5 Play-Based Ideas to Help Daycare Kids Learn Basic Math Concepts

Ordinary activities during the course of the day cab include simple math concepts for daycare children to pick up on. Adding and subtracting are concepts that solidify early, but even division and multiplication are possible with a little practice.

1. Apples and Oranges

Fruits are excellent tools for teaching math to Montessori daycare students. Different fruits can be used for sorting and shapes, and you can also use things like grapes to learn about sets, multiplication, and subtraction. Fruit is more than an aid for teaching math, it is also an excellent sensory activity, combining math skills with scents and tastes.

2. Lego-Style Learning

Pegged building blocks are perfect math accessories. In the guise of play-based building, children are learning to count, sort, and perform multiplication, division, and more. While lego-style blocks are not technically a Montessori activity, they have the ability to be used for a wide range of subjects from arithmetic to vocabulary. As an engaging activity, pegged blocks are fun to use and children will play with them for hours on end.

3. Painter's Tape Shapes

Painter's tape is available in several colors straight off the shelf and makes a perfect medium for colorful shapes or numbers of many sizes-- even super large. Pointer's tape is similar to masking tape with less powerful adhesives. Painter's tape can be easily peeled off, and will not damage paint, wallpaper, or furniture. It is a fun way for children to build familiarity with numbers, make shapes of different colors, and count the shapes they've made.

4. Daily Numbers

Use a paperclip on a piece of twine thrown into a plastic pail of magnetic numbers and then look for that number throughout the day. This helps young children discover how prevalent numbers are in our lives, and helps them become more engaged in learning to count or perform simple math. 

5. Animals and Cars

Favorite toys like wooden farm animals or toy cars are often the first objects that children use to perform basic math functions like addition and subtraction. If you observe children at play with their like-sized toys, it is very common to see them sorting and counting, even if they aren't yet fully aware of what the order of the numbers may be. Counting cars develops relatively naturally and makes a great place to encourage the use of counting and math.

Daycare children are just beginning to learn about counting, so daycare math is typically very simple tasks using familiar objects. However, children learn basic math very quickly, and providing an increasingly challenging goal will help maintain interest over an extended period of time.

3 Important Types of Childhood Development Taking Place in Private Kindergarten

Private kindergarten is a middle-ground between preschool and "big kid" schools. As such, it is important that kindergarten help children complete any developmental goals necessary for them to participate fully. From learning to talk and communicate to learning basic math and science, children will be presented with many types of activities to help them learn. These skills are all considered vital goals, and include these 3 types of early childhood development.

1. Motor Skills

Montessori kindergarten kids need to develop a full spectrum of motor skills. Running, jumping, climbing, and jumping help them build stronger bones and muscles while building strong gross motor skills. For fine motor skills, activities can be anything that involves gripping, grasping, or moving objects. Activities such as playing tag or hopscotch are good for gross motor skill development, while drawing, painting and stacking blocks improve fine motor skills. The key to motor skill development is physical activity, and that means keeping children engaged in doing things enhances physical performance.

2. Social Interaction

Socially interacting with peers and teachers requires language, communication, and the development of social skills such as taking turns or being polite. In Montessori kindergarten, children are taught grace and courtesy as part of the everyday curriculum so that children absorb these social rules as a facet of living rather than a special category of learning. The idea is that everyone deserves respect equally, whether you are interacting with another child, a parent or teacher, or even a stranger at the supermarket.

3. Language and Communication

Developing strong language skills makes it easier for children to express ideas, understand concepts, and interact with their peers. Learning new words is a critical part of kindergarten, including how to say them, use them in a sentence, and how each word is spelled. In kindergarten, spelling will begin to take on more importance as children are becoming ready to expand their language skills to include writing. Language is at the very foundation of society, and every activity is an opportunity to expand vocabularies.

An authentic Montessori kindergarten is working toward total child development. They put an emphasis on physical skills, mental skills, emotional skills, academic skills, and social skills. In many cases, one activity provides an opportunity to practice using multiple skills, but the goal is a responsible, capable person when their education is complete. Montessori even plays a part in life after education by encouraging children to learn a variety of practical skills starting as early as daycare.