When my second daughter was a preschooler between the ages of two and four, one of her favorite activities was measuring and pouring. She used my measuring cups and spoons so often I could never find them when I needed them! And she would pour everything possible, with of course the accompanying mess. I finally wised up and gave her a measuring set for her birthday. The first thing I bought was a new cat litter pan to hold the mess in. I had looked at a dishpan first, but it was too small. The litter pan was a good, working size. A trip to the discount store provided me with plastic measuring cups and spoons, one-cup and two-cup liquid measuring cups, a set of funnels,a turkey baster, a pitcher, a ladle, a set of plastic juice cups, plastic mixing bowls and a set of mixing spoons thrown in. Everything fit inside the litter pan.

All that was needed was the stuff to pour and stir! A zipper bag full of pinto beans and another of rice fit the bill nicely.

My daughter was delighted with her gift. We would take the set (minus the rice and beans) out to her wading pool which had a few inches of water in it, and we would measure and pour and stir and pretend and learn all afternoon. I would shake a few drops of food color in her pitcher and another color in a gallon water jug, and my daughter would have a great time measuring and mixing her secret potions. Sometimes she and her older sister would take the set out to the sandbox and pretend they were cooking, concentrating on the “correct” measuring to make the goodies turn out just right. The bathtub also made a great measuring playground.

When it was too hot to play outside (we live in the Arizona desert!) I would pull out the beans and rice and let my daughter experiment away on the kitchen floor. She would measure a cup of beans and then try to match that with the rice, concentrating on filling the cups and pouring carefully. Or she would see how many ¼ cups of rice it would take to make one cup. The pan kept the escaping beans to a minimum.

All this play introduced her to and helped her gain inquiry learning skills and concepts in measuring, estimating, eye-hand coordination, concentration, problem-solving, counting, one-to-one correspondence, fractions, creativity, fine-and gross-motor control and mathematical thinking. Her curiosity gave her many questions to investigate and answer. And she transferred her new pouring skills to helping me cook dinner!

Young children learn as readily as they eat and sleep, as it is a natural part of their lives. No one needs to tell them, “It’s time to learn now.” Watch your little ones and notice that nearly all of their play automatically involves learning. The measuring set served as a tool for my daughter to use to expand her understanding of her world and gain important learning skills.

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Michelle B. is a homeschooling mom in Arizona who has been teaching at home for more than 20 years. The child mentioned in this article is now 17 years old. That young person also does about 33% of the family cooking. Which involves a lot of pouring and measuring.

Ask your little one to be your helper and include him in the planting process. Take advantage of his interest, and let him go play when his attention shifts. Much learning occurs through discussion. Talk about everything you are doing in the garden, and listen to your child’s input.

Number conservation
Let’s say you wish to plant ten squash plants. Hand your child the ten seeds, and have her line them up on the table as she counts them. Then spread out the line and ask her how many seeds there are. Push them into a pile and ask the same question. Poke ten holes in the soil for those seeds and ask your child to lay one seed in each hole. How many seeds now? If she doesn’t know, how can she find out?

Patterns
Perhaps you will lay out the flowers in a pattern. “We have three colors of snapdragons. First we plant a red snapdragon, yellow is second, and third is a pink one. What comes next?” Or the garden care schedule: “Every morning we water the seedlings, then pull the weeds, and last sweep the pathways. So tomorrow morning, what do we start with?” Notice the patterns of fence post and pickets in the garden fence, or the arrangement of pavers in the path. You can find patterns in flowers and in the leaves on the stems.

Ordinal numbers
Use the words first, second and third, and more if needed, to describe everything that happens in your garden. “First we plan the garden, second we buy the seeds, and third we plant them.” “First we plant the sunflowers, the zinnias are second and the marigolds are third.” You can use ordinal numbers to describe plant growth, the passing of seasons, or the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly. (See also Patterns.)

You will notice how each of these garden activities uses foundational skills that overlap and mix with each other. As you are talking with your child while you work in your garden, you will find many occasions to reinforce these much-needed pre-math and science skills. Check this article for more math skills that overlap with these. Happy planting!

*Same and different. By offering choices to your child you can help him learn to recognize different traits in objects. “Would you like a green grape or a red one? Do you want to play with the big blocks or the little ones? Do you want to slide down the long bumpy slide or the short curvy one?”

Lay out four items in a row, three the same and one that is very different. For example, three spoons and one drinking cup, or three stuffed kittens and a teddy bear. Ask which one is different from the others. When your child can easily pick out the odd item, lay out four more objects but with only one different trait, such as three blue buttons and one yellow button, or three teaspoons and a tablespoon. “Same and different” is the precursor to sorting.

*Sorting: When your child understands the concept of “same and different” he will be able to easily begin sorting. Sorting requires a child to identify certain attributes in an object, such as color, size, item usage, etc., and then form a group of objects according to those traits. As adults, we do sorting every day: putting away freshly-washed laundry, the groceries on shopping day, and the dishes from the dishwasher. Separating the sales ads, junk mail, and personal mail. Organizing our collections. Determining which books to turn in on library day and which to keep at home. Involve your young child in some of the sorting that regularly happens in your house: give him the pile of socks to pair up while you are folding clothes. Have her determine which foods go in the pantry, the freezer or the cupboard. Let him put away the silverware. As you determine the usage of the day’s mail, hand the mail one at a time to your young sorter and let her place each piece in the appropriate pile or basket. At play time, sit with your child and ask him to corral the plastic animals into their families, drive the cars into the correct garage, separate the dinosaurs into meat-eaters and plant-eaters, or collect the play food into main dish or dessert piles.

*Patterns: Patterns are all around us: in music, art, building designs, nature. This concept is also related to “same and different” and “sorting.” You can use toy race cars, building blocks, pencils, coins, buttons, beads, candies, etc. to create patterns. Line up a pattern using two attributes: red car, green car, red car, green car. What car comes next? When your child can easily copy your simple pattern and extend it correctly, then add a third attribute. Red car, geen car, yellow car. Keep building the base pattern when your child has mastered the previous one. Have your child make a pattern for you to follow. As you extend your child’s pattern, speak out loud for your child to hear how you solve the problem. For example, “Okay, I see first a dime, next a nickel, then a penny. Since the first coin is a dime, I will place a dime next in the pattern.”

You can draw base patterns on paper with markers or crayons and have your child extend it. This would provide a boredom-buster in waiting rooms or at the restaurant table.

What patterns do you find around you? Cars in a parking lot, flowers in a garden, silverware on the table, products on a store shelf; on giftwrap, fabric, scrapbook paper, wallpaper. “I see a red rose and then a yellow rose. If we continue this pattern, what rose would be next?” “Do you see the pattern your feet make on the sidewalk when you walk through a puddle?”

Same and different, sorting and patterns are a few of the many easy-to-apply early math concepts for our young homeschool children.
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Michelle B. is a homeschooling mom. With 20 years of past and present homeschool experience, she shares her insights with our guests.