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Let’s Start At Zero - Mathematical Thinking

While the gift of early literacy is one of the greatest gifts you can give your child, it could perhaps be equally as important to teach mathematics in the earliest stages of development.

Do you need reasoning skills to do math? Do you need to be able to write to do math? Do you need to be able to count to do math? No to all of the above when it comes to teaching math to your infant. In fact, the opposite is true: the beauty of teaching mathematics to infants is that it is precisely before children have started counting that they will derive the most benefit from lessons in quantity.

Lessons in quantity aim to give children a sense of the reality of numbers (as opposed to the symbols - 1, 2, etc - that represent them). Babies love learning about quantity, and they love seeing equations - as long as both of these things are presented in a fun, happy way. If you use your child's favourite toy or character for your little math lessons, it won't take long for your child to start asking to see them on a regular basis - probably more often than you had planned to show them!

What's more, children who begin understanding mathematics at an early age are immensely proud of their achievements. Mathematics is a subject which makes clear distinctions between right and wrong. All of us feel great when we know the right answer to something.

There is no better time than right now, to teach your baby math!

Kids In The Kitchen

Cooking is a wholesome activity to do with your child. It allows you to spend quality time together and make something delicious while having fun!

It’s no secret that getting your kids in the kitchen – even starting as young as 1 or 2 years old – can lead to many benefits such as increased confidence and independence and a more adventurous palate. But it’s also no secret that cooking with children can be messier and more time consuming. I can assure you though – it is totally worth it in the end. It does not need to be an everyday occurrence – cooking with your child just once every week or two will go a long way!

Following recipes requires children to plan, prepare, process, and perform. From start to finish, children must follow each step of the recipe. They learn to complete a task and enjoy the result of their hard work—the food!

Use simple recipes

Read the recipe aloud or illustrate with pictures to associate with the written words

Create your own “special recipe” – allow your child’s creativity to flourish!

As you are cooking, teach your children about both kitchen and food safety

*Be sure to supervise your child during all cooking activities.

What Skills Can Children Learn from Cooking?

Language skills: Increased vocabulary for cooking tools, flavours, textures, figurative language related to cooking terms.

Math skills: Children learn numbers and counting in order to measure and add ingredients.

Critical-thinking skills: Recipes provide opportunities for children to practice following directions, sequencing, and recalling details. They also provide opportunities to experiment and explore transformations.

Fine-motor skills: When cooking, children manipulate different ingredients and cooking tools. Getting supplies out of the pantry, mixing ingredients, and placing toppings are some examples.

Healthy-living skills: Cooking healthy foods is important for your child’s growth and development. As you cook together, you can teach your child about food groups, nutrition, and the importance of physical activity combined with a healthy diet.

Interested in signing your child up for a Smart Cookie Club class? Check out SmartCookieClub.ca and sign up to try a free class today!

#kidsinthekitchen Cookingwithkids Littlechef Qualitytime familyfun

All About Shapes

2D and 3D shapes exist all around us! No matter where you are, there are opportunities to identify and discuss the properties of shapes with your child. While naming shapes is key, it’s equally important to model and use language to describe shapes (eg. ‘that stop sign has 6 pointy corners’ or ‘look at all the curvy lines on that slide!’)

Why? Because shapes are the building blocks for basic reading, math, and writing skills.

When your child explores different shapes, they are using one of the most basic educational processes: the observation of same and different. This concept provides your child with a basic process that will be used in observing, comparing and discussing everything they see and encounter.

The best— and easiest— method for teaching shapes is through play. Here are a few fun and easy ways for you to do just that:

1) Go on a ‘Shape Hunt’ indoors or outdoors – how many and which shapes can you find?

2) Provide your child with 3D blocks to stack. Let them experiment with the cause and effect of stacking different shapes on top of each other

3) Allow your child to experiment with markers, paintbrushes and chalk while commenting on the marks they are making (eg. ‘Wow, you’ve made so many short zig zag lines!’)

#shapes

Promote Scientific Thinking

Young children are active and curious learners. They are little scientists and are eager to find out how everything works. Sensory play is an ideal (and FUN) way to directly engage your child in the concept of transformation and change.

Encourage scientific thinking by modeling and asking open-ended questions with your child during play.

When exploring transformations or conducting science experiments, try asking a few of these questions:

How does ________________________ feel when you touch it?

What can we do to make _____________into _____________ ?

What does _____________ feel similar to?

How did that happen?

I wonder what would happen if I add ________to _________ ?

Making Things Happen! Cause and Effect Exploration

Does your baby like to push, pull, poke and drop objects? From 6-12 months, babies are fascinated with the concept of Cause and Effect. Your child is constantly conducting mathematical and scientific experiments.

“If I do this, then this will happen.” “If I pull the handle, the water will run.” “If I throw my bowl on the floor, mom will pick it up!” Although this can be frustrating for you as a parent or caregiver, remember that your little one is conducting a test, and is not trying to test you!

As your child becomes more observant and attuned to the notion of cause and effect, they will become fascinated by light switches, TV remotes, and other things that seem like powerful agents of change. Cater to that fascination by showing your child how certain actions bring certain results.

Cause and effect exploration supports the development of math processes; specifically problem solving, connecting and reasoning.

Toys that stack, rattle or squeak are also great for exploring cause and effect relationships. They allow your child to see, hear and touch the result of their action. Toys that can be manipulated provide your child with multiple opportunities for conducting different experiments. After succeeding or gaining understanding your child will be full of self confidence.

At this stage, infants gain an understanding through experimentation and repetition. When her spoon falls, she learns about gravity; when it hits the floor with a clink, she learns about sound; and when you reach to pick it up, she learns that she can count on you to meet her needs. Each time she repeats the action, it stimulates neural circuits in her brain, which strengthen as she practices the same activities over and over again. This not only reinforces the lesson, it lays the neural groundwork for even more sophisticated learning and understanding.

Scribbles

Children begin their journey towards writing by making

messes and marks, not by producing letters and words.

Early stages of mark-making are often dismissed as scribble,

but these marks will support the developing concepts of

mathematics and language in relation to your child`s play.

The marks children make slowly begin to have more

meaning to them. When children realize that marks can be

used symbolically to carry meaning, they begin to use marks

as tools to make their thinking visible. A single drawing may

help a child to develop concepts relating to problem solving,

reasoning and numeracy or knowledge and understanding of

the world, as well as improving their physical fine motor

coordination.

It’s important that children develop the full range of motion

and direction using different mark making tools before

learning how to print letters. Provide a range of writing

utensils (pencils, chunky markers, pastels, big and small

paintbrushes, etc), and encourage your child to make up and

down marks, counterclockwise motions and figure eights.

These movements take time to master and will be necessary

when forming letters.

Effectively incorporating support for children's varying writing

skills provides a gateway to developing other critical literacy

skills and significantly contributes to later success in reading.

#markmaking #early literacy #early printing #early years education #acedemic success #writing #printing #learning through play #toddler #preschool #smartcookieclub

Miss Mary - Song Lyrics

Miss Mary Had a Dolly Miss Mary had a dolly Who was sick, sick, sick, So she called for the doctor To come quick, quick, quick; The doctor came With his bag and his hat, And he knocked at the door With a rat-a-tat-tat. He looked at the dolly And he shook his head, And he said "Miss Mary, Put her straight to bed." He wrote on a paper For a pill, pill, pill, "That'll make her better, Yes it will, will, will!"

#songs #childrens songs #kids songs #song lyrics #doctor #dolly #action songs

The Pincer Grasp

The pincer grasp is a developmental milestone that typically occurs at 9 – 12 months of age. By using the index finger and thumb, or the index and middle fingers opposing the thumb, a child is able to pick up and place small items in a controlled manner.

Why should my child develop a pincer grasp?

A pincer grasp not only enables a young child to perform daily tasks with ease but it is also a vital precursor to writing. Children need to have a strong and controlled pencil grip to form letters correctly and write for sustained periods later in life. Other important tasks that a pincer grip is used for:

 Holding utensils and feeding effectively

 Fastening closures (zippers, snaps, buttons) on garments easily

 Using scissors

 Manipulating small items within the hand (eg. transferring coins within the palm out to the fingertips)

There are endless opportunities to develop your child’s pincer grasp with toys that he or she already has at home. Here are a few of my favourites:

 Playdough or Clay – practice rolling the dough between the thumb and index finger to make small balls; flatten the balls by pinching them between the pads of the thumb and index finger; press different small items (dried pasta, large buttons) into the dough to make an imprint

 Lego or Blocks – connect or stack the pieces together to make a tower or a set of stairs; taking Lego pieces apart is just as important for fine motor development as putting them together!

 Tweezers or Tongs – pick up various small toys, pom poms, leaves, etc using tongs and place them in a receptacle.

 Pom Poms – fill up a water bottle or another container with a small opening with pom poms (the smaller, the more challenging!)

#pincergrasp #finemotorskills #preschool #toddler #enrichment #earlyyears #early childhood development #activities for kids #activity ideas #teaching kids

Properties of Shapes

Shapes are a form of pattern. When your child explores different shapes, she is using one of the most basic educational processes: the observation of same and different. This concept provides her with a basic process that she will be able to use in observing, comparing, categorizing and discussing all she sees and encounters.

Once your child is able to recognize 2D shapes (circle, square, rectangle, triangle), it’s time to extend her thinking and develop her ability to comprehend shape properties and comment on the shapes that are flat/stackable and ones that roll.

Help your child understand the properties of shapes by pointing out corners and straight and curvy lines in your environment.

Eventually, your child will begin classifying 2D and 3D shapes into groups and will begin to compare shapes according to common properties.

#shapes comparing Propertiesofshapes Preschoolmath

Sorting & Matching

Teaching children how to match, classify, and sort is an important part of developing early math skills. Children begin matching and sorting during infancy by sorting and matching familiar voices and sounds. They continue sorting and classifying as toddlers by organizing their understanding of language, people and objects in their environment. Each new word and experience is attached to an encounter, so that the child begins to construct an understanding of how different parts of their environment relate to themselves and to each other. This process of making sense of the environment is a child’s first step Naturally, when children explore their environment they notice how things are alike and how they are different. Children typically will begin sorting by one characteristic at a time. They begin to sort objects by characteristics that have meaning to them - characteristics such as colour, size, shape, texture and sound. Children then begin matching objects that have the same characteristics. Once a child is matching more than two objects, they are sorting. Sorting involves separating objects into groups according to their similarities. Children may have their own ideas of how these objects are related. Helping with household tasks such as putting away silverware, groceries or laundry will enhance their sorting skills and help them better understand the sorting process. Describing their rationale encourages children to think critically.

Matching, Sorting and Classifying.

Generally, the process of sorting involves three steps:

1) Children decide which characteristic to sort by

2) Children will physically sort the objects

3) They will be able to describe their rationale for sorting

Common activities that children experience during play and daily tasks provide many opportunities for them to develop these important math concepts. Matching and sorting are best learned when they are part of a child’s everyday life. Children need to see math being used in the real world. When they join a puzzle together, they are matching shapes. When they are putting on their shoes and socks, they are matching objects. When helping to tidy toys away or helping with laundry, children are sorting objects.

What About Colours?

Children need to first acquire hundreds of pieces of information before they can begin to understand colour as a concept. Toddler and preschool children don’t have the ability to understand that light blue and navy are both blue and they also lack the verbal skills to explain that to you. Along with learning what each colour is called, children need to understand what colour represents; it’s not size, nor shape, nor the name of the object. Constant repetition will help your child understand what the word colour means.

Children are naturally attracted to bright colours, which is why most toys and activities geared towards younger children are brightly coloured. Surrounded by a world of colour, it is easy to use daily opportunities to teach our children colour concepts.

 When you show something, say a red balloon, use the word “colour” together with the name of the object. Instead of saying “this is red”, it is better to say “this is a balloon and its colour is red”.

 Try not to test your child before you are done teaching. It will put them off and prevent them from learning.

 When teaching colours, remember that receptive language comes before expressive language. Kids will be able to point out the right colour long before they can say its name. At the beginning of the process, ask them to pick up all the blue pieces. If they do not know, show them a few, until they catch on.

 Stick to the main colours – Red, Blue, Yellow, Black and White – and only later add the other colours.

 It is better to dedicate time to each colour separately. Having “green week” or “blue week” works magically. When teaching colours over a whole week, the concept is learned very well through multiple experiences and exposures to one colour.

 Experiencing colours in different ways helps carve the concept in the brain. Children can experience the colours through all of their senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch – the more experiences they get, the easier it is for them to remember colour concepts. Be creative and come up with unusual ideas for teaching your child about colours at home.

Don’t Underestimate The Importance of Messy Play!

Sensory Play is Extremely Important!

 Stimulates Brain Growth and Cognitive Development

 Promotes Creativity and Self Discovery

 Fosters Positive Social Interaction and Cooperation

 Increases Fine Motor and Gross Motor Skills

We know that young children are oriented toward sensory

experiences. From birth, they have learned about the world by

touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, and hearing. Sensory play

contributes in crucial ways to brain development. Think of it as

“food for the brain.” Stimulating the senses sends signals to

children’s brains that help to strengthen neural pathways important

for all types of learning. As children explore sensory materials, they

develop their sense of touch, which lays the foundation for learning

other skills, such as identifying objects by touch, and using fine-

motor muscles. The materials children work with at the sand and

water table have many sensory attributes — they may be warm or

cool, wet or dry, rough or smooth, hard or soft, textured or slimy.

Discovering and differentiating these characteristics is a first step in

classification or sorting — an important part of children’s scientific

learning and discovery.

Dive in, get messy and most importantly, have fun!

#sensoryplay messyplay childdevelopment

Preschoolers are beginning to understand how things are logically connected, for example, needing to eat in order to grow. They use their increasing language skills to ask questions about what they see, hear, and experience in the world.

TRY NOT TO ANSWER QUESTIONS RIGHT AWAY: Ask first what they think the answer is. Listen carefully to their response and acknowledge their ideas. You can then offer the correct answer. For example, if your child says they think it gets dark at night so people can sleep, you might respond; “Yes, it is easier to sleep when it’s dark.”, and then go on to explain as simply as possible about the sun setting and rising each day.

ASK QUESTIONS DURING EVERYDAY PLAY AND ROUTINES: Ask your child “why” questions. Why do you think the leaves fall from the trees? Why does it rain? This gets your child’s mind working and also lets them know that you are interested in and value their ideas.

OFFER CHANCES TO EXPLORE IN CREATIVE WAYS: Take nature walks. Play with sand and water. Give your child objects they can take apart and investigate. By working with familiar (and not-so-familiar) objects, children figure out how things work.

NOTICE PATTERNS AND CONNECT IDEAS: Children use their memories to apply past experiences to the present. They see a cloudy sky and know that this might mean rain is coming. This also helps them understand how the world works.

For more information, contact [email protected]

It is important to understand the process of learning when teaching abstract concepts like colours. In order to recognize a colour, children need to accumulate hundreds of pieces of information, which help them to define colour concepts.

TEACHING COLOURS

Children begin with matching like-coloured items, move towards identifying and eventually will use the colours expressively to label or answer questions.

· Offer your child colour related choices: ‘Would you like a red apple or a green apple for snack?’

· Invite your child to help you with tasks such as sorting and matching coloured socks.

· Dictate time to each colour separately. Focus on one colour each week providing multiple exposures to each colour.

· Experience colours in different ways and using different senses. Be creative with this; try putting a beet in the bathtub while learning about the colour pink or frozen blueberries when learning about the colour blue.

· Use descriptive language to model and solidify your child’s concept. For example, show a red balloon. ’This is a red balloon. It is the colour red.’

· Colour or paint an egg carton together and encourage your child to sort smaller toys or items by colour.

We know that activities like painting and colouring help prepare the muscles and brain for writing. Here are some ways you can support your child in their creative process:

When drawing with your child, draw abstract figures in bright colours. Doodle squares, circles, spirals, hash marks, letters, and symbols. Enjoy the process. Perhaps try creating a design or a mandala.

Be conscious of how you talk to your child about their work. Use descriptive language. Talk about the markings, the colours, the tools being used, or comment on their effort; “Wow! I can see you are making lots of curvy lines!”

Ask your child to tell you about their work. In the early stages of preschool, children may not assign meaning to their art, but as they get closer to age four, they begin to elaborate more and more on the stories that go along with their work.

Make art fun and exploratory. Keep your child’s art activities as process-oriented as possible at this age. Try not to expect particular outcomes but rather encourage exploration of the art materials (paints, crayons, glue, etc), ideas (big/small, similar and contrasting colors), and techniques (watercolor resist, splatter painting, marbling).

Besides giving them freedom to explore during projects that you’ve set up, try to have some art materials accessible for use at any time. This could be as simple as a basket with markers, crayons, scissors and tape near the kitchen table.

FOR MORE USEFUL PARENTING TIPS, TRY A SMART COOKIE CLUB CLASS AND CONSULT ONE OF OUR EXPERTS.

#creative activities for kids #arts and crafts #creative development #support your childs development #drawing #colouring #process over product #early years #toddler art #preschool art #creative kids #parenting tips

Ask your child if they are big or little, and what colour they are. Place your arms around the child like a horse in a stall.

Lyrics:

I had a (big/little) (colour) pony

I fed him/her oats and hay

I opened up the stable doors (open arms letting child out to gallop)

And sent him/her on his/her way (child begins to gallop around)

He/she gallops here

He/she gallops there

He/she gallops everywhere

He/she never stops until we call……..

Woah pony, woah!!! (child stops galloping)

#pony #horse #farm #gross motor activities #gross motor games #preschool games #toddler games #kids activities #physical development #early years

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