Keyword: Mathematics
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Math for Preschoolers
This list provides resources on how developmentally-appropriate math concepts and skills can be taught to preschool-aged children.
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Make a Mess and Explore STEAM
This tool kit provides ideas and resources to help you plan engaging and developmentally appropriate STEAM activities for young children.
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Things to Do While You’re Waiting: Math Is Everywhere
Keep children engaged when you have to wait
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Explore STEAM with Young Children
This list contains a variety of resources associated with making messes while exploring STEAM for young children.
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Five Things Children Gain from Puzzle Play
Puzzle play is a great time to build cognitive and fine motor skills, but it can also be a time to build social, emotional, and language skills when caregivers use time with puzzles thoughtfully. Here are five things children learn through puzzle play.
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Busy with Blocks
Children learn many things by playing with blocks. Spatial and mathematical thinking are important understandings that children build through block play.
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Mathematize! (audio)
This podcast, based on a blog written by Dr. Rebecca Swartz, provides ideas for helping young children use mathematical thinking in everyday routines. To see the main text of the podcast, you can read the original blog post. Related IEL Resources Blog: Mathematize! Tip Sheet: Counting Up, Down, and All Around! Tip Sheet: Discover Shapes…
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Mathematics Benchmark 10.B.ECb
This module is a innovative professional development resource for busy early childhood educators. It provides teachers with some suggested ways to help children meet the following benchmark… Mathematics 10.B.ECb: Make predictions about the outcome prior to collecting information, with teacher support and multiple experiences over time.
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Mathematics Benchmark 10.B.ECa
This module is a innovative professional development resource for busy early childhood educators. It provides teachers with some suggested ways to help children meet the following benchmark… Mathematics 10.B.ECa: Organize, represent, and analyze information using concrete objects, pictures, and graphs, with teacher support. Related IEL Resources Tip Sheet: Project Approach: Helping Preschoolers Represent What They…
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Mathematize!
One, two, three! Hearing young children begin to count is exciting! As families and caregivers listen to a child’s little voice say number words in order, they feel pride and joy in the child’s learning.
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The Worm Project
Kim Burd and Laura De LucaJ. L. Hensey Elementary SchoolWashington, IL District #50 The Worm Project took place in morning and afternoon sessions of two self-contained ECE classrooms in the J. L. Hensey Elementary School in Washington, Illinois, a community of about 15,000 near Peoria. Head teachers in the classrooms were Mrs. Kim Burd and…
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Helping Children Take Surveys
Children can use surveys just as adults do—to collect information from other people. Surveys can help them find out about others’ opinions, preferences, predictions, and experiences. Taking part in a survey can spark children’s personal interest in a project and increase their engagement with the topic, with classmates, and with others around them. A class…
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Investigating Wheels
A project is a part of the curriculum that involves children in investigating objects and events around them that are worth knowing more about. Project work is a way of uncovering a subject rather than just covering it. A project on wheels has the potential to involve the entire class, the children’s families, and community…
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Mix and Count
This video shows 22-month-old Waylon helping his grandmother mix pancake batter for breakfast. His 6-year-old brother, Luke, and his father talk off camera. In the video, we see adults using strategies for interaction that help Waylon learn about the world.
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Dual Language Use During Choice Time
This video shows 5-year-old Imelda interacting in English with an adult visitor and singing in Spanish during choice time in her half-day bilingual classroom.
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Where the Chick Came From
This clip suggests some of the benefits of introducing very young children to live animals.
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“She Goes First”: Cooperative “Housekeeping” Play
In the clip, Victoria (age 5), Micaela (age 5.7), and Mandi (age 5.8) are engaged in what is sometimes called “housekeeping play.” Speaking in Spanish, they put some of their ideas about family life into action as they pretend to wash dishes, prepare food, and eat together.
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Sara Measures
The teacher placed several car parts in the sensory table for the children to explore. Paper, pencils, tape measures, and screwdrivers were provided as tools that the children could choose to use in their explorations.
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One Morning in the Block Area
Many preschool programs make block play an option during choice time. In this video, three children play in the block area in a prekindergarten classroom.
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One Morning at the Construction Table
When children build something, they often address physics problems related to keeping the structure together.
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Magnets and Cars
The teacher took the 3- and 4-year-olds to visit the automotive lab next door to the classroom. The next day she asked the children to predict what parts of a car would attract a magnet.
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Counting Crackers
Children in this mixed-age early childhood center are taking part in open snack.
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Counting Chickens
This video shows preschool children engaged in mathematical thinking and in complex use of language as they watch chickens in a pen on their school playground.
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Bouncing Balls
During circle time, the children played a guessing game about balls.
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Sorting, Classifying, and Organizing
Sorting and organizing things into sets and groups is an important math skill for young children to develop.
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Making Sense of Numbers
Help your child discover the mathematical world by finding opportunities to bring numbers into conversations and play.
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Discover Shapes in Many Places
Understanding shapes is an important mathematical skill for young children to develop.
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Project Approach for Preschoolers
Preschoolers like to investigate! They enjoy learning about the world around them. The Project Approach involves children in studies of things nearby that interest them and are worth knowing more about.
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Fun at Home with Preschoolers: Let’s Measure!
Here are some home activities that can help your child learn basic measurement concepts.
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Learning Math Words: Family and Caregiver Conversations
Having a strong math vocabulary in the heritage language helps young DLLs grasp these concepts when learning about them in English (often in preschool and kindergarten classrooms).
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Math and the Project Approach
Young children develop math competencies when their teachers know what math concepts and skills young children are most likely to be ready to learn and should know (Illinois State Board of Education, 2013) and when teachers know where each child’s individual level of progress and performance is in relation to mastery of those competencies.
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Changing Seasons and New Concepts: Same and Different and Before and After
Fall is a great time to talk with young children about concepts that are important for them to learn.
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Time for Preschoolers: In Sequence!
Here are some activities that can help children find out more about sequences.
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Time for Preschoolers: Duration
Here are some ideas for helping older preschoolers use prediction and estimation to learn how time goes by.
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Project Approach: Children Taking Surveys
Surveys are popular sources of information for adults. Young children can also use simple surveys. They can ask others for predictions related to a project or ask about others’ opinions, experiences, and work.
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Predicting: Helping Preschoolers Look Ahead
Prediction skills are important in literacy, math, science, and social development.
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Path to Math: Word Problems for Preschoolers
Children as young as 3 may enjoy solving simple word problems.
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Path to Math: Real Graphs for Preschoolers
Graphing can be a way for 4- and 5-year-olds to apply what they know about classification, counting, and one-to-one correspondence.
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Path to Math: More Word Problems for Preschoolers
Do you know a preschooler who easily solves simple word problems that involve adding and taking away?
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Path to Math: More Numbers
Here are some ways to help older preschool children learn more about numbers.
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Path to Math: Measurement with Young Children
Measurement activities can help young children understand basic math concepts and learn life skills.
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Path to Math: Geometric Thinking for Young Children
Here are some ways to engage preschoolers with geometry.
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Path to Math: Classification
Children classify objects, ideas, sounds, smells, or flavors into groups (categories) according to traits they have in common.
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Path to Math: Beginning Numbers
Here are some ways you can help preschool children learn about numbers.
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Math Sense: Learning about Coins
To help 3- and 4-year-olds become more familiar with money, teachers and caregivers can first engage them in investigations of coins.
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Math Lesson Addressing Benchmark 9.B.ECa
The children in Mrs. Silva’s class are working on a project about community helpers, guided by the question, “Who are the community helpers in our neighborhood?” At the beginning of the project, the children took a walk through their neighborhood and spotted a fire station around the corner from their school building. They asked Mrs.…
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Math Lesson Addressing Benchmark 8.A.ECa
The children in Mrs. Silva’s class are working on a project about community helpers, guided by the question, “Who are the community helpers in our neighborhood?” During this project, the children are investigating the local post office. With guidance from Mrs. Silva, the children recognized that a mail carrier delivered mail to the school office…
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Math Lesson Addressing Benchmark 6.B.ECb
Ms. Jones has introduced counting with one-to-one correspondence during morning group time. Through careful observation, she realizes that some of the children vary in their ability to communicate and represent their understanding of meaningful counting. She and her teaching assistant, Ms. Hernández, develop a small-group activity related to their shoe store project so the children…
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Outdoor Field Trips with Preschoolers: Preparing with the Children
Here are some teacher-tested hints for helping preschoolers get ready for outdoor field trips.
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Learning Math Through Games
Playing active games is fun for most children, and it can build a strong sense of community in a classroom.