Math for Young Children

THIS RESOURCE is intended to support kindergarten and primary grade teachers by providing them with a deeper understanding of the fundamental ideas that underlie the mathematics that students are to learn. It will also help parents to better support their children and help preschool teachers to provide more valuable math learning experiences. Included as well are many fun, but mathematically rich, activities for preschool and kindergarten, for 1st grade, and for 2nd grade. There are additional suggestions for engaging and mathematically valuable home activities, along with recommendations for classroom and home read-aloud and other books that reinforce mathematical learning.

To put it all in perspective, the first chapter focuses on critical pedagogical principles in teaching mathematics to young children. This provides a framework for teachers to keep in mind about what is most important in teaching early mathematics. A tool is also provided for evaluating additional activities for how “worthwhile” they might be and offering guidelines for new activities that teachers may create. Subsequent chapters are organized for the primary grades, specifically Counting and Cardinality, Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number and Operations in Base Ten, Measurement and Data, and Geometry.

Each of these chapters includes a discussion of the fundamentals—the underlying math, as well as expected student thinking and development in that area. In addition, a discussion of likely student misconceptions that need to be addressed is provided. Next comes the fun, in the form of engaging learning and practice activities that also serve as formative assessments to check on understanding of fundamentals. These activities are broken down by grade level—preK–K, 1st grade, and 2nd grade—as appropriate for each content area. Finally, suggestions for home activities are provided, as encouragement for parental involvement.

This book is not designed to be a full teaching resource with lessons for each day. Instead, the material provided offers playful, interesting, and meaningful activities to focus learning around. I sincerely hope those of you in the field who use this resource will find that it meets these goals.