You can keep doing this, changing the number of fingers on each hand and the total number of fingers you show. The child calls out “Five!” and then shows five on his or her own hands. Reed: One of the games that I love is called “Fingers, Fingers, One, Two, Three.” To play, you put your fingers behind your back and say, “Fingers, fingers, one, two, three…how many do you see?” Then you might bring your hands in front and show three fingers raised on one hand and two fingers raised on the other. What are some easy, quick math games that a parent could play with a preschooler? So aside from the mathematical benefits, there are some real attitudinal and social benefits of playing games. We know that kids learn so much from these interactions. Kids are interacting with and learning from their friends and their teachers when they play. By providing children with challenging activities and encouraging them to try different strategies and make their own decisions, teachers and caregivers can foster this important skill.Īnd games are social, too. Mastery motivation is the motivation to master new, somewhat challenging skills, and it is a key behavior that supports children’s early learning now, and then later, their academic success. Reed: Math games and puzzles develop children’s problem-solving and independence and foster mastery motivation. Since the math is baked into the structure and play of the game, children get lots of practice by just playing. Players are practicing some math skills that are really important in kindergarten and first grade. Or, if you draw a 7 card and decide to split your move, you could move one token 4 spaces and another 3 spaces. And they practice one-to-one correspondence when they move one space for each count word. Children learn that they move forward from the space their token is on-they don’t count that space again. On your turn, you draw a card with a number and move one of your tokens that many spaces. Take a commercially available board game like Sorry. Sometimes, we forget that children don’t automatically connect the written numeral “5” with five objects or even the spoken word “five.” Games allow a context for slowing down and exploring the concept of number. I think sometimes, as adults, we forget how much work goes into learning what seem to be simple math concepts, such as recognizing that a collection has nine items or understanding what a number like five means. Reed: Games allow children to explore what numbers are and what they mean. What is it about games that make them so useful in teaching math skills to young kids? The games offered freedom to play with some of the ideas we were learning in the more standard mathematics lessons. I also enjoyed seeing kids come up with new rules to make the games even more interesting for them. One of my favorite things to do was to ask kids about their strategies during the game: “Why did you choose that move? What else could you have done? What would have happened then?” The games provided them a way to talk about math differently. When my students played games, they were engaged, motivated, and having fun with each other-and they were also practicing math skills. As an elementary school teacher, I loved using the math games that were part of our curriculum. People like the feeling of figuring something out. We enjoy math challenges and solving puzzles, too-that’s why supermarkets and even airport kiosks sell puzzle books. Reed: Games are fun and interesting for everyone, including adults. Here, Reed talks about how games can support kids’ math learning and shares a few simple games that parents can play with their children anywhere, anytime. For the last few years, EDC’s Kristen Reed and Jessica Young have been examining the use of math games to support early mathematics learning as part of EDC’s Young Mathematicians project. Playing math games with your preschooler can help build math confidence and skills that last a lifetime.
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