By Doreen Minard,

First-Grade Teacher

Carrie Echeita,

Math Intervention Specialist

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I am so bad at math!” or “I hate math!”? Unfortunately, these feelings are very common. As parents, it can be very hard to talk with our children or help them when it comes to math practice at home.

Forks Elementary School has found the answer to all of your math woes. Each week we will be posting a small article with ideas and questions you can use with your child to engage them in math talk at home to help them develop a love for math.

These activities will help your child build skills in the areas of counting, numeration, comparing, measuring, geometry, problem solving and strategy, among many others. Building these early math skills will lead to greater success as our children get older.

“Early knowledge of math not only predicts later success in math, but also predicts later reading achievement even better that early reading skills” (Clements and Sarama, 2013, p.1).

Math is not just numbers! While waiting for next week’s Go Figure! article, there are plenty of activities you can start now with children of any age. Play board games (especially games with dice), play card games, put puzzles together and count. Count coins, toy cars, canned foods, anything! But most of all, enjoy this early learning time spent with your children.

Next week: Ideas for 3- to 5-year-olds

Clements, Doug, and Sarama, Julie. “Math in the Early Years.” The Progress of Education Reform 14.5 (2013): p.1.