Ideas for supporting Mathematical Development

Numbers all around!

In order to help your child begin to recognise numbers you could do some of the following.

• Look for numbers around the home, for example, take a photograph of your house number or draw family members with their age written next to them.
• If your child is not yet recognising many numbers focus on numbers 1 and 2 and ‘their number 3 or 4’ and try to spot it when you are out and about. 
• If your children recognises lots of numbers see how many they can spot for example, house numbers, number plates, digital clocks etc. You could also practise counting groups of objects and matching them to the correct number.
• Count everything! As you walk up the stairs, jumping along the pavement, counting out plates for dinner, raisins for snack. You can count anything!

Super shapes!

You can help your child learn some shape names and begin to recognise shapes and patterns by:

• Spotting the shape of windows and doors.
• Looking for shapes around the home for example plates are circles, mobile phones are rectangles.
• Make junk models using different shaped boxes.
• Look at patterns and colours on clothes.

Mathematical words

So much of maths is language. You can help your child by using words to describe the shape and size of objects such as;

• long
• short
• round
• big
• heavy
• light
• curved
• corners
• edges

The list is endless but use and encourage as many describing words as possible.