use a combination of addition and subtraction to play. So if they roll a 4 and a 3, they can either mark off 7 or 1 turkeys depending on the operation they used.

Kids who have started multiplication can choose from addition, subtraction or multiplication to mark off their turkey.

2. The winner is the first person to mark off all turkeys exactly without going over, which is why subtraction is an option because, at the end, that may be the only way to fill the board. The winner gets to keep all their loot, everyone else has to start over again. Also, if you are doing the veggie thing, make sure they follow the veggie rules.

Note, I strongly suggest incorporating foods like veggies and fruits to minimize the sugar high. 42 pieces of candy before dinner = certain disaster.

3.Alternately, you can fill the board with food and kids get to eat so many pieces depending on what the dice say. This would be a sneaky way to get them to eat their veggies. The winner is the first to eat all the food on their board (including ALL the veggies. Party poopers who don't eat the veggies, can't play any subsequent rounds of the game).

4.Another alternative is to supply quarters and the winner gets to keep the money.

I really like this game for younger kids because it is a fun way to practice math facts and early math skills like correspondence counting.

Preschool Math Games: Numbers Game

Our daughter has been showing some ability to count objects lately. To support her learning curve, I made a simple preschool math game that also works fine motor skills.

She really loved it and played with it as intended as well as performing a complicated pretend piano concerto on the clothes pins.

Here's how to make this great preschool math game.


Materials:

Index cards
A stamp* or Dot paints
Clothespins
Sharpie marker

*It might be fun to use a seasonal stamp such as apples for Fall.

Instructions:

1.Use the stamp or Dot paints to create quantities 1 through 10 on the index cards. Try to keep the formations for 1-6 the same as used on dice.

2.With the Sharpie, write the numeral on the clothespins.

3.Write the numeral on the back of the index cards so kids can check themselves.

How to Play:

The child should count the dots (or stamps) on each index card, find the corresponding numeral and attach the clothespin.

Believe it or not, this game kept our toddler busy for almost an hour. I know, as an adult, I look at activities and stuff-to-do-with-kids and go meh, how uninteresting. I forget I'm pushing 40, the toddler is pushing 3 so it's all new to her and new is fascinating. So if you are kind of skeptical about this game or any other activity, just remember if your kid has never seen anything like it before, odds are it will be a huge hit.