Parents and parent educators share ways to create natural opportunities for children to develop math and science skills. “The home experience can offer so much math and science information—everyday experiences are where children learn,” adds Shirley Barulich, a long-time kindergarten teacher in San Carlos. “[Integrating] learning into life will help the child be a lifelong learner,” she adds.

Research also shows that encouraging math and science skills in preschoolers can boost children’s success in school and also build confidence and critical thinking.

Count Everything Imaginable

“My kids love to count their money,” says Tara Nightengale, a San Mateo mother of three. She shows them how many pennies are in a dime or quarter. They use their hands to count the coins, which help them understand the true quantity, she adds.

“Count everything imaginable with your child so they expect to count everything,” adds Paul Giganti Jr., a teacher of professional development with the California Math Council and author of Math at Home (see below: Resources). “Count stairs when you walk up them, count napkins when setting the table. Point out license plates, read speed limit signs— show your children numbers are everywhere. Even an ‘I Spy’ game will have them searching for numbers.”

Allow Children to Explore and Discover

“The secret for me is to allow my great grandchildren to explore, discover, and have pre-math and pre-reading experiences,” says Diane Gordon, a great-grandmother and Director of Children, Nature, and You.

Parents can ask “Which leaf is bigger, which is smaller?” or “Oh, did you see the sand pour out of the bucket when you tipped it?,” or “Why did that fit there?”

These questions provide a starting point to help children explore important concepts such as size, quantity, and shape. “It’s all about asking questions and letting them figure it out for themselves,” Gordon adds.

Michael O’Brien takes his children on ‘silent walks.’ “We walk around the block and count how many sounds they hear. Sean will say, ‘I hear a horn’ and Caitlin will comment on the wind.” If they hear a new sound, the children use their senses to guess what it is, says O’Brien, a teacher and father of three preschoolers in Mountain House.

“As parents and teachers, our task is to help [preschoolers] make sense of what they are seeing and experiencing,” adds Nancy Lim Yee, program director for San Francisco’s Chinatown Child Development Center.

Use Everyday Materials

Janneth Linnell asks her three-yearold son set the table—he has to figure out “how many people are eating with us and how many dishes we need to use,” says Linnell, also Early Childhood Education Coordinator for the Santa Ana Unified School District. Setting the table helps her son practice counting, but also reinforces that each number—and in this case each plate—represents one person, a math concept called ‘one to one correspondence.’ He also matches special socks, learning about colors, pairs, and patterns.

“It’s important for kids to be stimulated…[ by] using their senses,” says O’Brien. The family brings baskets to collect items on their walks, something green or prickly or soft. They open the door to listen to the rain, asking “Is there a rhythm? Where will the next drop land? Is it raining harder or softer?” The family also grew vegetables, using a ruler to figure out how far apart to plant the seeds and going out every day to observe and talk about the growing plants, he adds.

“Have the children look for shapes in the environment,” adds Barulich. At the store, children can weigh one potato and then two, or compare a potato with a lime. They can also explore the shapes, sizes, colors, and textures of different fruits and vegetables. She also encouraged parents to have children sort Halloween candy into piles—whether the categories were chocolate and fruity, rectangular and circular, or healthy and non-healthy.

Experiment

“My kids love to watch things change or the process of [creating] something they get to eat,” says O’Brien. “I measure [ingredients] out, and have them count as I do, then we guess what will happen next—how scrambled eggs begin in liquid and then turn hard as they are heated.”

O’Brien also adds food coloring to his children’s milk at dinner. “They choose a color, we drop it in and they see things can change color. They love it!” When O’Brien mixes colors, one drop of yellow and three drops of red, the children guess what will happen. They create a hypothesis (the milk will turn orange) and do an experiment to test it—“the basic scientific method but on a preschool scale,” he says.

“A fun way to learn about science is to work with food…the kids love it,” agrees Nora Ortiz, Nutrition Project Coordinator for the Greenfield Union School District. Last month, children in four schools learned about persimmons and pears—anatomy, history, and nutrition— and got a recipe to take home. When children tasted the fruit, “some of them were really surprised that they actually liked it!” she adds.

Ortiz recalls another project where kids stuffed one plastic tube with greasy foods and another tube with chopped up fruits and vegetables. They tried to run water through the tubes—but this only worked in the tube with healthy food. Then the children learned about how “the fiber in fruits helps to push fruit through their body,” she adds.

Teach problem solving

When Linnell’s son asks complicated questions, she might be stumped, but she helps him research the answers— and shows him how to find information, she says.

For math problems, parents might ask “What will you use to solve the problem? Addition?” This process helps children develop problem-solving skills—to define the problem, look at it objectively, try to figure it out.

Children also learn to persevere and trust themselves and, “over time not [run] from situations that are new and different,” adds Giganti.

Resources

• For more hands-on math and science ideas, see Science Talk: Asking Why? and Math Talk: Counting on You.
  
  
• Math at Home, from the Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE), offers tips for helping children learn and enjoy math, in English or Spanish. Contact SCOE, 707-524-2600, www.scoe.org/ pub/htdocs/math-parent.html#athome
  
  
• Math is Everywhere, from Sesame Street, offers online games and activities to help parents incorporate math into preschoolers’ everyday experiences. In English, www.sesamestreet.org/parents/math in Spanish, www.sesamestreet.org/parents/math/spanish
  
  
• Science for Preschoolers offers easy science projects and activities for families, http://scienceforpreschoolers.com
  
  
• Children, Nature, and You offers resources about nature activities for families, http://www.childrennatureandyou.org
  
  
• Libraries, museums, and science centers sometimes offer activities for young children. For example, the Berkeley Public Library is offering a four-week program called Eggs Eggs Everywhere exploring eggs’ size, shape, and where they can be found. For more information, call 510-981-6223.
  
  

Books for Children

Ann Hotta, with the Berkeley Public Library, recommends these books for preschoolers about math and science.

• Red-eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley: This frog from the Central American rain forest searches for food and avoids being eaten.
  
  
• My Five Senses/Mis cinco sentidos by Aliki: Presents the five senses and some ways we use them.
  
  
• Bear in a Square/Oso en un cuadrado by Stella Blackstone: Children can find shapes hidden in the illustrations.
  
  
• I Get Wet by Vicki Cobb: Makes science easy to understand.
  
  
• 1,2,3 Go! by Huy Voun Lee: Introduces Chinese writing with simple words and the numbers one through ten.
  
  

Extra resources from the Children’s Advocate bulletin

• Family Guide to Mathematics, from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, offers tips for families to help children from preschool to high school learn math skills. http://illuminations.nctm.org/FamilyGuide/FamilyGuide_FullText.pdf
  
  
• NAEYC compiles a list of online math resources for teachers and parents of young children.
  http://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200301/onlinemath.asp
  
  
• Redleaf Press provides resources on early math and science for teachers and parents. Topics include building, nature, water, garden projects, and cooking.
  http://www.redleafpress.org/showproducts.cfm?FullCat=488&step=1 
  
  

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