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Teaching your young child math skills is easy. There are so many opportunities around the house. Here are some examples:

Counting: Take some objects (pennies, blocks, toys) and begin to count them. Have child repeat the numbers after you until they become familiar with the order of numbers. After your child has learned to count. Practice the skill by building a tower out of blocks. Ask the child to count the blocks as you add them. See how many can be stacked before it falls down.

Adding and subtracting. Take a number of objects and place them in front of the child. Ask them to count how many there are. Then either add or subtract one from the pile. As you do it say " I am adding one block to the pile or I am subtracting one block from the pile" Ask the child to count the blocks after you have done this. Then say "We had 6 blocks then I added one and now we have __

Geometry:

This branch of math deals with shapes. Since every object is made up of shapes when you talk about something mention its shape. Examples: The ball is round;the television is a rectangle etc. Have them help you cut out cookies. Using plastic cookie cutters; have them tell you what shape the cookie will be. They have shape sorter toys for young children. Have the child name the shape as they put it into its right place.

Fractions:

Bake a pie or a cake. Show the cake to your child before it is cut up. Tell them that this is a whole cake. Now divide the cake into 8 pieces. Place one on a plate. Tell them that the piece of cake on the plate was 1 of 8 pieces. Continue placing pieces of the cake onto the second plate. After you have placed the second piece of cake on the plate ask them how many pieces of cake are on it now. When they say two, say: "That's right you have 2 pieces of cake on this plate and there were 8 pieces cake on the first plate before we took them so now this plate has 2 out of 8 pieces of cake on it."

Measuring:

Gather up some small objects such as pennies. Draw a line across a piece of paper. Have the child place the objects in a row across the line on the paper. Then ask the child to count the objects. When they are finished counting the objects; tell them that the line is # of objects long.

In addition to finding math around the house there are a lot of simple computer programs and videos that will help you teach your child math.

Have fun and good counting.

Learn more about this author, Cynthia Harlan.
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