April is Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month. That got me to thinking about ways children learn mathematical concepts during play and through daily activities, observations, and conversations. Consider the infant gazing intently at the face of the person cuddling her. The human face is intriguing, each unique yet sharing similar features in a particular order. Thus begins an awareness of patterns, of similarities and differences, both precursors to language and mathematics.
Children are naturally curious. As adults we encourage their learning when we supply words that describe their daily experiences and set the stage for cognitive and language development. Washing up is a perfect time to point out and name features—ears, nose, fingers, toes. Think of nursery rhymes that reenforce this information. Remember Mother Goose? Now’s the time for playing with toes and saying,
This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy ate roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
This little piggy went…Wee, wee, wee, all the way home!
Of course, that naturally leads to a comment on how many feet and how many toes the child has. This rhyme becomes an introduction to the concept of one to one correspondence, key to understanding the meaning of numbers. One foot, five toes, two feet, 10 toes. For numbers to have meaning, initially the numbers need to correspond to concrete objects. Abstract thinking comes later.
Dressing invites talking about clothes and the process of putting on and taking off. The process involves sorting out what goes on first, then next. That’s sequential order, an important executive skill involved in everything from independent dressing to reading and math. Chatting about the sequence helps toddlers understand its rationale. Of course, there’s some leeway in how we get dressed, but why do we put socks on our feet before sticking our feet in our shoes? You know, but someone just learning might not.
This is also a good time to talk about color, a distinguishing feature of any garment. Knowing the names of colors makes communicating easier. So, if the weather requires a jacket and the child has two, one red, another blue, offer a choice. Identifying the jackets by color, ask her whether she wants to wear the red or the blue one. She may not identify the one she wants by color, but she’ll begin to associate the colors with the words that describe them. Through such experiences children learn the value of language.
Children learn from interacting with people and objects in their environment. Quality toys invite exploration and open-ended play that build skills. Moving forward, we’ll explore how, beginning with math awareness.
