Play music for your kids often – at home and in the car. We all have a natural love of music and music is often one of the first ways that young children experience math. Play gentle music or sing when you are together. Ask them to clap their hands or stomp their feet in time with the music and count as you do it. This will help them develop the concept of 1-to-1 correspondence. You can also invite your child to clap one “more” or “less” than you.
Nursery rhymes are also simple introductions to math. The rhythm and patterns of nursery rhymes and children’s songs help kids learn about quantity, comparison and pattern recognition. Number rhymes can introduce kids to counting forward or backward. Five Little Speckled Frogs or One, Two, Buckle My Shoe are both examples of counting rhymes/songs that can support math skill development.
Research has shown that preschool math skills like counting, using patterns, or the ability to understand the number of toys in a set predicts math achievement in fifth grade. By working with babies, toddlers and preschoolers on the building blocks of math, you will help them enter kindergarten prepared and impact their later math ability!
The free Kindermusik app could be a resource for integrating more music and rhyme into your daily routine. Learn more about Count, Group, and Compare from The Basics Guilford. Follow the Basics Guilford on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok.
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