Math Learning During Our Daily Routines

Math learning can sometimes feel daunting for parents, teachers and your children. Here at The Learning Tree we add math into many parts of our day to help our children grow. We wanted to share with you some ways we incorporate math throughout our daily routine that maybe you can use some of these techniques or have them help you get creative with math at home with your children.

Greeting Time Math Activities:

• Children may read numerals on the message board.

• Children may count the number of links on a paper chain until the last day of school or the number of candles drawn on a cake for someone’s birthday.

• Together, you can count and graph the number of children present vs. absent.

Planning & Recall Time Math Activities:

• Show the children a large die with numerals 1-4 on it. Have each child roll the die and say the number of materials they will use/used; the number of areas they plan to play in/played in; or the number of plans they will do/did at work time.

• Put the symbol and name of each interest area on the sections of a round piece of cardboard that has three clothespins with the numerals 1,2, and 3 on them. Ask the children to put the clothespins on where they will play first, second, and third, and then ask them and explain what they will do in each area.

• Draw a very simple map of the classroom that has the symbol and name of each interest area highlighted. Give the children a small toy car (or dog, person, truck, etc.) to drive to the area where they want to play or to the area where they already played.

Outside Time Math Activities:

• Count acorns.

• Negotiate who will be first (and second) on the swings.

• Run a race to determine who finishes in first, second, and third place.

• Discover shapes in unexpected places.

• Specu­late which of the balls will reach the bottom of the hill first

Mealtime and Snack Time Math Activities:

• When it is Sascha’s turn to pass out the plates for lunch, he is involved in one-to-one correspondence of matching plates to the people who will be eating.

• As soon as Alana pours her scoop of snack mix on her napkin, she begins sorting it by ingredient. When she is finished, she counts each pile to see which has the most pieces.

• Curtis looks over at Allie’s glass of milk and comments, “You have more milk than me; yours goes all the way up to the line.”

Cleanup Time Math Activities:

• As children put away objects in their assigned spaces, they are noticing rela­tionships such as length, thickness, position, and quantity.

• Children see that objects are ordered by size when they put the small, medium, and large pots away on a shelf marked with small, medium, and large outlines indicating where the pots go.

• Children consider number concepts when they notice there are three kinds of paint­brushes; each with its own container, as well as when they see that a marker corresponds to a hole on the marker holder.

We love adding math learning throughout our daily routines and getting creative to try new ways to help our children grow. Be sure to follow us on social media to see the different activities we do in all of our classrooms to continue our math learning!